Page 502 - Cultural Studies of Science Education

39 Ecodemocracy and School Science 477

of our “soul.” Then there is Chet Bowers who courageously publishes his work
for free on his web site without the refereed practice of publishing companies
(Mueller 2008). Some scholars will argue that this process is not legitimate and
avoids the rigor of academic scholarship. Bowers considers his work to be part of
a digital commons which provides more access for academics and others, similar to
the commons which was described in George Glasson’s ecojustice chapter on
Malawi. Glasson advocates his efforts on an accessible web site (http://www.mmp.
soe.vt.edu/index.html), similar to so many of us who use the Internet to dissemi-
nate ideas. But to what avail these ideas? Publishing articles and books on-line for
free and publishing a web site take many hours and yet they may not be rewarded
in the ways in which higher-status publications are rewarded. Have academics
only perpetuated the problem with higher-status works?
Additionally, there are conferences which cost upward of US$1,000 or more to
attend, unless they are regional or local state conferences (which again hold a lower
prestige for tenure). When there could be Internet options for telecommuting or for digi-
tal presentations, there aren’t. However, when these options are available, they privilege
individuals or communities with Internet access. Likewise, professional conferences are
often held at grandiose hotels with no expenses barred, plastic dinner plates and utensils,
and menus which offer foods that have been through many hands. As the meats and
seafood do not come with labels to tell if they have been treated in a humane way, or
whether they have been factory-farmed, ocean-farmed, or shipped hundreds of miles,
we have to assume they are foods obtained at the lowest cost to the hotel for the most
profit in sales. We have rarely, if ever, heard anyone who designs the infrastructure of
the conference complain. But lest you think we are picking on conferences, this
scenario, with few exceptions, unfolds when we eat at most restaurants, fast food estab-
lishments, or even at our university cafeterias. These practices beg the following set of
questions: Why are environmentalists traveling to these expensive conferences? Why
haven’t the impacts of these conferences been questioned? What do justice advocates
endorse when their names continue to appear in conference brochures? What practices
do hotels engage in that are forms of environmentalism? Why do environmentalists
rarely say anything about the influences of and impacts of food items? Often these
environmental issues are too difficult for cultural studies and environmental scholars to
reconcile with, and so they get de-emphasized or ignored at conferences such as the
North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE, with minor
exceptions), the American Educational Studies Association (AESA), the National
Science Teachers Association (NSTA, largest association for science teachers in the
USA) and more notoriously at the American Educational Research Association
(AERA) and the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST), to
name a few of the incessant and uninterrupted architects of eco-mentalism.

Is Eco/Environ/Mentalism So Bad?

On the other hand, if we can learn to live with absurdity, irrationality, irony, and
contradiction, there may be more to be gained than lost. If we learn to live with