| Environmental grassroots activists in Puerto Rico utilize rhetorical strategies that expedite the accomplishment of their environmental goals. They use international, national, local, and personal rhetorical resources in order to create awareness about the issues and involve audiences in their efforts to protect Puerto Rico's landscapes, natural resources, and quality of life from environmental degradation and destruction. Environmentalists utilize appeals to identity in order to gain cooperative social action from their audiences and shift the grounds of their arguments based on the contingencies of the particular situation demonstrating how environmental rhetoric is shaped by the historical moment, the available rhetorical resources, and the creativity and imagination of the activist rhetorician. Alexis Massol and Rosa Hilda Ramos are two environmental activists who draw upon the international discourses of green radicalism, international conservationism, and environmental justice as the basis for rhetorical appeals to protect critical habitats in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, and human health in Catano, Puerto Rico. They base their arguments upon Puerto Rican nationalism, culture, ethnicity, and empirical facts about the effects of strip mining for copper and urban pollution on local cultures, health, and lifestyles in order to conserve Puerto Rico's patrimony for multi generational sustainability and create social change in Puerto Rico. |
