Condemned by the international community for refusing to ratify the Kyoto Accords, rendered powerless by electricity blackouts, and stricken by the Hurricane Katrina disaster,
the United States of America is today embroiled in a storyof environmental controversy and catastrophe. Centre scholars explore to what extent the USA has been ‘inviting doomsday’ throughout the modern (20th century) period by their work on issues as diverse as national park service wildlife management, nuclear and post-nuclear landscapes, and environmental catastrophe in the American West.

The Centre team are also interested in collaborative and non-US environmental topics, and recently published a study of the global park movement.

'Roping Gray Wolf,' Wyoming (1887) Library of Congress

Cluster Members & Individual Interests:

Dr Karen Jones (History) - Animals (especially the wolf); nature writers; the US National Park Service; environmental issues in the American West; park landscapes

Dr John Wills (History) - Diablo Canyon & California nuclear protest; artificial life, landscapes and virtual nature; the Grand Canyon and burros; ideas about environmental doomsday; Santa Barbara Oil Spill; park landscapes