Environmental journalists face a dilemma—how to make headlines for an often-invisible issue. “If it’s bloodless, slow-motion violence, the story is more likely to get buried,” said Rob Nixon, author and English professor at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison. Nixon visits Portland State this week, presenting both a lecture and a workshop exploring this issue.
Environmental journalists face a dilemma—how to make headlines for an often-invisible issue. “If it’s bloodless, slow-motion violence, the story is more likely to get buried,” said Rob Nixon, author and English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Nixon visits Portland State this week, presenting both a lecture and a workshop exploring this issue.
Nixon, who earned his doctorate from Columbia University, is originally from South Africa and is now the Rachel Carson professor of English at UW. He teaches courses in creative non-fiction and literature of the global south. Frequent contributor to The New York Times, his work has also appeared in The Village Voice, The Nation, The Guardian, Outside and many other publications. He is the author of four books, including Dream Birds, which was a featured reading on BBC radio.
The lecture on March 1 is open to the public. It will be held in Smith Memorial Student Union, room 333, at 7 p.m. During the event, Nixon will discuss his latest book, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, which was released last year by Harvard University Press.
Nixon’s workshop is Friday, March 2, from 10 a.m. to noon. It provides an opportunity to discuss challenges and solutions, both in environmentalism and journalism, with the author. The workshop will also look at a forthcoming article by Nixon, titled “Neoliberalism, Genre, and the Tragedy of the Commons.”
Both events are hosted by the Portland Center for Public Humanities, and registration is required for the workshop on Friday. This can be done by visiting www.publichumanities.pdx.edu, and those registered will receive a copy of the topical article.
According to PSU professor and PCPH Director Marie Lo, Thursday’s lecture will focus on “rethinking and re-conceptualizing how we talk about climate change.” In an era of media sound bytes and sensationalism, she asked, how do we “go beyond the conventional narrative and provide new paradigms for engaging with sustainability solutions?”
The crawling toxic spill, the thickening choking air, the slowly-receding glacier: How can these deep-seeded threats to the population at large ever compete for press coverage with explosions and the affairs of politicians? Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor explores this notion. Rob Nixon also looks in-depth at several writers and documentarians who have risen to this challenge. He focuses on environmental refugees of the Pacific Islands, environmental crises of the global south—access to food, water and energy—and the author activists tackling these issues.
Additionally, Slow Violence explores the works and successes of Wangari Maathai, Indra Sinha, Ken Saro-Wiwa and others. Nixon says “those nimble, determined writers” will “encourage us to rethink what environmental activism looks like.” By exploring their successes, and with the ability of other journalists to bring urgency to slowly encroaching disasters of climate change, Nixon hopes to teach other environmental writers the tools necessary to bring greater public light to these issues.
Climate change, the thawing cryosphere, toxic drift, deforestation, the radioactive aftermaths of wars, oil spills, and acidifying oceans are all examples of “slow violence” that Nixon explores in his works.
When asked about his use of the term “slow violence” in the title of his book, Nixon responded: “I felt that redefining violence was a critical first step. Our cultural moment is in thrall to speed and spectacle, which has the effect of distorting our perception of what counts as violence.”
Nixon’s upcoming projects include exploring populous movements and examining “what makes social movements work.” He is also working on a retrospective on Rachel Carson for the 50th anniversary of her book that birthed the environmental movement, Silent Spring. Nixon sites Carson as a lifelong inspiration and chose to honor her when choosing his title at the university. can be done by visiting the publichumanities.pdx.edu site. Those registered will receive a copy of the topical article.
According to PSU professor and PCPH Director Marie Lo, Thursday’s lecture will focus on “rethinking and re-conceptualizing how we talk about climate change.” In an era of media sound bytes and sensationalism, she asked, how do we “go beyond the conventional narrative and provide new paradigms for engaging with sustainability solutions?”
The crawling toxic spill, the thickening choking air, the slowly-receding glacier: How can these deep-seeded threats to the population at large ever compete for press coverage with explosions and the affairs of politicians? Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor explores this notion. Rob Nixon also looks in-depth at several writers and documentarians who have risen to this challenge. He focuses on environmental refugees of the Pacific Islands, environmental crises of the global south—
access to food, water and energy—and the author activists tackling these issues.
Additionally, Slow Violence explores the works and successes of Wangari Maathai, Indra Sinha, Ken Saro-Wiwa and others. Nixon says “those nimble, determined writers” will “encourage us to rethink what environmental activism looks like.” By exploring their successes, and with the ability of other journalists to bring urgency to slowly encroaching disasters of climate change, Nixon hopes to teach other environmental writers the tools necessary to bring greater public light to these issues.
Climate change, the thawing cryosphere, toxic drift, deforestation, the radioactive aftermaths of wars, oil spills, and acidifying oceans are all examples of “slow violence” that Nixon explores in his works.
When asked about his use of the term “slow violence” in the title of his book, Nixon responded: “I felt that redefining violence was a critical first step. Our cultural moment is in thrall to speed and spectacle, which has the effect of distorting our perception of what counts as violence.”
Nixon’s upcoming projects include exploring populous movements and examining “what makes social movements work.” He is also working on a retrospective on Rachel Carson for the 50th anniversary of her book that birthed the environmental movement, Silent Spring. Nixon sites Carson as a lifelong inspiration and chose to honor her when choosing his title at the university.
While the Earth has always endured natural climate change variability, we are now facing the possibility of irreversible climate change in the near future. The increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth?s atmosphere from industrial processes has enhanced the natural greenhouse effect. This in turn has accentuated the greenhouse ?trap? effect, causing greenhouse gases to form a blanket around the Earth, inhibiting the sun?s heat from leaving the outer atmosphere. This increase of greenhouse gases is causing an additional warming of the Earth?s surface and atmosphere. A direct consequence of this is sea-level rise expansion, which is primarily due to the thermal expansion of oceans (water expands when heated), inducing the melting of ice sheets as global surface temperature increases.
Forecasts for climate change by the 2,000 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) project a rise in the global average surface temperature by 1.4 to 5.8°C from 1990 to 2100. This will result in a global mean sea level rise by an average of 5 mm per year over the next 100 years. Consequently, human-induced climate change will have ?deleterious effects? on ecosystems, socio-economic systems and human welfare.At the moment, especially high risks associated with the rise of the oceans are having a particular impact on the two archipelagic states of Western Polynesia: Tuvalu and Kiribati. According to UN forecasts, they may be completely inundated by the rising waters of the Pacific by 2050.
According to the vast majority of scientific investigations, warming waters and the melting of polar and high-elevation ice worldwide will steadily raise sea levels. This will likely drive people off islands first by spoiling the fresh groundwater, which will kill most land plants and leave no potable water for humans and their livestock. Low-lying island states like Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives are the most prominent nations threatened in this way.“The biggest challenge is to preserve their nationality without a territory,” said Bogumil Terminski from Geneva. The best solution is continue to recognize deterritorialized states as a normal states in public international law. The case of Kiribati and other small island states is a particularly clear call to action for more secure countries to respond to the situations facing these ‘most vulnerable nations’, as climate change increasingly impacts upon their lives.