Melissa Aronczyk - A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism

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ISBN 9780190055356 (pbk.)

ISBN 9780190055349 (hbk.)

ISBN 9780190055370 (epub.)

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190055349.001.0001

This is a book about the conditions of knowledge in the making of the natural environment as a public problem. To ask what we know and how we know it is an inherently social project. It relies in every instance on the willingness of others to share their own knowledge and understanding. It is in this spirit of inquiry that we acknowledge with deep gratitude the public that came into existence around this book.

To Lee Edwards, Jeff Pooley, Devon Powers, Thomas Rudel, Chris Russill, and Tim Wood, who read the entire manuscript and provided such thoughtful and generous comments. To Monika Krause, for support and perspective. To Bob Brulle, for his mentorship and guidance along the twists and turns of the research path. To Jeff Alexander, Philip Smith, Fred Wherry, and the members of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University, who listened to and helped shape the earliest stirrings of this project.

To the librarians and archivists at the Rutgers and Yale libraries, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the Smithsonian Institution Archives for their expertise; to Jamie Corey, Mahogany Lore, and Jayde Valosin for dedicated research assistance; to James Cook, Emily Mackenzie, Jeremy Toynbee, and Patterson Lamb for their exceptional editorial guidance; and to Kimberly Glyder for her stunning cover design.

To the many PR people, lobbyists, consultants, administrative and political officials, communications managers, industry representatives, nonprofit leaders, environmental advocacy groups, government agencies, activists, organizers, and media companies who allowed us to speak with and learn from them. To our families, who supported this project in more ways than they know.

To the National Science Foundation, whose funding made this project possible; and the School of Communication & Information and the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University for giving us additional resources, including the gift of time, to support this work.

Perhaps our greatest debt is owed to the public relations counselor E. Bruce Harrison (19322021). It is a complex debt, and not one that can be easily untangled. Harrison was a brilliant strategist who worked with hundreds of industrial and political leaders as well as journalists and media organizations from the 1960s through the early 2000s. Starting in February, 2017, after his immediate response to a tentative email request, we maintained a semi-regular correspondence until ill health befell him in 2020. In our visits together, our lunches, his introductions to old friends and allies, his emails and letters, he was unfailingly gracious and charming. His decision to share his company library with usa total of over 850 documents spanning his fifty-year careerwas at once an act of tremendous generosity and a personal desire to be remembered for his role in what he called sustainable communicationthe greening of industry through expert PR. Without him, this book could not have been written.

But without him, we also wonder whether the contemporary crisis of global warming would have become so dire. Advancing communication, rather than environmental action, as the locus of sustainability, Harrison showed relentless determination to protect and promote his clientsmajor polluters and environmental rule-breakers in the most contentious industries in the world, from oil and coal to tobacco and pesticides. His work has contributed in no small way to the misplaced belief in private sector strategies to solve the climate crisis despite daily indications of the failure of these strategies to do much besides promote themselves.