Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 206-220). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-129). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2005. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-148). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-97).

abstract: The San Andreas Fault (SAF) is the primary structure within a system of faults accommodating motion between the North American and Pacific plates. Physical models of faulting and characterizations of seismic hazard are informed by investigations of paleoseismology, slip distribution, and slip rate. The impact of earthquakes on people is due in large part to social vulnerability. This dissertation contributes an analysis about the relationships between earthquake hazard and social vulnerability in Los Angeles, CA and investigations of paleoseismology and fault scarp array complexity on the central SAF. Analysis of fault scarp array geometry and morphology using 0.5 m digital elevation models along 122 km of the central SAF reveals significant variation in the complexity of SAF structure. Scarp trace complexity is measured by scarp separation, changes in strike, fault trace gaps, and scarp length per SAF kilometer. Geometrical complexity in fault scarp arrays indicates that the central SAF can be grouped into seven segments. Segment boundaries are controlled by interactions with subsidiary faults. Investigation of an offset channel at Parkfield, CA yields a late Holocene slip rate of 26.2 +6.4/- 4.3 mm/yr. This rate is lower than geologic measurements on the Carrizo section of the SAF and rates implied by far-field geodesy. However, it is consistent with historical observations of slip at Parkfield. Paleoseismology at Parkfield indicates that large earthquakes are absent from the stratigraphic record for at least a millennia. Together these observations imply that the amount of plate boundary slip accommodated by the main SAF varies along strike. Contrary to most environmental justice analyses showing that vulnerable populations are spatially-tied to environmental hazards, geospatial analyses relating social vulnerability and earthquake hazard in southern California show that these groups are not disproportionately exposed to the areas of greatest hazard. Instead, park and green space is linked to earthquake hazard through fault zone regulation. In Los Angeles, a parks poor city, the distribution of social vulnerability is strongly tied to a lack of park space. Thus, people with access to financial and political resources strive to live in neighborhoods with parks, even in the face of forewarned risk. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Geological Sciences 2011

xv, 277 p. A print copy of this title is available from the UO Libraries, under the call number: SCIENCE TP1180.V48 V46 2007 / This dissertation examines the political, scientific, social, environmental, and health debates surrounding the use of polyvinyl chloride (commonly called vinyl), a plastic many public health advocates and activists contend has a toxic lifecycle with deleterious human and ecological impacts at every stage. Using extensive documentary research and in-depth interviews, I answer a basic question: how and why have major stakeholders politicized PVC in recent decades? I find the strength of the anti-PVC movement lies largely in its broad based constituency: it includes professionals within the health care and green building industries, as well as labor unions and environmental health advocates. However, I raise critical questions about the movement's strategy of situating itself as a market-based movement where limited analysis is given to the greater environmental and health impacts of the health care and building industries as a whole. / Adviser: Gregory McLauchlan

The field of environmental ethics has been in discussion and debate the past 40 years over how to best expand the circle of moral consideration away from a privileged human perspective to encompass the rest of the non-human world in order to change minds and social practices to address environmental degradation and destruction. One of the main methods is devoted to arguing for the intrinsic value of non-human lives and places as the means to do this. I argue that this method of environmental ethics because it, at best, is a lazy framework for moral deliberation that ignores the entangled sociopolitical and environmental complexity of a situation by reducing the answer to a single set of predetermined values and interests which (re)produces and reinforces social and environmental injustice. An environmental pragmatist approach geared towards addressing environmental injustice is a better way of addressing both environmental degradation and social inequalities.

In this dissertation, I draw together an archive of twentieth and twenty-first century North American authors and artists who explore the settler colonial and racist ideologies of the Anthropocene, the proposed name for a contemporary moment in which anthropogenic forces have forever altered the Earth system. I hold that the “the Anthropocene” names a moment in which localized environmental injustices have become planetary. Addressing the representational challenges posed by the epoch requires engaging the underlying cultural assumptions that have long rationalized injustices as necessary to economic prosperity and narrowly conceived versions of national wellbeing. Works of literature and cultural representation can use literary and artistic form to this end. In this dissertation, I identify one such formal strategy, which I term insensible realism. As a form of realism committed to representing the real impacts of discursive and material practices, insensible realism refers to the rejection of rationality and Enlightenment ideals that have been used to justify the White supremacy, settler colonialism and environmental destruction that instantiates the Anthropocene. A realism of the insensible also refers to my archive’s concentration on what cannot be easily sensed: the epoch’s social and environmental interactions that are physically, temporally, geographically and/or socially imperceptible to dominant society. I argue that these works eschew accepted notions of rationality and empiricism in favor of using non-dominant cultural traditions and theories of environmental justice to address the problems the Anthropocene poses. Challenging the dominant logics that have been used to rationalize racist, settler colonial and environmental violence of the Anthropocene creates space for alternative environmental commitments and narratives. Throughout the dissertation, I draw on theories from women of color feminism, environmental justice scholars, settler colonial studies, theories of race, and new materialism. Through a critical environmental justice framework, I argue that the authors and artists that make up my archive develop a literary and artistic approach to environmental justice, using forms of representation to highlight—and challenge—the intersections of racism, settler colonialism and environmental destruction. / 2019-10-17

South Africa is a land of extraordinary beauty, ecological diversity and abundance. However, the land that God has entrusted to us is crying for justice. During the years of struggle against apartheid several ecumenical documents addressed the issues of the day. The Letter to the People of South Africa (1968), the Kairos Document (1985), the Evangelical Witness in South Africa (1986), the Road to Damascus (1989) and the Rustenburg Declaration (1990) may be mentioned in this regard. In the same ecumenical and prophetic spirit, this document seeks to address the escalating destruction of our environment that results in immense suffering for people, for other living species and for our land as a whole. In responding to this challenge Christians in South Africa may recognise, acknowledge and learn from the many voices and contributions on environmental concerns coming from all over the world — from churches and ecumenical movements, from the Earth Charter movement, from other religious traditions and from environmental organisations. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) - 26 August to 4 September 2002, Johannesburg - also challenges the churches in South Africa to respond to these concerns. / 1st ed / Ecumenical Foundation of Southern Africa (EFSA)