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This thesis explores environmental justice issues in Latino communities in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. Given the little work focused on environmental justice issues of Latino communities, specifically in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. This thesis aims to, firstly determine whether environmental justice issues of Latino communities are relevant to environmental and social organizations in the Treasure Valley. As part of this, I also aim to unpack why environmental issues in Latino communities are or are not relevant to local social and environmental organizations. I suspected this may be connected to the complex immigration status of Latino groups, however, I discovered that the lack of funding and research, and community awareness challenged these organizations to attend to environmental justice issues. Second, this thesis aims to bring visibility to the Latino community that is often neglected in policy and research regarding environmental justice, which has mostly focused on African-American communities. Finally, a third and related aim is to contribute to the development of a wider vision of environmental justice issues of minority groups by expanding this framework to Hispanic-Latino communities in the Treasure Valley, Idaho. / Master of Arts / Disproportionate exposure to toxic waste, proximity to highways and industry facilities, and lack of access to clean water and food, are some of the environmental justice issues that minority groups in the United States daily face daily. The term environmental justice has evolved with different approaches and lines of thought that built on of vulnerable communities’ mobilizations for social justice issues present in vulnerable communities. This study explores to what extent environmental justice issues in Latino communities are relevant to environmental and social organizations in the Treasure Valley in Idaho. Building on the existing literature on environmental justice and based on semi-structured interviews, this study finds that environmental justice issues are relevant to these organizations, but that social injustices, -a lack of political attention to this issue and a related absence of strategic funding and research hinder these organizations’ ability to address environmental justice issues.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 302-317).

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There has been a steadily growing concern by governments, NGO's and international agencies regarding the rising rate of consumption in industrialised countries. Despite warnings and evidence showing the relationship between rising consumption and climate change, and the uptake of initiatives and education at business and consumer levels, the trend towards consuming more and more continues unabated. Questions have been raised regarding the relationship between marketing and rising consumption. In line with this, the research will investigate the responsibility of marketing to encourage consumers to moderate their consumption behaviour.  The research will address three broad objectives:· To identify whether marketing professionals feel responsible for encouraging consumers to moderate their consumption· To identify and explain the reasons why marketers would encourage moderation of consumption· To understand the construct 'marketing responsibility to encourage moderation of consumption' and explain the influences upon the acceptance of responsibilityThe research adopted a mixed-methods design. Qualitative research methods were used to explore perceptions of responsibility and develop a typology of motivations to explain why marketers would encourage moderation. An online, quantitative survey (n=359) was conducted in the USA and UK in January 2011. The results evidenced an acceptance of responsibility which is suggestive of a changing role for the marketing discipline. The results found support for the typology of motivations which were developed during the qualitative phase of the research, in particular, highlighting the importance of ethical and cost-saving motivations. The level of environmentalism in the workplace, and in the private life of the marketer, was found to influence the acceptance of marketing responsibility to encourage moderation. Finally, the motivation to remain competitive was also associated with the acceptance of marketing responsibility. The acceptance of responsibility to encourage moderation of consumption highlights a changing role for marketing which could potentially signify far-reaching changes in practical terms, in the way marketing is taught, and in the public policy domain.

Presently, the more or less global political consensus is that the primary task of government is to perpetually maximise a quantity called 'economic growth'. Given the decline of 'socialist' models of industrialisation, the economic consensus is that economic growth is best achieved through the deregulation of markets, industry and trade, as free markets are self-regulating institutions that automatically and efficiently optimise growth through their tendency to reach 'equilibrium.' Another word for this consensus might be 'neoliberalism'. This cosy situation, however, is increasingly under challenge from the recent transformation of global warming from a deniable proposition to a clear and present danger. As ecologists and earth scientists have long argued, global warming (an unforeseen side effect of what was called the 'energy crisis' in the 1970s) is just one of many aspects of a generalised global ecological crisis. The biosphere, environmentalists tell us, is radically 'out of balance'. Given this impasse, it appears that the science of social systems (economics) and the science of living systems (ecology) are incommensurable. This incommensurability is the starting point of the thesis, which seeks to provide a genealogy of the concepts of equilibrium and growth as they appear in the claims of both disciplines to represent 'hard' science. Drawing from debates in the philosophy of science, studies in the history of ideas, the anthropology of technology, and political economy, the thesis charts the mutual exchange of metaphors and analogies between the natural and the social sciences, and traces a surprisingly parallel trajectory in the separate histories of economics and ecology. Beginning with early historicist and organicist conceptual frameworks, both sciences embraced 'mechanism' in their bid to attain the mantle of Science. For both sciences, the attainment of this status was associated with the incorporation of the language of energetics and an insistent identification of 'equilibrium' with the central scientific object of inquiry, 'the market' and 'the ecosystem' respectively. What is ironic in these claims is that the acceptance of the machine metaphor effecti vely screened out the study of actual machinery from the pure states of nature called 'the market' or 'the economy.' This history is taken up to the climactic moment of the early 1970s, when, it is argued, the ontological foundations of ecology and economics collided. This is the moment from which the political discourses of neoliberal globalisation and global environmental crisis both date, and since then we see the rise of hybrid discourses that attempt to address and overcome the deep contradictions of disciplinary specialisation. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of this conceptual legacy, and in analysing the interactions of the 'new ecology' and the 'new economy', offers suggestions as to why what appeared in 1971 as a fundamental and obvious contradiction between 'growth' and 'equilibrium', no longer attracts debate.

An innovative regime combining native culture and democracy in community fisheries management has crystallized in New Zealand. While researchers have looked into co-management of natural resources between communities and governments, and various studies have isolated indigenous ecologies on one hand and highlighted environmentalism in modern society on another society on another, no substantial research has gauged the opportunities for indigenous peoples and the wider citizenry of democratic-capitalistic societies to collaborate as cultures in concert with the environmental law. The primary research, involving local experimentation, concerns the viability of the novel cooperative endeavor called Taiapure-local fishery. I discovered in the principal trial communities in the North and South Islands that its design is compelling if properly understood. Yet the salience of the regime is hampered by external pressures from the commercial fishing industry, control by central government, and by internal lack of solidarity and trust. I conclude that human relationships and the leadership of local people are the keys to sucess of the New Zealand model and its wider dynamics.

Presently, the more or less global political consensus is that the primary task of government is to perpetually maximise a quantity called 'economic growth'. Given the decline of 'socialist' models of industrialisation, the economic consensus is that economic growth is best achieved through the deregulation of markets, industry and trade, as free markets are self-regulating institutions that automatically and efficiently optimise growth through their tendency to reach 'equilibrium.' Another word for this consensus might be 'neoliberalism'. This cosy situation, however, is increasingly under challenge from the recent transformation of global warming from a deniable proposition to a clear and present danger. As ecologists and earth scientists have long argued, global warming (an unforeseen side effect of what was called the 'energy crisis' in the 1970s) is just one of many aspects of a generalised global ecological crisis. The biosphere, environmentalists tell us, is radically 'out of balance'. Given this impasse, it appears that the science of social systems (economics) and the science of living systems (ecology) are incommensurable. This incommensurability is the starting point of the thesis, which seeks to provide a genealogy of the concepts of equilibrium and growth as they appear in the claims of both disciplines to represent 'hard' science. Drawing from debates in the philosophy of science, studies in the history of ideas, the anthropology of technology, and political economy, the thesis charts the mutual exchange of metaphors and analogies between the natural and the social sciences, and traces a surprisingly parallel trajectory in the separate histories of economics and ecology. Beginning with early historicist and organicist conceptual frameworks, both sciences embraced 'mechanism' in their bid to attain the mantle of Science. For both sciences, the attainment of this status was associated with the incorporation of the language of energetics and an insistent identification of 'equilibrium' with the central scientific object of inquiry, 'the market' and 'the ecosystem' respectively. What is ironic in these claims is that the acceptance of the machine metaphor effecti vely screened out the study of actual machinery from the pure states of nature called 'the market' or 'the economy.' This history is taken up to the climactic moment of the early 1970s, when, it is argued, the ontological foundations of ecology and economics collided. This is the moment from which the political discourses of neoliberal globalisation and global environmental crisis both date, and since then we see the rise of hybrid discourses that attempt to address and overcome the deep contradictions of disciplinary specialisation. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of this conceptual legacy, and in analysing the interactions of the 'new ecology' and the 'new economy', offers suggestions as to why what appeared in 1971 as a fundamental and obvious contradiction between 'growth' and 'equilibrium', no longer attracts debate.

Fantasy literature is often dismissed as inferior work, whose primary purpose is to provide an escapist text for its readers. The purpose of this project is twofold: to show that fantasy actively engages social issues and to investigate how this engagement occurs, using the texts of young adult fantasy writer Tamora Pierce. Pierces works demonstrate how conventions of fantasy can be used and broken in order to create new perspectives on modern concerns. My study begins with an examination of fantasy literature and research, with emphases on J. R. R. Tolkien and Tzvetan Todrov. From there, I move on to discuss at length the three social issues most prevalent in Pierces work: environmentalism, feminism, and didacticism. In terms of environmentalism, animals are elevated above modern status, alien species create analogies to human affairs, and magic becomes a metaphor for responsible management and understanding of natural forces. Pierces treatment of feminism, through the portrayals of young female protagonists, has been challenged by critics for perpetuating the male-dominated system. However, a detailed study demonstrates a variety of different reactions and approaches to feminism that cannot be dismissed so easily. Both the environmentalism and the feminism in these novels suggest a desire on Pierces part to impart a didactic message to her young adult audience. While this message may not always be one that Pierce appears to intend, her nuanced approach to the often oversimplified fantasy binary of good and evil creates a worldview more compatible to that of her readers. Through Pierce and her work, fantasy is more than just escape- it fosters revitalization and reconsideration of the modern world.