Week 11
Class Research Resources and Assignments

Resource Extraction and Environmental Justice
Videos of Week 11 Lecture
Timothy C. Weiskel


The Case of Uranium Mining on Navajo Lands
 
Uranium Impact Assessment Program
  Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC)
   

Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) was founded in 1971 for the purpose of providing information to the public on the effects of energy development and resource exploitation on the people and their cultures, lands, water, and air of New Mexico and the Southwest.

SRIC's purpose, including the focus on issues affecting the Southwest, has remained essentially unchanged, although it now has a successful record in affecting issues of national and even international importance, such as nuclear waste management and uranium mining reclamation. SRIC also has helped empower dozens of local community groups so that they effectively participate in government and corporate decisions that affect them.

[in class video documetary.]

Gwich'in Tribe and Alaska's Oil
 
Norman Chance (University of Connecticut) - Arctic Circle
  Social Equity and Environmental Justice
Scott Hogenson
  2002:"Anti-ANWR Tribe Signed Alaska Oil, Gas Lease in 1980," CNSNews.com (April 15, 2002)
   


Members of North America's Gwich'in Tribe speak eloquently about caribou. They're part of the history, culture and lore of this tribe, which makes its home north of the Arctic Circle
"We depend on the caribou, as Gwich'in people, for food, clothing, medicine, tools and spirituality. And in return, the caribou depend on us to take care of the land for them so they can continue to be free," said Sandra Newman a council member of the Vuntut Gwich'in (guh-WITCH-in) First Nation.
Newman, and other Gwich'in like her, are opposed to energy development along the icy coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) because they say they fear it will disrupt the calving area for the Porcupine caribou herd, which tries to migrate each spring to that area.
It is known among the Gwich'in as "the sacred place where life begins." ....
But 22 years earlier, the Gwich'in and their tribal cousins not only courted oil and gas corporations, they signed a wide-ranging lease allowing energy development and refining on their own tribal lands, which are adjacent to ANWR.

[in class video documetary.]

Coal Mining in West Virginia
 
  Bill Moyers
  2006: "Is God Green?,[excerpt]" PBS - Moyers on America, (11 October 2006)
   


A new holy war is growing within the conservative evangelical community, with implications for both the global environment and American politics. For years liberal Christians and others have made protection of the environment a moral commitment. Now a number of conservative evangelicals are joining the fight, arguing that man's stewardship of the planet is a biblical imperative and calling for action to stop global warming

 
Oil and the Indians of Ecuador 
Texico in Ecuador - ChevronTexico.Com
  History
From 1964 to 1992, Texaco drilled for oil in the northern region of the Ecuadorian Amazon, known as the "Oriente". The company left 627 open toxic waste pits and other facilities which continue to leak highly toxic waste, affecting more than 30,000 local people.
   

ChevronTexaco on Trial in Ecuador

Extreme Oil - "The Curse" - [in class video documetary.]
   
 
Environmental Justice Issues in Chiapas, Mexico 

In 2001 the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) launched the Native Networks Website to welcome you to the field of Native media throughout the Americas. The site provides information about new productions and media makers, current areas of special interest and accomplishments in the field.

 

The Film and Video Center of the National Museum of the American Indian is dedicated to presenting and disseminating information about the work of Native Americans in media. The Center's Native Networks Website has four goals:To provide a representation of current work in the field of Native American media including film, video, radio, television and new media.To provide information to the public about the outstanding media productions which have been presented in the museum's programs.To provide the FVC and NMAI a way to maintain regular and frequent contact with the community of Native American independent media producers.To provide a space for Native media makers to exchange ideas and to gather professional information.

The Chiapas Media Project

 
 Oil Extraction from Angola
Angola: Kuando-Kubango: Chevron to Invest USD 9.4 Million
  Angola Press Agency
Menongue - The oil firm ChevronTaxaco and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will invest about USD 9.4 million in social programmes in Angolan provinces of Kuando-Kubango, Cabinda, Huambo and Bié, this year.The information is contained in a press release that reached Angop on Monday, stating that the programme will be implemented under the Government pilot plan on administrative decentralisation, in one district of each of the provinces mentioned above.In Kuando Kubango, the note says, the amount will be invested through the District Development Programme with the partnership of the USAID, the Social Aid Fund (FAS) and the Territory Administration Ministry and aims at strengthening the districts' administrative capacity and of the communitarian organisations.
Extreme Oil - "The Curse" - [in class video documetary.]
   
 
 The Case of Oil and the Ogoni in Nigeria
  BBC News Archive
  "1995: Nigeria hangs human rights activists," BBC News - Archive, (10 November 1995).
   


The writer and human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, has been executed in Nigeria despite worldwide pleas for clemency.
The country's military rulers ordered the execution of Mr Saro-Wiwa and eight other dissidents should go ahead at 0730 local time (0830 GMT).
They were taken in chains to a prison in the southern city of Port Harcourt and hanged.
The activists were condemned to death 10 days ago after being found guilty of involvement in four murders.
Mr Saro-Wiwa insisted they were framed because of their opposition to the oil industry in the Niger-Delta region of southern Nigeria.
At his trial Mr Saro-Wiwa said the case was designed to prevent members of his tribe, the Ogoni, from stopping pollution of their homeland and getting a fair share of oil profits.
Dozens of Ogonis have been imprisoned by the military regime led by General Sani Abacha who seized power two years ago.

  Democracy Now & Sandy Cioffi
 
2006
"As Hundreds Die in an Oil Pipeline Explosion in Lagos, A Look At the Fight Over Nigeria's Natural Resource," Democracy Now, (26 December 2006).
  CNN News
 
2007
"Rebels, oil, poverty mix in Nigeria," CNN News Online, (10 February 2007).

 

 The Particular Case of Oil in Iraq

  The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror, Democracy Now, (22 October 2004).
   
  "Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil Spark Political Fight Between Neocons and Big Oil," Democracy Now, (21 March 2005).
   
  The Real Strategy behind the "Shock and Awe" Campaign
   
  New Iraq Oil Law To Open Iraq's Oil Reserves to Western Companies," Democracy Now, (20 February 2007)
   
  TheTwo-Edged Sword Further chapters in "resource extraction" and "nuclear waste recycling."

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