Category: News

WANTED: Graduate Candidate interested in Environmental Communication

Seeking a student interested in pursuing the MS in Technical Communication in the research area of Environmental Communication.

The research is centered on the role of citizen participation in shaping Superfund remedies at various sites in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin of Montana (“America’s Largest Superfund Site”). Tasks may include oral interviews of participants; reading and summarizing relevant literature; rhetorical analysis of risk communication; and reading, classification, and coding of archival documents and interview transcripts.

The Department of Professional & Technical Communication offers the MS degree in Technical Communication. For more information on admissions requirements, the curriculum, and the faculty, please see the department website at http://www.mtech.edu/hss/ptc/grad_program.html .

If interested, please email me directly with a letter of interest and a resume to pmunday@mtech.edu.

Thank you,

Professor Pat Munday, PhD
Technical Communication Department
Montana Tech
Butte  MT  59701

Press Release from Montana Tech

Soon after settling in Butte in 1990, Montana Tech professor and environmental historian Pat Munday became interested and involved in Superfund issues. For many years, he worked with groups such as the Clark Fork River Technical Assistance Committee and Trout Unlimited to promote remedies protective of human and environmental health. Now that the remedies, or Records of Decision, have been completed on most sites in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin, it’s time to step back and examine Superfund as a social and political process.

“As America’s largest Superfund site, this is a story the nation needs to know,” Munday explains. The National Science Foundation agrees, and has awarded Munday a two-year grant to study the role of citizens in shaping Superfund remedy at several sites in the upper Clark Fork. The grant is a Science & Society Scholar Award, and will also support a graduate research assistant in the Technical Communication master’s program.

“Once remedies are implemented, the total cost of Superfund in this area will far exceed one billion dollars,” Munday said. “The sheer amount of money is just one indicator of how hard citizens, grassroots organizations, and activist scientists worked to try and persuade the Environmental Protection Agency and ARCO-British Petroleum to do the right thing.” In his study, Munday will compare the relative effectiveness of citizens in shaping remedy at major sites such as Milltown Dam, Anaconda Community Soils, and Butte Priority Soils. His thesis is that public participation works, with the extent of public participation more or less correlating with the quality of clean-up.

Literary Sources relevant to Envirotechies

Joy Parr put out a call for tips about relevant literary sources for envirotechies earlier this year. These are a few of the submissions. Hopefully we can expand on this list later.

Pat Munday suggested the following titles:

Abbey, Ed. 1975. The Monkey Wrench Gang. Required reading.

Brautigan, Richard. 1974. Trout Fishing in America. The chapter titled “The Cleveland Wrecking Yard” is especially insightful regarding the buying, selling, and artificial construction of the “natural” world.

Callenbach, Ernest. 1975. Ecotopia. I don’t know if it still resonates with students—it sure did in the late 1970s.

Dineson, Isak (aka Karen Blixen). 1938. Out of Africa. Western technology & imperialism meet indigenous Kenyan cultures.

Faulkner, William. 1942. The Bear. Touching story of a young man coming of age in a world where technology/development are displacing nature.

LeGuin, Ursula. Lots of her stuff is strong on the enviro/tech theme—my favorite for class use is the 1976 novel, The Word for World is Forest. Human imperialism expands to the planet of Athshe, where the “Creechies” enter a dream-time to defeat the invaders.

McCarthy, Cormac. 2006. The Road. I’ve not actually used this in a class, yet, but it offers deep insights into what we appreciate (and take for granted!) about technology and the natural world.

Piercy, Marge. 1991. He, She, and It. Nice feminist spin on the Golem story.

Generally, anything by Robinson Jeffers, Gary Snyder, or Wallace Stegner is good.

Finn Arne Jørgensen suggested these (mostly scifi) books that deal with environment and technology in various ways:

Kim Stanley Robinson: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars (trilogy on the colonization and terraforming of Mars)

Kim Stanley Robinson: 40 Signs of Rain

Kim Stanley Robinson: 50 Degrees Below

Kim Stanley Robinson: 60 Days and Counting

Bruce Sterling: Heavy Weather

CFP: World Congress of Environmental History 2009

Announcing the WCEH 2009 First World Congress of Environmental History 2009 “Local Livelihoods And Global Challenges: Understanding Human Interaction With The Environment” in Copenhagen, Denmark, August 4-8, 2009.

The conference is hosted by The International Consortium of Environmental History Organizations (ICEHO) and Roskilde University.

We invite panel, paper, and poster proposals for the 1st World Congress of Environmental History. The Congress aims to bring together scholars from all over the globe, providing a unique opportunity to learn from each other and to create overarching perspectives on the historical relationships between people and the environment through time.

The development of environmental history has been closely linked to local and regional histories and situations. While this is a strength of the field, it is also a potential weakness. We need to question whether big pictures can be constructed on the basis of more numerous case studies. Do we gain new insights by comparing case studies and drawing conclusions from doing so? Are we able to learn from each other with regard to sources and methods? Can environmental history become politically relevant if we put together empirically sound meta-narratives that go beyond specific times and places?

ICEHO member organizations believe that the answer to all these questions is YES! We therefore seek to devote this World Congress to sharing environmental histories worldwide. In order to broaden our comparative understanding, we seek to highlight places in which no environmental histories have been conducted, or have not yet reached an international audience. For the first time young scholars and senior academics, environmental historians from all over the world, and with different disciplinary backgrounds will meet in order to further the development of environmental history world-wide.

Submissions
Proposals may address any area of environmental history but, in keeping with the goals of the Congress, the Program Committee specifically solicits submissions of new and original work that will foster the sharing of environmental history and advance productive comparisons.

Oral presentations will be 15-20 minutes long. The conference language is English. Papers must be original: they should not previously have been presented at a professional conference nor published in a scholarly journal. Individual papers are welcome, but are more difficult to accommodate than submissions of entire panels. Panel proposals must be limited either to three papers (commentator optional), or four papers without a commentator. Participants may only submit one formal paper, but they may also be chairs or commentators. Presenters may chair sessions, but not those they present in.

Successful panel submissions will have (1) a good empirical foundation and describe one or more case studies that would together enhance a comparative perspective within a session or (2) be of wider relevance for the discipline in terms of development of methods, new sources and approaches. Papers comparing the same theme in various regions as well as those that present different facets of the environmental history of one place (if this research is new and original) will be welcomed. The conference covers all periods of human history.

A set of keywords is provided on the submission form. You are asked to choose up to three to help the conference organisers to construct thematic threads.

Postgraduate researchers can submit work in progress (ongoing PhD or Master’s thesis work) for specially designed roundtable sessions (10 minute presentations, with ample time for discussion) that will be chaired by a senior mentor. These roundtables are focused on providing international input on research problems and questions that pertain to developing researchers.

We encourage contributions by scholars from any disciplinary background.

Deadline for submissions is March, 30th, 2008.

To submit a panel, single paper, roundtable contribution or poster
Please visit our website at www.wceh2009.org and go to Submission for details. Abstracts should have between 2000 and 3000 characters (incl. spaces) and should contain up to 5 bibliographic references. A 1-2 page CV must be submitted for each paper and presenter. Use the forms on the website to submit your material.

Posters
The submission process for posters is the same at that for papers. Posters will be on display during the Congress and authors will have an opportunity to introduce their research in 3 minutes oral presentations in plenary sessions highlighted in the program. If you wish to submit a poster, use the “Poster” submission form. If your poster is accepted, you will be asked to provide material for the short oral presentation prior to the Congress.

Review Process
Your panel, paper, or poster will be reviewed by the Program Committee in an anonymous process so as to ensure high scholarly standards. Each paper will be reviewed independently by at least three members of the Program Committee, two of whom will assess the quality of the submission, while the third reviewer will assess its relevance to the development of environmental history and its global or international importance. The Program Committee will assess papers within panels individually, and reserves the right to regroup or reassign them into appropriate sessions.

Online submission is the primary means of sending your abstract. If you do not have access to electronic connections, your paper must be delivered by mail by March 14th, 2008 to the congress secretariat. Notification will be by e-mail. In order to be accepted for the program, you will need to reconfirm your participation and register for the conference.

ICEHO Member organizations:
American Society for Environmental History
IUFRO Research Group 6.07.00 Forest History
Association of South Asia Environmental Historians
International Water History Association
Australian Environmental History Network
Network in Canadian History & Environment
Australian Forest History Society
Otago University, History Department
European Society for Environmental History
Sheffield Hallam University
Forest History Society
German Historical Institute
Sociedad Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Historia Ambiental

Contact
Should you have any questions, please contact the conference secretariat at: wceh2009@ruc.dk The conference secretariat is located at Roskilde University (RUC). The address is: Roskilde University, Universitetsvej 1, Building 04.2., Att.: Lisa Rimstad Jacobsen, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark.

Solidarity, Sustainability, and Non-Violence (SSNV) Research Newsletter: If not the MDGs, then what?

Is anyone here doing research, or working with, the United Nations’
Millennium Development Goals?

Luis
_______________________________________________________

The Vol. 3, No. 11, November 2007 issue of the

Solidarity, Sustainability, and Non-Violence (SSNV) Research Newsletter http://www.pelicanweb.org/solisustv03n11.html

has been posted. The focus this month is the question:

“IF NOT THE MDGs, THEN WHAT?”

Table of contents:

RESEARCH REPORT & MONTHLY DIGEST
1. Global News & Emerging Issues
2. Negative Assessments of the MDGs
3. Positive Assessments of the MDGs
4. Balanced Assessment of the MDGs
5. If Not the MDGs, Then What?
6. Current Research on the MDGs
7. Web Resources & Links Database
8. Prayer, Study, and Action
9. Links to Archived Newsletters

INVITED PAPER
Eco-Humanism and Popular System Dynamics as Preconditions for
Sustainable Development, by Leslaw Michnowski.
http://pelicanweb.org/solisustv03n11michnowski.html

Please forward this notice to friends and colleagues who might be interested in the global transition to a new culture.

Sincerely,
Luis

PS — Consider writing an article for the newsletter!

————————————————————–
Luis T. Gutierrez, Ph.D., P.E.
The Pelican Web ~ http://pelicanweb.org/ SSNV Newsletter ~ http://pelicanweb.org/solisust.html
Email: pelican@pelicanweb.org

CFP: Ecological restoration and human flourishing in the era of anthropogenic climate change. September 5-7, 2008, Clemson University.

Sponsored by Clemson University Restoration Institute, College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities, School of the Environment, Rutland Institute for Ethics, and Department of Philosophy and Religion

Reports this year from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change place it beyond reasonable doubt that humans are largely responsible for global warming and that the potential consequences are simply unprecedented in scope and magnitude. It is also becoming increasingly clear that some of these consequences are now unavoidable. Preventative measures alone, if enacted, could only head-off the worst. What should be done with the natural world that will be inherited in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, the 20th and the opening decades of the 21st century? As embodied and terrestrial beings, embedded in an emerging and unstable new world climate, how should considerations of justice, ecological and human flourishing influence prescriptive combinations of prevention, mitigation, adaptation, and restoration? What should we believe about ecological restitution or redress to citizens of third-world countries, or future generations? What are the meta-ethical, technological, biological, and geo-political considerations that underlie this range of normative concerns? Our focus will be on issues at the intersection of ecological restoration, global justice, and prospects of well being for human and non-human animals in an era of radial climate change, including the restoration or geo-engineering of large-scale biotic processes and the role of human flourishing in the practice of ecological restoration.

Confirmed speakers include Eric Higgs, Andrew Light and Martha Nussbaum.

Format
To make the conference and its expenditure of energy as useful as possible, the conference format will involve preconference paper sharing and preparatory dialogue, a combination of plenary and small group sessions, ample time for discussion both in and outside sessions, post-conference documentation, the creation of a network on the conference theme and related issues following the conference, and a conference volume to be reworked thoroughly for publication. Additionally, the organizers have set aside 10% of the conference budget to invest in accountable, well-proven reforestation and wind farming. Novel ways of participating in the conference to avoid CO2 emissions are invited. Ideally, we would have the conference entirely on-line but feel we need face-to-face time on this issue to begin the research discussions around it. As much of the conference as is practically possible for us will involve a sustainable ontology -e.g., recycled paper, on-line archiving, local and humane food sources with reduced packaging, etc.

Proposals
Send the proposal to ERHFconference-L@clemson.edu by November 30th, 2007. The finished papers of those accepted will be due by July 30th, 2008. Proposals should include an abstract of approximately 500 words, an optional explanation of some 200 words explaining the proposal’s relevance to the conference themes, a list of current research projects or of publications related to the conference themes, and full contact details (email, phone, address). Graduate students are encouraged to apply. There will be one graduate student scholarship to help with costs.

Organizing and program committee
Allen Thompson, Clemson University Department of Philosophy and Religion
Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, American University of Sharjah Department of International Studies and Le Moyne College Department of Philosophy
Breena Holland, Lehigh University Department of Political Science and the Environmental Initiative

Deadline: November 30th 2007

Walker and LeCain Awarded NSF Grant: Will Compare Japanese and American Reactions to Mining Pollutants

By Evelyn Boswell, Montana State University News Service, Bozeman

Originally published in the Spring 2007 Envirotech Newsletter.

Editor’s Note: I hope you all will forgive me in advance for including an article on my own work here, but I think the project will be of interest to many of you. By all means, please send me similar news service reports on your own work and I will be happy to include them. Although it is not readily apparent from this article, the research project draws heavily on the new thinking in envirotech many of you have contributed to over the past few years. A better sense of our intellectual foundations and goals may be had be reading the grant abstract at:
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0646644

Two Montana State University historians who see insightful similarities between former copper mines in Montana and Japan have received $306,000 from the National Science Foundation to investigate and share their findings.

Brett Walker, Tim LeCain and six MSU graduate students will compare how Montanans and Japanese residents dealt with the technology, science and pollution associated with two huge copper mines that existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One mine was at Butte/Anaconda, the other at Ashio, Japan.

The mines existed in different cultures, environments and religious contexts, but each used highly sophisticated technology that had never been used before, Walker said. They had underground electrical systems. They had railroad systems and complicated smeltering systems.

Each mine helped modernize its country and allowed it to thrive in an international economy, Walker added. Both operations were entrenched in local politics. At the same time, the mines created environmental disasters that appeared first in species that symbolized the earlier economies of those areas — cattle in the American West and silkworms in East Asia. Sulfur dioxide fell onto pastures and poisoned the cattle that grazed around Anaconda and Butte. It also fell on mulberry bushes and killed large silkworm colonies in central Japan.

“If you are a Buddhist and believe that all living creatures are part of a continuum of life and everything has a soul, do you view environmental destruction, particularly the death of animals, differently than you do if you’re raising livestock in Butte and Anaconda?” Walker asked.

LeCain said, “Two key symbols, cattle and silkworms, suffered very similar effects, but more interesting is that Americans and Japanese, because of their respective cultural differences, had very different readings of these two pollution events.”

Walker, head of MSU’s Department of History and Philosophy, is an expert in the environmental history of Japan. LeCain specializes in the history of technology, particularly mining technology. In a blending of interests, the researchers will travel to Japan, Butte and Anaconda to examine the mines and the effect they had on the environment. The area around Ashio is much steeper and damper than the Butte/Anaconda area, Walker said. Walker and LeCain will also study historical documents and interview area residents, then write a book on their findings, develop a web site and create interactive maps to show the impact of each mine.

“A lot has been written about both mines, but there have been no comparisons between the two,” Walker said. “We are asking different questions, more scientific, ecological and technological questions.”

The entire process will continue to develop MSU’s graduate program in history which added a doctorate program four years ago, Walker said. The graduate program will have about 25 students in the fall, 11 of them working on their Ph.Ds. Several of the Ph.D. students are working on dissertations that explore the environmental history of mining in Montana.

“The grant funds our research, but also funds what is a very vibrant, active graduate program,” Walker said. The researchers said their project isn’t meant to demonize copper; they appreciate the computers and other conveniences it allows. LeCain noted that a Boeing 747 contains about 9,000 pounds of copper, a typical house contains 400 pounds, and a car averages 50 pounds. Copper is an important component in video games and computers.

Mining may not be the industry it once was in Butte/Anaconda and Ashio, but it’s big in other areas of the world, the researchers said. Other countries are now dealing with the issues that Montana and Japan once faced.

“It’s not happening in our back yard right now, but it’s not that it’s not happening somewhere,” Walker said. LeCain said, “We all have to grapple with this ecological reality. We are not offering easy solutions, but moral dilemmas.”