Tag: Mark Carey

Stories of Decline: Narratives and Risk Framing of Glacier Retreat and Salmon in Washington, USA

Presenter: Jenna Travers – Marine Biology

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Carey

Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—Learning from the Environment

Climate change is threatening both glaciers and salmon in Washington with extinction, putting the state’s economy, culture, and ecosystems at risk. However, the overlapping crises are framed and understood differently throughout the state, affecting policy and climate action. This study analyzed 115 media sources from four main stakeholder categories to determine a) which narratives of glacier retreat and salmon declines are the most prevalent; b) how perceived risks change among stakeholders and cause narratives to diverge; c) how these narratives are shaped by stakeholder identity, geographic location, knowledge sources, and time; and d) how narratives of overlapping climate emergencies differ from narratives of a single crisis. Key narratives were identified by creating a qualitative codebook that was applied using Dedoose, and the presence of narratives was analyzed across the categories to evaluate trends. The study found that while a common narrative did exist, stakeholder identity, geographic location, and source of knowledge were all key factors in shaping narratives. It also found that narratives of overlapping climate emergencies were more likely to diverge than those of a single crisis. As climate change worsens and causes more overlapping crises, understanding how climate narratives are created and shaped will become increasingly important for understanding stakeholder conflicts, effective climate campaigns, and how people view themselves within these crises.

The Importance of Journalism in Communicating Climate Change

Presenter: Anna Mattson – Environmental Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Carey

Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—Communication: How and Why

For this project, I traveled to Cordova, a small fishing town in Southeastern Alaska, for two weeks to talk with locals about how glacial melt is affecting their lifestyles and how they are adapting to environmental changes happening in Alaska.

I discovered that while millions of salmon still come up the Copper River annually, rising temperatures have led to increased glacial melt, and fish counts are declining. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, in 2021, wild sockeye salmon numbers fell 37.4% below the recorded 10-year average.

The decline of salmon throughout Alaska concerns local communities, like the Native Village of Eyak, whose connection to the area grows out of generations of relationships with salmon.

Salmon are critical to Native Village of Eyak culture and subsistence practices. The Eyak are “dependent on the returning wild salmon to this day.”

Journalism acts as a conduit between scientists, climate events and people — it allows anyone to have a voice and holds institutions and lawmakers accountable.

As more extreme climate events occur, communicating these crises has never been so important, especially as it relates to elevating marginalized communities.

My piece, titled A State of Unease, will be published in Science Insider this summer.

Value Pluralism & Environmental Justice in the Cascades: The Nisqually River Watershed

Presenter(s): Jess Gladis — Environmental Studies

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Carey, Barbara Muraca

Session: (In-Person) Poster Presentation

Examining resource conflicts shows the way land values influence stakeholder relationships to culturally significant ecosystems. The Nisqually Watershed exemplifies environmental justice disputes caused by the juxtaposition of high-density urban areas, rural farmland, and federally protected land— creating intersecting values that inform local land stewardship. My findings so far support that the analysis of values and environmental ethics—an often-underrepresented factor in formal decision-making—elucidates how material and metaphysical human-ecosystem relations form influential values that determine the outcome of resource conflicts and deliberative resolutions.

This analysis is conducted using rigorous frameworks that encompass a multiplicity of stakeholder values. This project aims to further develop a method based in environmental hermeneutics and phenomenology that engages with the IPBES conceptual framework and its defined value categories (Díaz et al. 2015). This approach is unique among similar pre-existing research because of its practical application of philosophical traditions and adoption of IPBES’ pluralist framework. Further study of regional environmental conflicts using these approaches can enlighten relatively unexplored factors in ecological decision-making. Providing precise explanation for the way conflict is ignited or mediated is incumbent for the future development of climate change resilience and mitigation strategies.

Climate Change Response in the National Park Service: Analyzing Changes in Science, Education, and Management Policies

Presenter: Kelsey Ward (Environmental Science)

Mentor: Mark Carey

Oral Presentation

Panel A: “Habitats and Climate” Maple Room

Concurrent Session 3: 1:45-3:00pm

Facilitator: Drew Terhune

The language of the Organic Act of 1916 explicitly defines the national park mission: “to conserve…scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein…as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” As the world around national parks changes, unimpairment is increasingly difficult, bordering on impossible. Climate change is conceptualized as an “unprecedented challenge” for park managers because of technical/scientific uncertainty. It has the potential to reshape our understanding of the National Park System as well as the national park idea. In the face of large and diverse uncertainties, thus far the National Park Service has taken a “safe-to-fail” approach to management, which emphasizes neither ensuring success nor avoiding failure in adaptation and mitigation. Through analysis of management documents, observation, and interviews this paper illustrates how science, education, and management within parks has evolved as a result of climate change. I argue that though climate change presents a challenge, it also is creating positive new ideas about national parks, including the view of these protected areas as vital cores of much larger ecosystems, and the emerging idea of national parks assuming a more prominent role in public education. While climate change threatens the “natural state” of national parks as set in the Organic Act, it also provides a unique opportunity to re-emphasize the multiple values of protected areas.

Women and Glaciers: Perspectives on Climate Change Vulnerability, Identity, and the Professional Sphere

Presenter: Jaclyn Rushing

Mentor: Mark Carey

Poster: 29

Major: Environmental Studies/Romance Languages

Women and glaciers appear to be disparate subjects and academic literature has yet to investigate the relationships between them. However, women’s relationships with glaciers can inform many important intersections of gender inequality in sport, science, culture, and environmental climate change. Historically women’s global interactions with glaciers helped them connect to place and self through spirituality, culture, mountaineering, and glaciology. Women have recorded their strong emotional and spiritual connection with glaciers in poems, oral traditions, religious stories, and autobiographical essays. But in recent decades, climate change has altered and complicated women’s interactions with glaciers. On the one hand, studies show that rapid glacier retreat has marginalized and disempowered women, because of increased natural disasters like glacial lake outburst floods, unpredictable water availability, and ecological loss. These hazards pose major threats to Himalayan and Andean mountain communities, especially for already culturally marginalized and impoverished women in those regions. On the other hand, climate- triggered ice loss has created unique opportunities for women to increase their participation in science, conservation, and politics. Historically marginalized women in the Himalayas and Andes are leading their own forums on climate change and disaster mitigation. More international aid agencies are reaching out to women and seeking women’s input in disaster mitigation and relief. Women in science are increasing their presence in the male-dominated field of glaciology largely because of growing academic gender tolerance, but also because climate change provides the occasion to study glacier retreat. Recent rapid glacier retreat thus complicates women’s experience by increasing their climate vulnerability while simultaneously providing them with opportunities to assert themselves in their communities.

The Western Genre and Gun Violence in United States Culture: Using Theatre as a Laboratory for Social Critique

Presenter: Ariella Wolfe

Mentors: Michael Najjar, Theatre Arts; Mark Carey, Honors College

Oral Presentation

Major: Theatre Arts

The contemporary theatre director has the opportunity to encourage socially critical thought during the production process and in theatergoing audiences. This study seeks to demonstrate how the Western genre, which has mythicized the way of life on the United States frontier during westward expansion, can be used as a framework to understand the prevalence of gun violence in the contemporary United States. Moreover, the project endeavors to explore the theatre as a forum to address this issue. My methodology incorporates an application of my synthesis of Bertolt Brecht’s dialectical theatre to my direction of Afterlife, a Western genre play by Nicholas J. Maurer. The play suggests parallels between the issues of gun violence in the Western genre and present concerns regarding gun violence in our contemporary society. Following each performance I conducted post-show discussions with audience members to qualitatively assess how they critically engage with the cultural norms of gun use and gun violence.

This study presents an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on theatre directing theory, performance studies, history and sociology. The central argument of this thesis is that a socially conscious approach to theatre directing—taking into account the cultural, economic and social forces shaping the characters’ actions—will encourage audiences to engage cultural questions and recognize their ability to transform society. This research hopes to contribute to ongoing investigations that articulate the significance of theatre as a tool for social critique and social change.

The Enemy in the Forests: The Public Perception of Forest Fires in the Pacific Northwest 1933–1965

Presenter: Augustine Beard

Faculty Mentor: Mark Carey

Presentation Type: Oral

Primary Research Area: Humanities

Major: History

Fire plays a vital role in the ecology of the Pacific Northwest. However, throughout most of the twentieth century, the National Forest Service promoted a strict policy of fire suppression that has disrupted the cyclical nature of fires and lead to the growth of “megafires” in the past few decades. For the most part, the National Forest Service and the timber industry both financially benefited from the suppression policies. While historians have discussed the relation between scientists, the timber and ranching industries, and the state, there has been little analysis of public perception as it relates to fire policy and the actors involved. Groups and campaigns like the Keep Oregon Green Association and Smokey Bear encompassed a broad range of representatives including environmentalists, politicians, private loggers, and scholars, developing quasi-state entities that emphasized the importance of timber capital and national security above all else. Using various sources such as records of the Keep Oregon Green Association, OSU Forestry School archives, and World War II propaganda posters, I argue that the wide range of organizers promoting a uniform conception of fire disallowed any other. Fire prevention campaigns and the extreme vilification of fire in the public eye were vital to developing the environmental narrative that ensured an unquestioned fire suppression policy for so long.

The Effects of Climate Change and Sea Ice Within Inuit Populations in the Arctic Region

Presenter(s): Corinne Togiai − Biology

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Carey

Poster 190

Research Area: Humanities and Natural Sciences

Sea ice is used as a bright surface to reflect sunlight back into space to help maintain cool temperatures in polar regions and to moderate climate change. However, as sea ice melts, more sunlight penetrates the ocean surface causing the ocean to heat up and Arctic temperatures to rise. Therefore, the decline of sea ice is greatly affecting the Inuit Arctic population’s livelihood such as hunting and transportation. The purpose of this study is to bring attention to the importance of sea ice within Inuit Arctic culture that is often neglected. Hence, preservation of Inuit Arctic culture and preventing climate through the lens of scientific raw data, indigenous Arctic knowledge via story-telling and qualitative observations, and political perspectives on how to address the effects of climate change, will help this indigenous population learn to adapt, and/or preserve their land and culture.Moreover, a collection of sources about sea ice in the Arctic region, Inuit Arctic culture, and issues/questions at a national and international level of what is currently in place to address the melting sea ice and climate change will be used to draw conclusions. Research has found an appearance in new species, and an increase in sea traffic resulting in Arctic Inuit people to feel loss of control of their homeland as sea ice used to be their separation from the outside world. This research is significant because with global climate change contributing to a shift in sea levels and temperature, indigenous Arctic people are in danger.

Climate Change as the Catalyst for Decreasing Mental Health Among Circumpolar Indigenous Communities

Presenter(s): Camille Sullivan − Biology

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Carey

Poster 187

Research Area: Social Science

While pedestrian climate change knowledge likely incorporates notions of global warming exacerbating physical health conditions, mental health often remains unnoticed. This indiscernibility remains coupled with the frequent disregard of indigenous circumpolar communities by legislators who affect climate change policies, which leads to drastically disproportionate rates of mental illness and suicide within these regions. Already lacking accessibility to various traditional mental health services, many indigenous people report utilizing the land as a coping mechanism for prevailing mental health issues. However, with this Arctic land remaining among the areas most irrevocably and severely affected by climate change, feelings of sadness, frustration, and isolation emerge from the inability to comprehend a land that is now transforming in new ways after thousands of years of its identifiable patterns. Climate change spurs life-altering transformations culturally, socially, economically, and politically for many members of these communities, many of whom are unprepared to manage these startling and unjust fluctuations. Although mental health issues within indigenous Arctic communities have existed as long as the communities themselves, research on the issue was only recently popularized. These novel findings promote the urgency of incorporating indigenous perspectives into climate change legislation not only to address physical health, but also to support mental health.

Role of the Media in Micronesia’s Climate Change Activism

Presenter(s): Lauralei Singsank − Political Science, General Music

Faculty Mentor(s): Mark Carey

Poster 185

Research Area: Natural Science

Climate refugees are those who have been displaced from their homes for reasons relating to climate (floods, rising sea levels, etc.). This presentation focuses on climate refugees in Micronesia and their media presence. Micronesians have utilized the political atmospheres of other countries to further their causes. An important example is Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a Marshallese poet activist who presented a spoken poem to the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit. By utilizing her platform to increase empathy rather than using statistics or facts, Jetnil-Kijiner furthered her cause of raising awareness of climate change’s effects in Micronesia. The sources used in this presentation include scientific studies on climate change, scholarly articles addressing its effects in Micronesia, and media sources from Micronesian advocates. Videos by Jetnil-Kijiner and other activists will serve as primary sources. By examining how Micronesian citizens and those of Micronesian descent present their causes in the media, this presentation emphasizes the importance of increasing empathy to the effects of climate change alongside scientific facts. Audiences react more strongly to emotional pleas than scientific when presented by those suffering the effects of climate change. By appealing to audience’s pathos rather than logos, Micronesian climate activists raise awareness about their challenges with climate change.