Click the link above. This "book" is like a textbook and is a fantastic resource for nearly every topic we will worry about in the class.... I would see if you can check this out from a library or find it at half price books...
http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Under-Siege-Pollution-Global/dp/0195142748
Click the link above. This "book" is like a textbook and is a fantastic resource for nearly every topic we will worry about in the class.... I would see if you can check this out from a library or find it at half price books...
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Google books: Using the twice-damaged Prince William Sound in Alaska as his stage, nature and science writer Jeff Wheelwright describes what happens to the environment after a catastrophic assault how scientists try to measure the changes and how it is that nature reels and adapts. What happens to wilderness ecosystems when they are struck by environmental disaster? Prince William Sound has experienced two events in the past quarter-century, the 9.2 earthquake of 1964 and the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. Both the natural and manmade disasters are extreme examples of disturbances, and Wheelwright, in this rich ecological history of the Sound, provides many lesser examples. He shows that a healthy natural system is constantly in flux. Animal populations rise and fall; variability and patchiness are the rule. The factors that cause biological change are numerous and overlapping and often can't be sorted out in spite of the best efforts of scientists. But an ecosystem such as Prince William Sound readily recovers from disturbances in part because the disturbances are so routine. In the case of the oil spill, Wheelwright starts with the physical fate of hydrocarbons when they are released in the sea. He explains how scientists tracked the oil through its various marine transformations. He analyzes the shoreline cleanup program, showing how the cleanup was itself a disturbance and yet inferior to the natural cleansing by waves and weather. He appraises the biological effects of hydrocarbons on a range of organisms: from human exposure to oil, through that of seabirds, mammals, fish and invertebrates in the Sound, and lastly to the bacteria stimulated at the base of the food chain. Throughout Wheelwright illuminates the gap between the scientists' measurements of change and the public's understanding of disaster. Wheelwright gives special attention to the sea otter, the most appealing creature of the Sound. He recounts the otter's history, its shocking losses from the oil spill, the rescue efforts on its behalf, and the animal's innate resilience. In an imaginative counterpoint, he compares the sea otter's response to disaster to that of the Native people of the area. Degrees of Disaster is a brilliant and moving account of a natural world, of the humans and animals inhabiting it, and of the struggle to fathom its complexities. Amazon.com: Michael Shnayerson first traveled to the coal fields four years ago, on assignment for Vanity Fair. There he met an inspiring young lawyer named Joe Lovett, who was fighting mountaintop removal in court with a series of brilliant and daring lawsuits. He also met Judy Bonds, whose grassroots group, the Coal River Mountain Watch, was speaking out in a region where talking truth to power was both brave and dangerous. The two had joined forces to take on Massey Energy, the largest and most aggressive of the coal companies, and its swaggering, notorious chairman, Don Blankenship. Coal River is Shnayerson's account of this dramatic struggle. From courtroom to boardroom, forest clearing to factory floor, Shnayerson gives us a novelistic and compelling portrait of the people who risked their reputations and livelihoods in the fight against King Coal. From Barnes and Noble website: "From the shuttered factories of the Rust Belt to the strip malls of the Sun Belt - and almost everywhere in between - America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little-examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time - an engine of instability in an increasingly unsettled world. Our fixation on low price has also fueled a surfeit of consumption that threatens our health, imperils our environment, lowers our standard of living, and even skews our concept of time." Low price is so alluring that we have forgotten how thoroughly we once distrusted it. Ellen Ruppel Shell traces the birth of the bargain as we know it from the industrial revolution to the assembly line to discount retailers and beyond. Cheap spotlights colorful characters from F. W. Woolworth to Gene Ferkauf, whose E. J. Korvette discount chain helped wean customers away from traditional notions of value. The rise of the chain store in postwar America led us to favor convenience over quality, and big-box retailers completed our reeducation by making us prize low price in the way we once prized durability and craftsmanship Children in Woburn, Massachusetts are getting sick - terribly sick. When Anne Anderson discovers that her three-year old son has leukemia, she embarks on a quest for its cause, only to discover what constitutes a childhood leukemia cluster in her small town just north of Boston. One common environmental factor for all of these children is the water, pumped from Wells G and H, which has been a subject of complaint and controversy for some time, due to foul odor, taste, and color. Anne's research eventually evolves into a civil suit, on the part of many affected families, against two large corporations, Beatrice Foods and Grace Chemical, with the contention that they have contaminated the wells with a carcinogen, specifically trichloroethylene (TCE).
Author Jonathan Harr traces the course of this civil action through the history of corporate dumping activities, backgrounds of all parties, the discovery and deposition phases, the trial itself, the verdict and, ultimately, settlement negotiations and appeals. Most of the story is recounted through the eyes of Jan Schlichtmann, attorney for the plaintiffs. He chronicles his time-consuming, laborious and horribly expensive preparation for what he believes will be a landmark case, sending a message to corporate boardrooms and netting the plaintiffs and himself huge compensatory and punitive damage awards. To this end, Schlichtmann spends over two million dollars for medical and geological reports and documents, employing experts at each phase of trial preparation. Defense lawyers, however, are focused on maneuvers to detract and ultimately thwart the proceedings, often successfully doing so. **this was made into a movie in 1998. ***It is kind of like Erin Brockovich-esque... |
Thinking GloballyHere you will find synopses of the books or documentaries from your summer assignment. (Some will even be used throughout the year!) **note: these synopses have been hijacked from reviewer sites to give you a brief overview. The views expressed are not my own and do not substitute you reading/viewing the materials. Archives
March 2015
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