\u3cem\u3eTestimony\u3c/em\u3e, \u3cem\u3eRefuge\u3c/em\u3e, and the Sense of Place: A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams

This interview with Terry Tempest Williams is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

Dominion, Dressing, Keeping

In this essay, David Sumner uses his experiences rafting on the Colorado River to juxtapose the Biblical notions of dressing and keeping with ethical environmentalism

Activism, Fly Fishing, and Fiction: A Conversation with David James Duncan

This interview with David James Duncan is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

That Could Happen : Nature Writing, the Nature Fakers, and a Rhetoric of Assent

Much has been made about the relationship between nature writing and science. The foundation of the genre is empirical observation of the more-than-human world. That’s not the whole of it, however. Because of the pairing of empiricism and other human experience, readers come to the genre with certain assumptions: they assume the text will tell them something independently verifiable about the object world--something they could see, hear, or touch if they were in the same location at the same time. They assume they are reading nonfiction, and for most readers, that distinction is important. Readers also come to nature writing with the hope that the writer will use imagination to help them see the world in a new way and possibly offer them a different and better relationship to the more-than-human sphere. If the proceeding is true, nature writing as a genre is unique, and we must ask: how should we read nonfiction nature writing? How does the nonfiction distinction change the relationship between the writer and the reader? The writer and the world? The reader and the world? In this article, Sumner argues that a rhetoric of assent is necessary when reading nature writers because nature writers are imaginatively exploring how we humans can establish a more ethical relationship with the more-than-human world

Facts, Shapes, Our Relationship with the Landscape: A Conversation with David Quammen

This interview with David Quammen is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

Nature Writing, American Literature, and the Idea of Community: A Conversation with Barry Lopez

This interview with Barry Lopez is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

\u3cem\u3eTestimony\u3c/em\u3e, Landscape and the West: A Conversation with Stephen Trimble

This interview with Stephen Trimble is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

Eco-terrorism or Eco-tage: An Argument for the Proper Frame

What does the term “terrorism” mean? Is it accurate to lump illegal acts that destroy property but carefully avoid harming people into the same category as acts clearly intended to kill? Is this a difference of kind or just of degree? While we (the authors) don\u27t generally endorse the destruction of property as a method of generating social change, we believe that the destruction of property is fundamentally different from the intentional killing of people; therefore, to label acts of obstruction, trespassing, vandalism, sabotage, or arson as “terrorism” is inaccurate and has the potential to damage one\u27s understanding of real acts of terrorism, thereby reducing the potency of the term. We started this project with a hunch. In recent years, we have observed frequent use of the term “eco-terrorism,” in the news media and in conversations, in reference to the acts of environmentalists. Our observations were anecdotal, and we wanted to be sure they were accurate. We found no literature analyzing cultural acceptance of the term “eco-terrorism”; therefore, before embarking on an ethical analysis of this phenomenon, we set out to confirm our casual observation that the term was widely used in the United States. We conducted an analysis of the use of the term in US newspapers across a period of nearly 11 years. Our analysis indicates broad acceptance of the term among both journalists and their sources, making it all the more important to understand both the history and the implications of labeling obstruction, trespassing, vandalism, sabotage, and arson as “eco-terrorism.

The Limits of Violence: People and Property in Edward Abbey’s “Monkeywrenching” Novels

This paper explores Edward Abbey’s fiction asking what kind of ethical imperative his monkeywrenching novels offer. While advocating the destruction of property in defense of wilderness, The Monkey Wrench Gang draws a clear ethical distinction between the destruction of property in defense of wilderness and the harming of people. Yet the sequel, Hayduke Lives!, blurs this ethical line when a security guard is killed during the novel’s final eco-sabotage scene. After exploring several possible textual explanations for this apparent change and then interviewing several of Abbey’s close friends regarding this issue, the author concludes that the shift does not represent a change in Abbey’s worldview, but rather a change in fictional circumstance.Este trabajo explora la ficción de Abbey cuestionando qué clase de imperativo ético ofrecen sus novelas “monkeywrenching”. Mientras aboga por la destrucción de la propiedad en defensa de la naturaleza, The Monkey Wrench Gang también traza una distinción ética clara entre la destrucción de la propiedad en defensa de la naturaleza y el daño a la gente. Pero la secuela, Hayduke Lives!, desdibuja esta línea cuando un guardia muere durante la escena final de eco-sabotaje de la novela. Tras explorar las diversas explicaciones textuales posibles para este cambio aparente, y después de entrevistar a varios amigos de Abbey en relación a este asunto, el autor concluye que la variación no representa un cambio en la visión del mundo de Abbey, sino más bien un cambio en las circunstancias de la ficción

Real-Time Energy Management for a Small Scale PV-Battery Microgrid: Modeling, Design, and Experimental Verification

A new energy management system (EMS) is presented for small scale microgrids (MGs). The proposed EMS focuses on minimizing the daily cost of the energy drawn by the MG from the main electrical grid and increasing the self-consumption of local renewable energy resources (RES). This is achieved by determining the appropriate reference value for the power drawn from the main grid and forcing the MG to accurately follow this value by controlling a battery energy storage system. A mixed integer linear programming algorithm determines this reference value considering a time-of-use tariff and short-term forecasting of generation and consumption. A real-time predictive controller is used to control the battery energy storage system to follow this reference value. The results obtained show the capability of the proposed EMS to lower the daily operating costs for the MG customers. Experimental studies on a laboratory-based MG have been implemented to demonstrate that the proposed EMS can be implemented in a realistic environment