Seeing Green

This “smart, highly readable book” examines how the iconography of environmentalism has help shape—and limit—popular discourse (American Studies).

American environmentalism is defined by its icons: from the “Crying Indian” who shed a tear over litter to Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth. These kinds of images helped make environmental consciousness central to American culture. And yet these same images obscured critical environmental truths. Finis Dunaway examines this dual role in Seeing Green.

Considering a wide array of images—from print magazines and television news to political posters and even cartoons—Dunaway shows how popular environmentalism has been entwined with mass media spectacles of crisis. He focuses on key moments in which media images provoked environmental anxiety while prescribing limited forms of action. Moreover, he shows how the media blamed individual consumers for environmental degradation and thus deflected attention from corporate and government responsibility.

Ultimately, Dunaway argues, iconic images have impeded efforts to realize—or even imagine—sustainable visions of the future. Generously illustrated, this innovative book examines both the history of environmentalism and the power of the media to shape our politics.