Joe Smith

Demanding stories: television coverage of sustainability, climate change and material demand

This paper explores the past, present and future role of broadcasting, above all via the medium of television, in shaping how societies talk, think about and act on climate change and sustainability issues. The paper explores these broad themes via a focus on the important but relatively neglected issue of material demand and opportunities for its reduction. It takes the outputs and decision-making of one of the worlds most influential broadcasters, the BBC, as its primary focus. The paper considers these themes in terms of stories, touching on some of the broader societal frames of understanding into which they can be grouped. Media decision-makers and producers from a range of genres frequently return to the centrality of ‘story’ in the development, commissioning and production of an idea. With reference to specific examples of programming, and drawing on interviews with media practitioners, the paper considers the challenges of generating broadcast stories that can inspire engagement in issues around climate change, and specifically material demand. The concluding section proposes actions and approaches that might help to establish material demand reduction as a prominent way of thinking about climate change and environmental issues more widely. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Material demand reduction’.

Putting sustainability in place: sustainable communities projects in Huntingdonshire

The rhetoric of sustainable development has become the accepted response to the environmental challenges faced by contemporary society. As the concept becomes more widely accepted amongst politicians, policy-makers and the public, attention is increasingly focusing on the relative roles and responsibilities of citizens and consumers, individuals and institutions, and local and national spaces, in translating these into practical actions. This paper offers a critical assessment of a significant UK government initiative aimed at promoting sustainable communities. It charts the course of one of five pilot Sustainable Communities Projects around the country, set up by Going for Green. This national body was set up by the government to generate environmental improvements by encouraging individual actions. The paper suggests that, in the absence of national policies that motivate and enable changes in individual behaviour, a centralized marketing-based approach is a wholly inappropriate means of promoting envir...

Out of the woods and into the lab: exploring the strange marriage of American woodcraft and Soviet ecology in Czech environmentalism

It is widely assumed that modern environmentalist thinking was imported into post-communist states such as the Czech Republic post 1989. This paper shows these countries had environmental traditions of their own. From its inception in the late 1950s Czech environmentalism was concerned with nature conservation and youth education. At the core of its pedagogy was a concern to educate about and in nature, following the woodcraft and scouting tradition. But formal educational experiences were also significant. Environmental problems were framed as exclusively scientific issues by communist higher education systems. Thus, Czech environmentalism was a blend of the officially sanctioned rational and scientific perception of environmental issues and a more independent romanticising undercurrent. We show how Czech post-war environmental politics blended Soviet ecology with covert references to the mythology of American West, the virtues of pristine nature and of individual freedom. This heritage allowed Czech environmentalism to adapt to both communist and capitalist systems. However, it also meant it was not equipped to deliver a strategic or systematic critique of either. Our research helps to explain the surprisingly muted role of environmentalism in post-communist politics, and confirms the importance of nuanced and culturally specific analyses of the history of environmental politics.