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Issue 14.2 Abstracts

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Miscommunication during the Anthrax Attacks: How Events Reveal Organizational Failures

By Karen M. O'Neill, Jeff Calia, Caron Chess, and Lee Clarke

This study of the anthrax attacks of 2001 treats risk communication as a series of events that can be analyzed to discern the strengths and weaknesses of organizations charged with responding to emergencies. To investigate how organizational practices shape risk communication, we use a method developed primarily for comparative-historical case studies called event-structure analysis. We analyze events leading to false media reports of anthrax infections in one New Jersey town soon after an infection by a potentially lethal strain of anthrax was confirmed in a nearby postal facility. This analytic method highlights the failures of organizations to institutionalize public health practices, which allowed contingent events to determine risk messages and responses.

Keywords: risk communication, event-structure analysis, organizations, institutions, bioterrorism

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Thinking as Natural: Another Look at Human Exemptionalism

By Jerry Williams

In this analysis a largely unrecognized contradiction in environmental sociology is explored; on one hand as environmental sociologists we wish to see humans and their social systems as deeply connected to nature, but on the other hand we think of human consciousness as unique and somehow altogether different than the phenomena of the natural world. It is argued this contradiction comes from an uneven rejection of Enlightenment metanarrative. While we have been quite willing to reject the human exemptionalist vision of society as independent from nature, we have nevertheless been largely unwilling to reject the exemptionalist version of consciousness that comes to us from the Cartesian metaphor of the mind. A nonexemptionalist version of human consciousness is presented that places human thinking squarely within natural constraints.

Keywords: exemptionalism, dualism, Enlightenment metanarrative, phenomenology

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Examining the Potential Effects of Management Actions on Visitor Experiences on the Summit of Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park

By Steven D. Bullock and Steven R. Lawson

A high level of environmental concern is likely to be an important prerequisite of long-lasting pro-environmental behavior, and thus long-lasting decrease in environmental impact. However, several barriers hinder its establishment. This review essay aims to systematically summarize the most important of these barriers. The 21 barriers can be divided into two groups: one is related to the obtainment of information on environmental problems (subgroups: (1) direct, sensory obtainment of information and (2) the obtainment of mediated information), and the other is related to the mental appraisal processes concerning environmental problems (subgroups: the appraisal of (1) the severity and probability of the threat, (2) responsibility and affectedness and (3) coping). The accurate identification of the barriers hindering the rise of environmental concern is essential in removing or reducing them.

Keywords: environmental concern, environmental attitudes, environmental risk perception, pro-environmental behavior

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Diamond in the Rough: Reflections on Guns, Germs, and Steel

By Richard York and Philip Marcus

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1999 [1997]) (henceforth GGS ) may well be one of the most important books published in the final decade of the last century.  Winning numerous book awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, it has been translated into over two dozen languages, sold millions of copies worldwide, and has been the subject of a documentary produced by the National Geographic Society and broadcast on PBS.  The broad appeal of GGS , as with Diamond's previous book The Third Chimpanzee (1992) and his more recent book Collapse (2005), can be explained by its powerful and sweeping investigation into environmental history.  Undeniably, few other scholarly works have been as comprehensive in scope and as prominent in public recognition.

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The History of Fire in the Southern United States

By Cynthia Fowler and Evelyn Konopik

Anthropogenic fires have been a key form of disturbance in southern ecosystems for more than 10,000 years. Archaeological and ethnohistorical information reveal general patterns in fire use during the five major cultural periods in the South; these are Native American prehistory, early European settlement, industrialization, fire suppression, and fire management. Major shifts in cultural traditions are linked to significant transitions in fire regimes. A holistic approach to fire ecology is necessary for illuminating the multiple, complex links between the cultural history of the South and the evolution of southern ecosystems. The web of connections between history, society, politics, economy, and ecology are inherent to the phenomena of fire.

Keywords: fire, culture, Native Americans, US South

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Northern Inland West Land/Homeowner Perceptions of Fire Risk and Responsibility in the Wildland-Urban Interface

By Brad R. Weisshaupt, Pamela J. Jakes, Matthew S. Carroll, and Keith A. Blatner

The issue of sorting through who should bear responsibility for mitigating wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface of the northern Inland West was approached using focus groups. The groups were selected to reflect a variety of stakeholders in the study area population for whom interface issues are relevant. Most participants believed that current forest fuel conditions exist due to human alteration and that changes in forests and the interface are needed to mitigate wildfire risk. Overall the focus group members believed that the government has responsibility for managing forests under its control, but does not “owe” safety to the people who choose to live in the wildland-urban interface; most felt that homeowners must take greater responsibility for having defensible property in order to protect those responsible for wildland and wildfire management.

Keywords: wildland-urban interface, wildfire, homeowner responsibility, focus groups

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Improving Wildfire Preparedness: Lessons from Communities across the U.S.

By Pamela J. Jakes, Linda Kruger, Martha Monroe, Kristen Nelson, and Victoria Sturtevant

Communities across the U.S. have been taking action to adapt to the wildfire risk they face. In a series of case studies conducted in 15 communities, researchers identified and described four elements that form the foundation for community wildfire preparedness: landscape, government, citizens, and community.

Keywords: community preparedness, wildfire risk, mitigating risk, fuels reduction, rural communities

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Informing the Network: Improving Communication with Interface Communities during Wildland Fire

By Jonathan G. Taylor, Shana C. Gillette, Ronald W. Hodgson, Judith L. Downing, Michele R. Burns, Deborah J. Chavez, and John T. Hogan

An interagency research team studied fire communications that took place during different stages of two wildfires in southern California : one small fire of short duration and one large fire of long duration. This “quick-response” research showed that pre-fire communication planning was particularly effective for smaller fire events and parts of that planning proved invaluable for the large fire event as well. Information seeking by the affected public relied on locally convenient sources during the small fire. During the large fire, widespread evacuations disrupted many of the local informal communication networks. Residents' needs were for “real-time,” place-specific information: precise location, severity, size, and direction of spread of the fires. Fire management agencies must contribute real-time, place-specific fire information when it is most needed by the affected public, as they try to make sense out of the chaos of a wildland fire.  Disseminating fire information as broadly as possible through multiple pathways will maximize the probability of the public finding the information they need.

Keywords: fire, communication, wildland urban interface, quick response research, sense-making

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Context, Beliefs, and Attitudes toward Wildland Fire Management: An Examination of Residents of the Wildland-Urban Interface

By Alan D. Bright, Peter Newman, and Joshua Carroll

There are a number of benefits from wildland fire such as forest reproduction, habitat improvement, and reduction of threats from insects and diseases. However, along with these benefits are threats to human life, property and air quality. The trade-off between wildfire benefits and costs causes differences in public beliefs about fire management. We surveyed residents of the wildland-urban interface to determine the effects of contextual factors such as location of the forest, its primary use, wildfire history, and current fire conditions on acceptability of prescribed burning, mechanical thinning, and doing nothing. The current condition of the forest was the most important factor influencing support/opposition of management strategies for both individualists and non-individualists. The importance of forest proximity, wildfire history, and forest use depended on the management strategy under consideration and group. Results will help inform land managers in making fire management prescriptions and communicating with the public about those decisions.

Keywords: attitudes, beliefs, context, prescribed burning, mechanical thinning, values, wildland-urban interface

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Salient Value Similarity, Social Trust and Attitudes toward Wildland Fire Management Strategies

By Jerry J. Vaske, James D. Absher, and Alan D. Bright

We predicted that social trust in the USDA Forest Service would mediate the relationship between shared value similarity (SVS) and attitudes toward prescribed burning and mechanical thinning. Data were obtained from a mail survey (n = 532) of rural Colorado residents living in the wildland urban interface (WUI). A structural equation analysis was used to assess the mediation role of social trust. Results indicated that respondents shared the same values as USDA Forest Service managers, and trusted the agency to use prescribed burning and mechanical thinning effectively. As hypothesized, social trust fully mediated the relationship between salient value similarity and attitudes toward prescribed burning and mechanical thinning. As salient value similarity increased, social trust in the agency increased. As social trust increased, approval of prescribed burning and mechanical thinning increased. These findings reinforce the role of social trust in gaining public support for wildfire management and support prior SVS research suggesting that trust mediates the relationship between value similarity and attitudes.

Keywords: salient value similarity, trust, attitudes, wildland fire management

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Emotions and Sensemaking in Disturbance: Community Adaptation to Dangerous Environments

By Ronald W. Hodgson

When threatened with disaster, communities are faced with chaotic and threatening situations for which existing understandings provide no good explanations and established routines seem inadequate. A process is described here by which human understandings of dangerous environments and the risks of occupying them are socially reconstructed in the minds of the community following disaster or the credible threat of disaster. Those reconstructions may alter routines, changing how the community relates to its environment and, perhaps, change how well the community is adapted to the environment. Hypotheses are proposed predicting which of several competing reconstructions the community will adopt. Examples are described of how disaster managers might influence the reconstructions and, therefore, community adaptation to its environment.

Keywords: community, disaster, adaptation, sense making, emotions

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