Integrative Seminar in Environmental
Studies, Spring 2008, O'Donnell
[ Policies ] [ Calendar ] [ Readings ]
Readings
last update: April
15, 2008
This page contains various readings of interest. Most of these are not required reading for the course. See "calendar" above for reading assignments.
A. News
- 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
- "Coal Boss: If You Take Photos, You're Liable to Get Shot." ABC News. Massey Energy president Don Blankenship threatens cameramen in parking lot. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4582452&page=1
The incident took place as ABC News sought to ask Blankenship questions for a report to be broadcast Monday, April 7, on ABC News' "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline." Blankenship has raised questions by vacationing in the French Riviera with one West VA State Supreme Court Justice, after buying the seat for another one, while decisions involving his company are before the court.
- Hillary Clinton Equivocates on Mountaintop-Removal Mining. David Roberts' blog at the Huffington Post website. Posted March 19, 2008. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-roberts/hillary-clinton-equivocat_b_92455.html
- 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
B. Miscellaneous
- ETSU Environmental
Studies Minor. Info about events on campus this semester.
- "Mountain Justice Spring
Break," a website about a spring break program in Virginia, March 1-9,
sponsored by the Southern Energy Network.
<www.climateaction.net/mjsb>
- "We need your help to
prevent Dominion from building a coal-fired power plant in Wise County,
Virginia: Why Should I Care?"
An anonymous, undated blog posting that is very information. Approx. date: January 2008.
http://simplybrandy.livejournal.com/114149.html
- Business
Lobby Presses Agenda Before '08 Vote, by Robert Pear, New York Times
online, December 2, 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/washington/02lobby.html
- "Deconstructing
Dinner" [review of M. Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma] by David
Kamp, New York Times online, April 23, 2006.
- Our
oceans are turning into plastic...are we? b
C. Climate Change
"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
- "Bush
kills off hopes for G8 climate change plan." The Guardian
newspaper online, Manchester, England. Friday June 1 2007.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/01/usnews.climatechange
- 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
D. Coal and Mountaintop Removal
"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
- Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UofmDWd3XeE This short clip from Bill Moyers' PBS special
"Is God Green?" gives you a brief glimpse of Massey Coal Company's
CEO Don Blankenship.
- "Mountaintop
Rescue" [editorial on mountaintop removal], NY Times, March 29, 2007
- "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.
- 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 the Reece museum last March.
Zeb Mountain:
- Southwings. This
Asheville-based nonprofit consortium of pilots flies people over mountaintop
removal sites in southern Appalachia, as a form of "aerial education"
about the impacts of mining.
- Litigation
Update: Zeb Mountain in Tennessee, Appalachian Voices, February 2, 2007
- Tennessee
Coal Road Blocked to Protest Mountaintop Removal Mining, Environmental News
Service, August 15, 2005
- Zeb Mountain Mining May
Continue, Federal Court Says, ConstructionEquipmentGuide.com, March 15,
2005
- Zeb
mountain photos, from a 2005 flyover. From
UnitedMountainDefense.org. "United Mountain Defense" is a group
organized to promote a ban on mountaintop removal in Tennessee.
- 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
- The
Return of King Coal: Destructive Mining on Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau Makes
a Comeback, by Lisa Robbins, Nashville Scene, June 8, 2006.
- See You in the
Mountains: Katuah Earth First! Confronts Mountaintop Removal, by John
Conner, Earth First! Journal, Vol. 25, Issue 1 (no date).
- 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.