The authors of Green Culture, Environmental Rhetoric in Contemporary America are Stuart C. Brown and Carl G. Herndl. Brown teaches rhetorical history and criticism at New Mexico State University. Herdl is an Associate Professor of English at New Mexico State University, specializing in discourse theory and cultural studies. The primary audience is most likely their academic peers in the field of rhetoric, more specifically those interested in the rhetoric of environmental texts.
Brown and Herndl do not define rhetoric in their own terms but through what they write about it and the definitions from other authors that they chose to include, they imply that an important part of their definition of rhetoric is they way it heavily influences how people perceive the world and how they act. The quote from Kenneth Burke describes rhetoric as a “technique of analysis of language and thought as basically modes of action rather than as means of conveying information” (Brown and Herndl, 10). Brown and Herndl seem to agree with his definition and go on to write “our understanding of the world comes through the symbols provided in our language” (Brown and Herndl, 10). In their implied definition of rhetoric, they emphasize that it is tied to action and it is the lens through which people understand the world.
One of the main arguments of the text is their proposal of a model to study environmental rhetoric with. They divide environmental work into three categories: Ethnocentric, Ecocentric, and Anthropocentric. Ethnocentric is a discourse for regulating nature as a resource, where ethos is particularly important. This includes discourses that are pro-environmental and anti-environmental policies. Ecocentric is a poetic discourse that emphasizes the value, beauty, spirituality, and emotional appeals of nature, pathos is important in this category. Anthropocentric is a discourse for scientifically analyzing nature with logos and data. The text’s purpose seems to be to inform people on how rhetoric impacts the way we talk about/see the environment and to inform people about their model for characterizing and studying different forms of environmental rhetoric. As an academic article, it most likely has a dual purpose of also persuading the audience that their model and insights into the environmental rhetoric field are important/valid.
Molly's Rhetoric Blog 
I really enjoy reading your analysis’s of the readings we complete. All of your blogs are dense and contain information that really shows you understand the text. This is something that at first I thought I had grasped, but the past few readings have been difficult for me. I really liked your concept of the definition of rhetoric in the piece. Although we now know it is wrong, I do agree with the fact that it appeared as if the authors’ definition of rhetoric was a combination or piggy-backed off of the various authors that were named. In addition, I liked your explanation on the main idea of the text. I do not know why, but this concept seemed to go right over my head. I do not know if it was the crowded space I was reading in or my lack of active reading in comparison to the other readings we have completed, but a lot of the definitions and points that we made in class today, seemed to be really clear in the text, but I seemed to have missed them.
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I’m not gonna lie, I had some trouble with this reading. I thought it was at least as hard as Edbauer if not harder, but I feel that this blog and our class discussions have cleared up a lot of questions I had with this text? I liked your description of environmental rhetoric and how complete it was. Even though we learned in class that your referenced idea of rhetoric in the reading was wrong, I like how detailed your post was and I could see why you chose that definition.
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I’m not gonna lie, I had some trouble with this reading. I thought it was at least as hard as Edbauer if not harder, but I feel that this blog and our class discussions have cleared up a lot of questions I had with this text? I liked your description of environmental rhetoric and how complete it was. Even though we learned in class that your referenced idea of rhetoric in the reading was wrong, I like how detailed your post was and I could see why you chose that definition.
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