Readings and Resources
for the Environmental Studies Minor
last update: Oct 22, 2009

Comments? Suggestions for further reading? Please email Dr. Kevin O'Donnell, Professor of English, director of Environmental Studies minor, at odonnell@etsu.edu

Recent Items of Interest (Oct 2009)

- "Poll: US belief in global warming is cooling." Associated Press, Thurs Oct 22, 2009. news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_re_us/us_climate_poll

- "Climate Cover-Up: A (Brief) Review." Oct 20, 2009. Posted at realclimate.org, a blog run by "working climate scientists." This post lists details about the "climate change disinformation campaign" pursued by powerful business interests.

- The Sky's Not Falling!: Why It's Ok to Chill About Global Warming. By Holly Fretwell. World Ahead Publishing (September 18, 2007). A children's book written by a research associate of the Property and Environment Research Center, a think tank funded by ExxonMobil.

- Toxic Waters: A series about the worsening pollution in American waters and regulators' response. New York Times, 2009. The first report in the series, "Pollution Grows with Little Fear of Punishment," appeared Saturday, Sep 12, 2009. projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters

- At "Friends of America" Rally, Holden West Virginia, Labor Day 2009: Ted Nugent. Don Blankenship.

- Verizon sponsors climate-change-denying mountaintop-removal rally? August 29, 2009. www.grist.org/article/2009-08-29-verizon-sponsors-climate-change-denying-mountaintop-removal/

- "EPA To Review New Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Permits." SustainableBusiness.com 09/14/2009. www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/18869

A. Climate Change

- COP 15 (the 15th Conference of the Parties [COP 15] to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 5th Meeting of the Parties [COP/MOP 5] to the Kyoto Protocol). Copenhagen, Denmark, December 7-18, 2009.

- Capitol Climate Action, March 2, 2009--Mass Civil Disobedience at the Coal Fired Capitol Power Plant, Washington DC

- "RealClimate: Climate Science from Climate Scientists," a web site maintained by a group of scientists. http://www.realclimate.org/.

- Obama targets greenhouse gases, fuel efficiency. By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer. Jan 26, 2009.

- Catholic Coalition on Climate Change website: www.catholicsandclimatechange.org

- Obama Appoints Climate Change Experts, from Associated Press, December 20, 2008.

- Wendell Berry and Bill McKibben Call for Mass Civil Disobedience Against Coal. Posted by Michael Brune, December 12, 2008, at Huffingtonpost.com, a site for liberal bloggers.

- Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants, by Michelle Nichols. Reuters, Wednesday Sep 24, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE48N78A20080924

- The Columbia Journalism Review's Division Over Dissent: Is global warming now beyond debate? By Ron Rosenbaum. Slate.com, online magazine. Posted Friday, Aug. 8, 2008

- Denying Global Warming with John Stossel. By Lisa Chiu. July 31, 2008. Comments and video posted at the blog site for the Center for Public Integrity

- Bark Beetles Kill Millions of Acres of Trees in West, by Jim Robbins, NY Times, Nov 17, 2008

- "Yes We Can." Bob Herbert. New York Times July 19, 2008. Columnist comments on Al Gore's plan for America to shift to renewable energy. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/opinion/19herbert.html

- "Arctic Melt Unnerves the Experts," by Andrew C. Revkin. New York Times online. October 2, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/earth/02arct.html

- "‘Averting Our Eyes’: James Hansen’s New Call for Climate Action," a statement by Hansen, a NASA scientist, along with reporting and commentary by NY Times blogger Andrew C. Revkin. NY Times online, November 28, 2007, http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/averting-our-eyes-james-hansens-new-call-for-climate-action/index.html

- "Beware! Tree-Huggers Plot Evil to Save World," a review of Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear (2004) by Michiko Kakutani
- The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming. Novelist Michael Crichton's speech before the National Press Club, Washington DC, January 25, 2005. http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-ourenvironmentalfuture.html

- Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming. By Mark Bowen. Dutton, 2007.

- Climate Panel Says Immediate Change Is Necessary, by Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times online, November 18, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/science/earth/18climatenew.html

- Competitive Enterprise Institute, "We Call it Life", a 2006 ad campaign "focusing on the alleged global warming crisis."
- Exxonsecrets.org.  A website, established by Greenpeace, which documents the oil-company funding of "junk science" designed to create public skepticism about global warming.
- "Gore Derangement Syndrome," op-ed column by Paul Krugman, The New York Times online, October 15, 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html
- Gore Warns Congress of ‘Planetary Emergency’ by Felicity Barringer and Andrew Revkin.  NY Times March 22, 2007  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/washington/22gore.html
- "Has the White House interfered on global warming reports? A new report claims that the Bush administration has suppressed scientists' climate-change work," by Peter N. Spotts, The Christian Science Monitor [online], Wednesday January 31, 2007.
- "Planet Gore," a blog by global warming skeptcis at National Review online, http://planetgore.nationalreview.com

- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism), by Christopher C. Horner, of the Competetive Enterprise Institute.

- Review of "An Inconvenient Truth," a brief notice written by David Denby for the New Yorker, June 2006
- A Skeptic's Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism, by U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), former chair of the Environment & Public Works Committee. 2006. http://epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=266711

- "Step It Up (Communities Uniting for Climate Action Now!)", stepitup2007.org, website of an organization Bill McKibben is involved with, promoting this April 14 as a national climate action day.
- "U.K. Judge Rules Gore's Climate Film Has 9 Errors," by Mary Jordan, Washington Post Foreign Service, Friday, October 12, 2007; Page A12

- "World Scientists Near Consensus on Warming," by James Kanter and Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times, January 30, 2007

B. Energy, Mountaintop Removal Mining in Appalachia, and the Cost of Coal

- Mining the Mountains: Explosives and giant machines are destroying Appalachian peaks to obtain coal. In a tiny West Virginia town, residents and the industry fight over a mountain's fate. By John McQuaid. Smithsonian magazine, January 2009.

- Blowing away King Coal: Can a scrawny young wind-power activist topple the biggest, dirtiest industry in West Virginia? By Jeff Biggers. Salon.com, Jan 29, 2009

- Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future. By Jeff Goodell. Houghton Mifflin, 2006

- "Coal Company Hit With E.P.A.’s Largest Civil Penalty [about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy]" by Ian Urbina, NY Times online, January 17, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/17cnd-mine.html

- Coal Industry Plugs Into the Campaign, by Steven Mufson, Washington Post, Friday, January 18, 2008; Page D01; online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702837.html

- Coal River: How a Few Brave Americans Took on a Powerful Company--and the Federal Government--to Save the Land They Love," Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

- "Death of a Mountain: Radical Strip Mining and the Leveling of Appalachia."  Erik Reece.  Harper's Magazine, April 2005: 41-60.  [Reece made that article into Lost Mountain -- a Year in the Vanishing Wilderness: Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia, New York: Riverhead (Penguin), 2006.  Click here for a review by Ira Boudway, Feb 15, 2006 Salon.com
- The Government Sanctioned Bombing of Appalachia, by Antrim Caskey, AlterNet.org, Tuesday 09 October 2007.
- Gray Acres: Up Close and Personal with East Tennessee's Coal Mining Industry, by Leslie Wyle, from Knoxville's "Metro Pulse." No date.  Posted Feb 6, 2007 at ilovemountains.org
- Litigation Update: Zeb Mountain in Tennessee, Appalachian Voices, February 2, 2007

- The Long Emergency: What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle? by James Howard Kunstler, Rolling Stone Magazine, online, Mar 24, 2005

- Mountains Into Molehills [review of Michael Shnayerson's book, "Coal River"], by Timothy Eagan, NY Times, online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Egan-t.html
- "Mountaintop Rescue" [editorial on mountaintop removal], NY Times, March 29, 2007
- "The Rape of Appalachia [Department: Politics and Power]," by Michael Shnayerson. Vanity Fair, May 2006

- The Return of King Coal: Destructive Mining on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau Makes a Comeback, by Lisa Robbins, Nashville Scene, June 8, 2006.
- Tennessee Coal Road Blocked to Protest Mountaintop Removal Mining, Environmental News Service, August 15, 2005
- Under Mined: When a flood of toxic mining sludge wreaked havoc in Appalachia, how did the White House respond? By letting the coal company off the hook and firing the whistleblower. By Clara Bingham. Washington Monthly January/ February 2005. The "whistleblower" of the title is Jack Spadaro, who spoke at ETSU's Reece museum on March 21, 2007.

- Wall Street shows skepticism over coal: Banks push utilities to plan for impact of emissions caps. By Jeffrey Ball, Wall Street Journal, Feb 4 2008. Posted at Money Web, http://www.moneyweb.co.za/mw/view/mw/en/page94, accessed Feb 5 2008.

- Zeb Mountain Mining May Continue, Federal Court Says, ConstructionEquipmentGuide.com, March 15, 2005

C. Dominion Coal-Fired Power Plant in Wise Co, VA

- Power plant is ground zero in battle of energy vs. environment [about proposed Dominion Power coal-fired plant in Wise Co.]. By Scott Harper. The Virginian-Pilot, June 22, 2008. http://hamptonroads.com/2008/06/power-plant-ground-zero-battle-energy-vs-environment

- An End To Mountaintop Removal Mining? By Debra McCown, reporter / Bristol Herald Courier, August 11, 2008.

http://www.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/an_end_to_mountaintop_removal_mining/12545/

- Dominion breaks ground for power plant in Wise, by Stephen Igo, Kingsport Times-News, August 14, 2008.

http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9007688

- Opposition To Dominion Power Plant Remains Strong, letter to the editor, by Kathy Selvage, August 19, 2008.

http://www.tricities.com/tri/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/article/opposition_to_dominion_power_plant_remains_strong/12864/

- Restore Power to the People, by R. G. Sawdon, Saturday, 23 August 2008.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1530742/restore_power_to_the_people/

D. News--Various Topics

- "While Detroit Slept," by Thomas L. Friedman, Dec. 9, 2008, NY Times online. [Op-Ed columnist talks about new electric car business models that will replace the gas-burning automobile model, on the eve of auto industry bailout.] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/opinion/10friedman.html

- EPA to gut mountaintop mining rule that protects streams. By Renee Schoof and Bill Estep. McClatchy Newspapers. Tuesday, December 2, 2008. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/56921.html

- Rainforest Action Network: Bank of America Decision to Stop Funding Mountaintop Removal a Victory for Appalachia and Anti-Coal Movement. Press Release from RAN, posted Thurs Dec 4, 2008, at the International Business Times website.

http://www.ibtimes.com/mining/prarticles/20081204/rainforestaction-boa.htm

- "An open letter to Al Gore: Speak now against the rape of Coal River Mountain." Grist: Environmental News and Commentary. Posted by Jeff Biggers (Guest Contributor) at 11:43 PM on 24 Nov 2008.

- Thoreau Is Rediscovered as a Climatologist, by Cornelia Dean, NY Times, Oct 27, 2008

- Nuclear Scare: How Close Did Sweden Come to Disaster? By Philip Bethge and Sebastian Knauer. Spiegel International, August 7, 2006 [an analysis of the incident at the Forsmark 1 nuclear power plant, which was featured in the film, "The Nuclear Comeback," screened at ETSU on Oct 21, 2008]

- Editorial: More Sadness for Appalachia--The Bush administration is writing one more sad chapter in the long, tortured history of Appalachia’s coal-rich hills. New York Times, October 21, 2008

- Candidates agree on mountaintop removal, by Ken Ward Jr., Charleston [West Virginia] Gazette, September 21, 2008. http://www.wvgazette.com/News/200809200519

- "And Then There Was One." [Op-ed piece comparing Obama and McCain on environmental issues important to college students.] By Thomas Friedman. New York Times, September 2, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/opinion/03friedman.html

- Last salvos fired in TVA trial: Vow to cut emissions isn't enough, N.C. says, by Anne Paine, Tennesseean.com, July 31, 2008

- Congressmen fly over mountaintop mining sites, by Cassondra Kirby-Mullins. Lexington Herald-Leader. July 26, 2008.

- "Crossing the Line for Zeb Mountain" [4 people arrested in anti-mtr protest in East Tennessee]. Mon July 21, 2008. Facing South [Duke U Institute for Southern Studies].

- Gore sets 'moon shot' goal on climate change, by Ron Fournier, Associated Press, Thurs July 17,

- State tax money pays for coal industry's mining promotion, by John Cheves, Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader, May 15 2008. http://www.kentucky.com/776/story/405369.html State tax dollars pay for industry claims that mountaintop removal is good for the environment.

- Senate OKs new coal-mining rules; House panel could consider reversing earlier vote to kill bill. By Tom Humphrey. Knoxnews.com [Knoxville TN]. Thursday, April 17, 2008. http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/apr/17/senate-oks-new-coal-mining-rules/

- Global warming has a new battleground: coal plants. By Judy Pasternak. Los Angeles Times.

April 14, 2008. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-coalwars14apr14,0,5565145.story

- Friends of the Earth Press Release. Clinton, Obama Coal Comments Criticized by Environmental Group. Presidential candidates’ parroting of coal industry talking points raise questions about their commitment to clean energy; Clinton even equivocates on mountaintop removal. March 20, 2008. http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0320-07.htm

E. Miscellaneous

- Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we? by Susan Casey.  Online, from Best Life Magazine, Feb 20, 2007. http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/health-fitness/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we_2.shtml