ABSTRACT

Common topics and commonplaces help develop arguments and shape understanding. When used in argumentation, they may help interested parties more effectively communicate valuable information. The purpose of this edited collection on topics of environmental rhetoric is to fill gaps in scholarship related to specific, targeted, topical communication tactics. The chapters in this collection address four overarching areas of common topics in technical communication and environmental rhetoric: framing, place, risk and uncertainty, and sustainability. In addressing these issues, this collection offers insights for students and scholars of rhetoric, as well as for environmental communication practitioners looking for a more nuanced understanding of how topic-driven rhetoric shapes attitudes, beliefs, and decision-making.

chapter |21 pages

Introduction

part I|61 pages

Framing

chapter 1|18 pages

Proof and Fluid Topics

Topic-Driven Environmental Rhetoric in Modern Society

chapter 2|19 pages

Scientist as Hero, Technology as the Enemy

Commonplaces about Science in Environmental Discourses

chapter 3|22 pages

Granola-Eating, Birkenstock-Wearing Tree Huggers Who Want to Take Your Guns

Commonplaces of the Environmentalist

part II|62 pages

Place

chapter 4|19 pages

Climate Crisis Made Manifest

The Shift from a Topos of Time to a Topos of Place

chapter 5|19 pages

Victims “in” and Protectors “of” Appalachia

Place and the Common Topic of Protection in Missing Mountains: We Went to the Mountaintop, but It Wasn’t There

chapter 6|22 pages

Remembering the Alamo

Commonplaces in Texas Water Policy Arguments

part III|64 pages

Risk and Uncertainty

chapter 7|19 pages

Reconstituting Causality

Accident Reports as Posthuman Documentation

chapter 9|21 pages

Designing Doubt

The Tactical Use of Uncertainty in Hydraulic Fracturing Debates