Rhetorical Traction: Definitions and Institutional Arguments in Judicial Opinions About Wilderness Access

Almost every spring for the past eight years, I made a phone call to Maryland in order to get into Minnesota. An office in Maryland houses the reservation system for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a one-million acre preserve in the northeastern tip of Minnesota that is the most visited unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System. This office acts as a medium of and barrier to my access to the Wilderness; it issues permits to groups of people wishing to enter the Boundary Waters, and it limits the number of parties that may enter at a given point on a particular day. Although the Wilderness is public land, I must first gain permission from a state institution to enter the Boundary Waters

Juxtaposition in Environmental Health Rhetoric: Exposing Asbestos Contamination in Libby, Montana

This essay argues that juxtaposition is an important rhetorical convention for overcoming uncertainty and institutional inertia in relation to environmental health hazards. The essay illustrates the rhetorical dynamics of this convention in the public discourse that exposed the problem of asbestos contamination in Libby, Montana, and contends that the dichotomous moral framing of this problem was an effective and morally appropriate example of “ecospeak.