Green Voices: Defending Nature and the Environment in American Civic Discourse ed. by Richard D. Besel and Bernard K. Duffy (review)

From Walden to Sand County Almanac to Silent Spring, the environmental movement is one that arguably has been built largely in print, with books and essays serving as the most persuasive texts of the movement’s canon. Green Voices: Defending Nature and the Environment in American Civic Discourse is a collection of essays that modifies this canon by highlighting the role speeches have played in the U.S. environmental movement, utilizing methods of public address and literary analysis to fill a gap in environmental communication scholarship as well as to create a more complete understanding of movement rhetoric throughout U.S. history. The best argument for focusing studies of environmental rhetoric on speeches appears well into the collection—in Ellen W. Gorsevski’s study of Frank Church. She writes, “Examining environmental orations helps us to capture the sense of urgency and of hope from orators . . . who understood the seriousness of the stakes for present and future generations” (236). This collection illuminates moments in U.S. history when individuals found it imperative to take the stage and advocate for the nonhuman world. The appeals they used provide a glimpse into both prevailing thoughts of particular eras as well as the rhetorical traditions that mark U.S. environmentalism throughout history. For those more interested in advocacy rhetoric generally than environmental rhetoric specifically, Philip C. Wander’s fore-word contextualizes the collection within the broader history of social movements and global justice concerns.

The collection highlights important moments of speech in the environmental movement, and the overall chronological structure allows readers to determine for themselves how different rhetorical themes wound their way through history. As with any edited collection of this sort, some of the case studies are stronger than others, but most provide significant insight into rhetorical approaches used by key environmental figures.

Many of the collection’s standout essays highlight how appeals to nationalism and patriotism were central in U.S. environmental rhetoric. Michael Hostetler examines Charles Sumner’s appeals to republicanism to defend Westward Expansion, and Leroy Dorsey points to how Theodore Roosevelt’s environmental patriotism spoke across political divides to both Christian and Scientific Progressives. The calls for civic engagement Melba Hoffler identifies in her discussion of Aldo Leopold’s “The Farmer as a Conservationist” address show how even the philosophical heroes of the environmental movement relied on civic appeals. Finally, Terence Check studies how Jimmy Carter’s appeals to citizenship and construction of a civic jeremiad brought public support to his energy policy, even if it was then lost in the process of legislating. Check’s analysis provides important insight into Carter’s failed environmental policy while demonstrating the lasting strength of patriotic appeals in environmental rhetoric. Collectively, these essays help us understand in part why inspiring action in the United States to address climate change has been so rhetorically difficult. The material reality of climate change challenges the bordered patriotism so much environmental action in the United States has depended on throughout history. These case studies suggest further movement might be made in tackling contemporary environmental concerns if such action could be tied to patriotism, citizenship, and nationhood.

The collection also provides insight into understudied but significant environmental thinkers, such as C. Brant Short’s essay on Sigurd Olson and the excellent study of Margaret E. Murie’s emotional appeals completed by Elizabeth Lawson. Others demonstrate the need for more attention to different types of rhetorical appeals, such as Katie Gibson’s look at Lois Gibbs’s ethic of care, Derek G. Ross’s examination of Edward Abbey’s construction of persona, and Ross Singer’s careful discussion of melodrama in his analysis of Robert F. Kennedy’s rhetoric.

A few essays fail to illustrate how new findings can be gleaned from shifting focus to orality. Richard D. Besel and Bernard K. Duffy’s...