A series of five studies examined how praise and reproach feedback influenced participants' pro-environmental inclinations. Though past research has shown that praise feedback is a more effective and longer-lasting source of motivation than reproach feedback, popular pro-environmental communications campaigns nevertheless largely attempt to increase pro-environmentalism by reproaching the inadequacy of pro-environmental awareness and action among members of the public. This investigation set out to determine which approach is best: a slap on the wrist or a pat on the back. First, studies evaluated the effects of praise and reproach feedback that was conveyed in the general fashion that is typically adopted in public pro-environmental campaigns. Participants who experienced such general, omnibus feedback did not show greater pro-environmental inclinations after receiving either praise or reproach. Instead, this form of feedback resulted in a lower willingness to identify with pro-environmental issues whenever participants were reproached for their pro-environmental performance. When feedback was formatted to be more behavior-specific, the impact of feedback on pro-environmental inclinations depended upon whether praise and reproach feedback was conveyed in gain-framed (i.e., focusing on savings) or loss-framed (i.e., focusing on waste) terms. When gain-framed terms were used, both participants who received praise and those who received reproach had greater pro-environmental behavioural intentions and support for environmental preservation efforts than those who received feedback framed in the loss-framed terms that are typically favored by popular communications. Overall, my findings indicate the need for pro-environmental advocates to adopt more behaviour-specific and gain-framed forms of feedback in order to have a meaningful positive impact upon individuals' pro-environmental inclinations.

This thesis identifies a family of humanist presuppositions which, I argue, pervade modern Western society and are partly responsible for our inability to escape from a spiral of environmental destruction. For example, humanist ethical theories frequently assume the existence of an objective / subjective divide, autonomous rational individuals and a neutral rationality. I argue that these assumptions, which are peculiar to our society, provide a wholly inappropriate basis for the expression of many environmental concerns. Humanism imposes particular taxonomies and interpretations on social and environmental relations; these facilitate the treatment of nature as a resource rather than as a part of our (ethical) community. At the theoretical level, humanism develops explicit systems of ''formal rationaiity" which purport to be neutral e.g. axiological systems like neoclassical economics and utilitarianism. However, these systems reduce environmental evaluation to the bureaucratic application of abstract methodologies and, far from being neutral, they impose a particular humanist ideology on decision making processes which marginalises those who speak in a different voice. I develop an alternative perspective; a critical theory informed by the antihumanism of Althusser, the later Wittgenstein and Bourdieu. This post-humanist theoretical problematic works in two ways. First, it explains how ideologies interpellate individuals into social structures and reproduce current social values. Second, it advocates an alternative "ecological paradigm", embedded in anti-humanist and radical traditions which would give due regard to the constitutive role of 'nature' in the formation of our moral values.

Spirituality and environmental friendliness (i.e., nature connectedness, environmental attitudes and behaviours) are inextricably linked. They share the common basis of transcendence (Grouzet, 2011; Grouzet et al., 2005). However, the relationship between the two lacks empirical support. The current study employed experimental and daily diary methods to investigate the influence of spirituality upon environmental friendliness. Spirituality was marginally, but not significantly, increased through guided daily reflection among religious participants and slightly decreased among non-religious participants. This, subsequently, led to greater sense of connection to nature, but no other changes in environmental friendliness. These findings provide preliminary evidence of the relation between spirituality and environmental friendliness. / Graduate / 0623 / 0451 / esl@uvic.ca

This thesis is an examination of the political and educational implications of environmentalism. This movement has been characterized by oversimplifications which have led to confusion about the proper role of humans with respect to the natural world. The modern world system was founded on the concept of human domination of nature, and this led to degradation of both the natural and the social environment. The radical ecological response to this view rejected any role for human subjects other than protection, and called for a rejection of technology and a return to pre-modern conditions. / This investigation proposes that citizens in a postmodern world should be characterized by ecological literacy: a comprehensive understanding of the natural and social environment, and the responsibilities of humans in it. It is argued that this will be possible only with political arrangements which are selectively decentralized, preserving local initiative and promoting community resilience.

This thesis reveals and explores a history of the New Zealand present, providing insight into myths through which New Zealanders shape their perceptions and relationships with the world that surrounds them, and interrogating the concepts that support those myths. This myth referred to is a regime of truth based on perceptions of environmental responsibility, embodied in language, policy, actions, and incorporated into official discourse through imagery, an international government-driven advertising campaign portraying a "100% Pure New Zealand" and institutionalisation. There is a Department of Conservation, a Ministry for the Environment, National Parks and Reserves and a Resource Management Act based on a fundamental principle of sustainable management. Popular discourse also recognises environmental values - hence the appearance of concerted public and media campaigns against proposed development of coastal and timbered areas and the survival of lobby and pressure groups based on environmental causes such as opposition to genetic modification and the alienation of areas considered of natural significance. However, a study of relevant strains of discourse in the New Zealand environmental context reveals ruptures and reversals, inconsistencies and contradictions. The focus and meanings within discourse have changed; the position and power of the environment has been both affected by, and has affected, power relationships. At certain times and in particular social conditions, an environmental voice has been compelled to occupy a space on the outskirts of a dominant discourse and to comply with its discursive practices, as a way of gaining legitimisation. At others, an environmental discourse has gained a fleeting triumph, to be privileged as truth. From the official outset of European colonisation in 1840, a discourse grounded in such modernist values as technological optimism, economic progress and capitalism both framed and legitimised utterances of the colonists and grounded decisions that were to fundamentally and permanently affect the New Zealand physical environment. Themes that were to echo through the years in such discursive enunciations as acclimatisation and engineering were justified on the basis of "progress". Such themes included the presumption that "man" and fulfilment of "his" needs was the ultimate dictate, and that this could and would be achieved through scientific discovery and its application through engineering and arts. Only through such a pursuit could civilisation advance onwards and upwards along a never-ending path. Within such a discourse, Nature had no distinct or valid domain outside that of man, but was merely a storehouse of raw materials, to be dipped into by Man when and where desired. One of the most significant manifestations for New Zealand in the twentieth century of this modernist discourse has been the development of hydro-electricity. The availability of the necessary technology in a country boasting plentiful rainfall, numerous fast-flowing rivers, pockets of population and a tradition of socialist, centralist political philosophy shaped hydro-electricity as a metaphor for New Zealand-style civilisation - enabled and controlled through government decision-making. Consequently, a genealogical study of the discourses relating to hydro-electricity policy and debate can provide valuable insight into the power relations between those exercising power through a modernist discourse and an environmental resistance, and into strategies that were adopted or developed as part of such discourses in the exercise of power. In particular, a detailed study of specific examples permits the interplay of socio-temporal factors and practices to be appreciated. Hydro-electricity is thus the contextual focus selected in this thesis, a focus reflected in the title. The genealogical method involves uncovering and contextualising primary and secondary materials within their historical setting. Through the interrogation of such materials this approach contributes to a critical understanding of power relations and how those relations influence strategies that might be utilised in the exercise of power. Such a method was therefore selected to analyse the tensions implicit in discourse within three historically and contextually specific case studies. These case studies involved in chronological order the proposal to harness the waters of the Bowen Falls in Fiordland during the 1920s, the proposal to raise the level of Lake Manapouri (together with that of the neighbouring Lake Te Anau) in the 1960s, and finally the proposal to divert a large proportion of the mean water-flow of the Lower Waitaki river during the first part of the twenty-first century. A principal conclusion that is reached through the analysis is that the present environmental discourse in New Zealand is not the inevitable outcome of progressive and logical history. Nor can it be explained as chance or as a consequence of world changes, but is a function of power/knowledge. Changes in the regime of truth are therefore the outcome of a successful power strategy exercised by a resistance in challenging that regime of truth. In addition, what might be defined as "environmental discourse" in the New Zealand context is narrowly defined, limited by environmental cause, a cause shaped in turn by the language of conservation. The lesson from history is that the regime of truth of such a discourse is not an end, stable and unchanging for the future, but must be seen rather as brittle, uncertain and vulnerable to attack. A third conclusion that emerges from the hydro-electricity focus is that this particular discursive enunciation of a New Zealand-style modernist discourse was a metaphor for social and economic progress, thereby occupying a privileged position as truth. Finally, one of the important contributions to methodological debate made by the thesis lies in its application of the Foucauldian genealogical method in exploring the general history of a socio-temporal context, thereby uncovering power strategies effected through discourse. This in turn reveals the hidden events, the silent voices and the games played in establishing and challenging a regime of truth.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2002. Graduate Programme in Environmental Studies. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 194-216). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ75192.

Thesis (M.A.P.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [61]-64).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Nottingham Trent University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-242) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Colorado, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-252).