Seeing Green: The Use and Abuse of American Environmental Images

by Finis Dunaway

American environmentalism is defined by its the “Crying Indian,” who shed a tear in response to litter and pollution; the cooling towers of Three Mile Island, site of a notorious nuclear accident; the sorrowful spectacle of oil-soaked wildlife following the Exxon Valdez spill; and, more recently, Al Gore delivering his global warming slide show in An Inconvenient Truth . These images, and others like them, have helped make environmental consciousness central to American public culture. Yet most historical accounts ignore the crucial role images have played in the making of popular environmentalism, let alone the ways that they have obscured other environmental truths.
 
Finis Dunaway closes that gap with Seeing Green . Considering a wide array of images―including pictures in popular magazines, television news, advertisements, cartoons, films, and political posters―he shows how popular environmentalism has been entwined with mass media spectacles of crisis. Beginning with radioactive fallout and pesticides during the 1960s and ending with global warming today, he focuses on key moments in which media images provoked environmental anxiety but also prescribed limited forms of action. Moreover, he shows how the media have blamed individual consumers for environmental degradation and thus deflected attention from corporate and government responsibility. Ultimately, Dunaway argues, iconic images have impeded efforts to realize―or even imagine―sustainable visions of the future.
 
Generously illustrated, this innovative book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of environmentalism or in the power of the media to shape our politics and public life.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

344 pages, Hardcover

First published February 16, 2015

Reviews

[Jessica DeWitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straightforward and engaging overview of the way in which imagery has been used to support (and at times condemn) environmentalist agendas. Really enjoyed it and, because of the engaging imagery, would consider using it or a chapter or two in an environmental history course.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting and well-documented book that traces the media representation of environmentalism from the 1960s to today. Although there are many reasons for why the legislative victories of the environmental movement waned after the mid 1970s, Dunaway offers a compelling analysis of how environmentalism was reframed away from collective mobilization in popular perception--through images promoted by environmentalists and by the media writ large.

Dunaway looks at how environmentalists used media/imagery to mobilize the public and how the media covered key moments in the environmental movement/environmental crises. He focuses on how images negotiate environmental time, power relations, and possible solutions. The latter two are closely related, as the tendency of images to obscure power relations often leads to a constrained vision of possible solutions. In particular, he focuses on the neoliberalization of environmentalism over the past few decades--as environmental citizenship is taken out of the realm of collective action and framed as a matter of consumer choice and personal responsibility. He also analyzes how dominant media images of environmental crises/environmental action have often ignored concerns of environmental justice by adopting frames of "universal vulnerability" and "universal responsibility."

A great addition to any class on media studies, social movements, or environmental history, and a highly recommended read for anyone in the environmental movement today reflecting on how to reinvigorate it.

[Javier Ponce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lectura atrapante que explica en detalle las imágenes sobre el medio ambiente en los Estados Unidos más icónicas. Un poco desolador ver que debido al sistema neoliberal capitalista las cosas no han cambiado mucho y la "solución" no ha dejado de ser el reduccionismo del papel como individuo.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent analysis of historical use of imagery in the American environmental movement

[Shannon McKee · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for my visualizing environmental advocacy class. good read for anyone with an interest in environmental communication, or anyone who wants to think about the meme potential that could have been of george h. w. bush standing next to raw sewage