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In this thesis I argue that within Canadian society, mainstream environmentalism has been constructed as a consumer-based activity that fundamentally excludes low income households and serves to support a capitalist economy. Historically, humans’ relationship to the environment has been based on economic benefit and so people readily accept this construction of environmentalism as it conforms to established social norms. Contemporary research has shown that eco-labeling is one of the primary marketing tools that give the impression of social structural change while keeping capitalism intact. This thesis critically examines documents from three Canadian sources: the Toronto Star newspaper, the David Suzuki Foundation website, and the Canadian Government. By applying the theories of social constructionism and representation, I show that these documents and articles have multiple levels and meanings about environmentalism that favour the capitalist agenda. This analysis also identifies four main ways in which these sources contribute to and reinforce the exclusion of low income families from Canadian mainstream environmentalism: 1) sources primarily promote ‘green’ consumables and disregard the associated cost of these goods, 2) sources do not acknowledge the constraints associated with level of access to non-consumable green resources, 3) sources shape environmental problems as economic issues by focusing on corporations, and 4) increased time commitments associated with green behaviour are not acknowledged. These three sources would suggest that the current form of environmentalism, as a consumer based construct, exclude low income household in mainstream Canadian society. By illuminating some of the problems with the current construction of environmentalism, it becomes possible to construct new perspectives on environmentalism that are both effective and inclusive. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-25 16:26:11.314

This dissertation focuses on a conservative, affluent, and white community—Santa Barbara, California to chart the rise a popular, aesthetic environmentalism in the twentieth-century United States. Acknowledged by environmentalists and historians as a principal site of the emergence of modern environmentalism after a 1969 offshore oil spill, the city’s reputation had long rested on the idea that the place epitomized California’s—and thus the nation’s—riches of natural beauty and climate. Beginning in the 1920s residents came together in a shared project of transforming the urban fabric under the belief that their city situated between the mountains and ocean could enjoy the benefits of modern, urban American life while avoiding its excesses and ills. Their work underscores how commitments and visions shared among individuals became a domesticated and inwardly-oriented and highly localized environmental politics that functioned as a lateral way to depoliticize ideas about the environment, urban life, and community belonging. Physical transformations structured conceptions of the environment over time, but also provided visible evidence for them. Exploring granular details including specificities about place and local attachments put into relief the possibilities, but also the shortcomings, of lived experience as a catalyst for environmental action.

Abstract not available

In this thesis, I investigate the influence of environmental values on the work of environmental policy advisors in a regional council in New Zealand and the influence on the institutional values of their work environment on their personal environmental values. Values are relatively stable concepts of socially acquired beliefs and norms that influence the perception and behaviour of humans and are organised in interdependent and dynamic structures that can be changed through social experiences. Environmental values are partly responsible for environmentally friendly behaviour, which encompasses a variety of activities and even lifestyle choices. People, who have chosen to work in the environmental sector are exposed to environmental values through working for institutions that represent environmentally friendly principles. By working in an environmental context, environmental values can get changed by social interaction, which can lead to an adjustment or approximation to the dominant notion of environmental values within the workplace (Finegan, 2000) Although policy advice is expected to be a neutral and objective task, statements are still written by persons with an individual opinion that, although suppressed, represents the values of the writer (Heineman, Bluhm, Peterson, Keary, 2002). It is therefore likely that the whole process of evaluating information and preparing a policy recommendation is influenced by the values of the policy advisor. My findings indicate that environmental values of employees get adjusted to the institution's environmental values through their work. This happens through a merging of their private environmental values into their professional values, through processes of adjustment. This change not only results in identification with the job but also presents a way to circumvent possible value conflicts in the work environment. The policy process involves a number of stages where information is re-evaluated and discussed to fit the formal and structural requirements of policy making under the Resource Management Act, which is done in collaboration with others. This leads to a social construction of values that are represented in collaboratively developed policy recommendation. In my conclusion, I show that policy advisors at regional government level use. in New Zealand have environmental values, use them for environmental protection, and adjust them to work more efficiently for the environment within a public service organisation. The use of their environmental values by the participants show that they are environmentalists and do what environmentalists do, but in a quiet, unobtrusive way.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of History, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

This study looks at the role that liberal economic norms are playing in international environmental negotiations on hazardous chemicals (including wastes), and the implications of these norms for the protection of the environment and human health from the thousands of chemicals on the market. The key trait of liberal economic norms in relation to global environmental governance is their assumption that the liberalisation of trade and finance and economic growth are both consistent with and necessary for environmental protection. From this assumption follows, for instance, the idea that states should adopt the "least-trade restrictive" measures required to protect the environment and human health. I argue that liberal economic norms are "hegemonic," in a Gramscian sense, in chemicals-related international environmental negotiations. This means that a wide range of actors, including those that do not necessarily accept the liberal economic perspective, are upholding liberal economic norms in their statements and proposals if not out of conviction then out of a perceived need to be realistic or persuasive. The most important implication of liberal economic hegemony is that it is widely assumed that human health and the environment can be effectively protected from the negative effects of hazardous chemicals even though the volume of chemicals and chemical-containing products being consumed is increasing at a spectacular rate. The issue of growing consumption of chemicals is therefore consistently framed as a problem of quality (hazardousness) rather than quantity. To understand consumption in this narrow sense is problematic, however, because there is considerable scientific uncertainty concerning the environmental and health effects of most of the chemicals on the market and because chemicals that pose minimal risks to the environment and human health might be very hazardous when they are being manufactured or upon becoming waste. In order to address the problem of hazardous chemicals effectively, it is necessary to challenge the hegemony of liberal economic norms in international environmental negotiations. This can be done, I conclude, by deepening a number of fissures in the hegemony of the liberal economic perspective that can be detected in the context of chemicals-related instruments.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Department of political Science, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains iii, 81 p. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-73).