How might critique respond to the urgency of climate change? : a challenge for environmental communication : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Scientists, journalists, politicians and academics regularly describe climate change as both urgent and a crisis. During times that demand urgent action academic disciplines, like communication, also need to take critique more seriously. In contrast to accepting the one-dimensional premise that crisis simply demands action, this thesis also proposes that crisis demands critique. Starting with an assessment of the current shape of critique and critical theories in environmental communication as a distinct sub-field of communications studies, this project addresses the broader prospect for critique by examining the work of four key scholars who have spent significant time addressing climate change. First, the study contrasts Peter Sloterdijk’s trilogy of books on spheres that highlights the spatiality of the humans living in an atmosphere, with his anthropotechnic work on how humans go beyond themselves through practice, training and other technologies. Next, the study examines the role of ecological crisis in the work of Slavoj Žižek with special emphasis on his theorising of climate change as one of four existential threats to the world, which necessitates a communist response. The third theorist, Timothy Morton, interrogates how ecological texts privilege the essentialised concept of nature and the subjectivity of the ‘beautiful soul’ in a manner that undermines the politics of adequately responding to climate crisis. Finally, the study considers Bruno Latour’s insights into how climate change is communicated when the tools of critique have been appropriated by those who seek to use doubt to prevent action. Bringing these theorists together, the study concludes by highlighting four key themes that add critical depth to discussions within environmental communication: the topics of anthropocentrism in the Anthropocene, the global scale of climate change, the role of communism in political responses, and the (mis)use of the concept of nature. The study ends by bringing these themes back to the sub-field of environmental communication, making a series of recommendations to renew the relationship of doubt and scepticism to critique

Reasentamiento de refugiados y activismo en Nueva Zelanda

La campaña Doing Our Bit lleva solicitando desde el año 2013 a Nueva Zelanda que duplique su cuota de refugiados de 750 plazas a 1500

Pākehā as Punisher: Dominated Conversations on Dominant Cultures

An reflection on the tendency of Pākehā to act as ‘punishers’ in conversation—people who monopolise conversation so much that the person being spoken to feels as if they’re enduring a punishment. &nbsp

Pity, Hate, Resentment, and the Left

This intervention argues that our understanding of negative emotions is underdeveloped due to the urge to expel negativity from the personal and political spheres. By invoking the antagonism of Chantal Mouffe’s philosophy, the article provides a conceptual grounding of pity, hate, and resentment by explaining these emotions based on whether the person feeling them sees the other as inferior, equal, or superior. For the Left, the intervention argues, a better understanding of these emotions will help people think through their own antagonisms, to counter accusations that all Left opposition is mere resentment, and to promote solidarity. Finally, the article seeks to hold open a space for a hatred that is neither pathologised nor eradicated. &nbsp

Welcome Home, Prodigy

Drawing from the author’s childhood confusion over whether ‘prodigal’ means profligate or prodigious, this intervention anticipates the politicisation of returning New Zealand citizens. Written during lockdown, the intervention contrasts predictions of a great repatriation and pundits’ nationalistic revelling in the country’s success at containing the virus with the history of the ‘coming home’ essay and song. Stephen’s argues for a pre-consideration of the emotional states that might be provoked by the returnee. That pre-consideration is aimed at drawing the returnee into the collective, not for the sake of an enlarged spirit of the nation, but for the advancement of Left collective action

Navigating Activism and Academia

An introduction to this special issue of Counterfutures on the relationship between activism and academia. &nbsp

After 15 March: Responses to the White-Supremacist Terrorist Attacks

For many of us who do not encounter forms of racial and religious hatred in daily life, the white-supremacist terrorist attacks of 15 March, which killed 51 people and injured 49 others at the Al-Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, were experienced as a traumatic blow seemingly from nowhere. Explaining and politically responding to the tragedy felt imperative, but collective grief, indignation, and empathy were quite rightly the most immediate feelings and responses in the weeks that followed. Here, writing from a Pākehā, non-Muslim perspective, we want to consider some of the wider explanatory and strategic questions that the Left must face in the wake of these attacks. &nbsp

Experimental Predictions of The Functional Response of A Freshwater Fish

The functional response is the relationship between the feeding rate of an animal and its food density. It is reliant on two basic parameters; the volume searched for prey per unit time (searching rate) and the time taken to consume each prey item (handling time). As fish functional responses can be difficult to determine directly, it may be more feasible to measure their underlying behavioural parameters in controlled conditions and use these to predict the functional response. Here, we tested how accurately a Type II functional response model predicted the observed functional response of roach Rutilus rutilus, a visually foraging fish, and compared it with Type I functional response. Foraging experiments were performed by exposing fish in tank aquaria to a range of food densities, with their response captured using a two-camera videography system. This system was validated and was able to accurately measure fish behaviour in the aquaria, and enabled estimates of fish reaction distance, swimming speed (from which searching rate was calculated) and handling time to be measured. The parameterised Type II functional response model accurately predicted the observed functional response and was superior to the Type I model. These outputs suggest it will be possible to accurately measure behavioural parameters in other animal species and use these to predict the functional response in situations where it cannot be observed directly

Efficient p-value estimation in massively parallel testing problems

We present a new method to efficiently estimate very large numbers of p-values using empirically constructed null distributions of a test statistic. The need to evaluate a very large number of p-values is increasingly common with modern genomic data, and when interaction effects are of interest, the number of tests can easily run into billions. When the asymptotic distribution is not easily available, permutations are typically used to obtain p-values but these can be computationally infeasible in large problems. Our method constructs a prediction model to obtain a first approximation to the p-values and uses Bayesian methods to choose a fraction of these to be refined by permutations. We apply and evaluate our method on the study of association between 2-way interactions of genetic markers and colorectal cancer using the data from the first phase of a large, genome-wide case–control study. The results show enormous computational savings as compared to evaluating a full set of permutations, with little decrease in accuracy

How predation and landscape fragmentation affect vole population dynamics

Background: Microtine species in Fennoscandia display a distinct north-south gradient from regular cycles to stable populations. The gradient has often been attributed to changes in the interactions between microtines and their predators. Although the spatial structure of the environment is known to influence predator-prey dynamics of a wide range of species, it has scarcely been considered in relation to the Fennoscandian gradient. Furthermore, the length of microtine breeding season also displays a north-south gradient. However, little consideration has been given to its role in shaping or generating population cycles. Because these factors covary along the gradient it is difficult to distinguish their effects experimentally in the field. The distinction is here attempted using realistic agent-based modelling. Methodology/Principal Findings: By using a spatially explicit computer simulation model based on behavioural and ecological data from the field vole (Microtus agrestis), we generated a number of repeated time series of vole densities whose mean population size and amplitude were measured. Subsequently, these time series were subjected to statistical autoregressive modelling, to investigate the effects on vole population dynamics of making predators more specialised, of altering the breeding season, and increasing the level of habitat fragmentation. We found that fragmentation as well as the presence of specialist predators are necessary for the occurrence of population cycles. Habitat fragmentation and predator assembly jointly determined cycle length and amplitude. Length of vole breeding season had little impact on the oscillations. Significance: There is good agreement between our results and the experimental work from Fennoscandia, but our results allow distinction of causation that is hard to unravel in field experiments. We hope our results will help understand the reasons for cycle gradients observed in other areas. Our results clearly demonstrate the importance of landscape fragmentation for population cycling and we recommend that the degree of fragmentation be more fully considered in future analyses of vole dynamics