Introduction
Part I - The Science of Persuasion
Chapter 1: Blueprint for Denial
Chapter 2: Shaping Legality
Part II: Fossil Fuels, Bush, and Global Warming
Chapter 3: A Carbon-Based World Order
Chapter 4: Global What?
Part III: Kivalina
Chapter 5: The Human Face of Global Warming
Chapter 6: Relocation in a Neoliberal State
The Conclusion
National drive-time radio tour
Advertising in Mother Jones and the Nation
Promotion targeting progressive and environmental publications
Published to coincide with the next round of Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change talks in Mexico
Publicity and promotion in conjunction with the author's speaking
engagements
Possibility of a national speaking tour
Christine Shearer, PhD, is the Senior Researcher at the energy and climate organization CoalSwarm. She previously worked as postdoctoral scholar in Earth System Science at the University of California in Irvine, as a research fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and as a reporter for the Center for Investigative Reporting. Her writing has appeared in science and media publications including Nature, Environmental Research Letters, National Geographic, and The New York Times. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California at Santa Barbara.
“This story is a tragedy, and not just because of what’s happening
to the people of Kivalina. It’s a tragedy because it’s unnecessary,
the product, as the author shows, of calculation, deception,
manipulation, and greed on the part of some of the biggest and
richest companies on earth.”
—Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New
Planet
“I watched the lights of the oil fields grow in intensity and
proximity, although they were many miles away. The flaring of the
gas became a harbinger of hard nights on call, due to increases in
respiratory illness among our people. Compounding this were changes
to the land and water around us, affecting the animals and their
[habits].… This book provides an understanding of the obstacles I
have been facing while working on the basic issues of promoting and
protecting the health, culture, and traditions of our people.”
—Rosemary Ahtuanguaruak, board member of the Inupiat Community of
the Arctic Slope, founding member of REDOIL (Resisting
Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands), and community
health practitioner
“Shearer pulls no punches in this extraordinary account of one
Alaskan village’s confrontation with the violence of climate
change. Villagers sued fossil fuel companies for endangering their
homeland and lying about it, underscoring the importance of sound
science, traditional knowledge, and accurate information as
critical ingredients for sustaining the climate justice movement.
Shearer also considers the history of the Product Defense Industry,
through which she links the politics of energy to a host of other
sectors whose supporters have made it their business to manufacture
doubt and misrepresentation about the risks associated with oil,
coal, asbestos, lead, and tobacco. The casualties are adding up and
they include public health, ecosystems, and our democracy. So where
is the hope in all of this? It lies in the simple fact that the
people of Kivalina fought back and struggled for a
better world for themselves and for all of us.”
—David Naguib Pellow, member of the board of directors of
Greenpeace USA, author of Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational
Movements for Environmental Justice, and Don Martindale Professor
of Sociology at the University of Minnesota
“Christine Shearer’s Kivalina: A Climate Change Story is a fast and
bumpy ride that begins with the history of outrageous corporate
deceptions through public relations and legal campaigns, continuing
with building of the coal-and-oil empire to fuel progress in the
United States, leading to the horrendous politics of climate
crisis, and finally arriving at its destination, a ground-zero of
climate
refugee, Kivalina—an Inupiat community along the Chukchi Sea coast
of arctic Alaska. I was angry when I turned the last page. I urge
you to get a copy, read it, share the story, and join the now
global climate justice movement.”
—Subhankar Banerjee, writer, activist, and photographer of Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land
“The climate catastrophe is real and growing, and this is the story
of some of its first known victims, with many millions more to
follow. This is an important tale of greed and propaganda,
scientific corruption, and the bill coming due for our allowing a
corporate elite to control and dictate our energy
and environmental policies.”
—John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy
“With Kivalina Christine Shearer has managed to do something quite
remarkable, which is to take the incredibly complex
geo/economic/political process of global climate change, present it
in a way that is both comprehensible and compelling and then
directly link it to one of the first bellwether communities to be
affected by the process. The book is beautifully written and the
community of Kivalina is a harbinger of what our failure to control
our technology and our greed will be bringing to coastal
communities and cities across the planet."
—Robert Gramling, coauthor of Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill
Disaster and the Future of Energy in America and professor of
sociology at the University of Louisiana–Lafayette
“Kivalina, Shishmaref, Point Hope—three of the first communities,
in this case all in the Arctic of Alaska, that are casualties of
global climate change. Household names? No. But they should be.
Christine Shearer, in Kivalina: A Climate Change Story, presents
the human and environmental evidence of frustration and devastation
of one of these ancient Inupiat Eskimo villages in a detailed and
compelling fashion. Citing the tobacco and asbestos examples of
“profit at all costs” corporate obfuscation, she makes the case
that climate change is the latest on this sorry list of the failure
of our corporations and their supporters in the federal and state
government to look past
those profits to their dire consequences. Peter, Paul, and Mary in
their famous folk song, “When Will They Ever Learn,” can add
another verse. Christine Shearer will write it.”
—Harvard Ayers, senior author of Arctic Gardens: Voices from an
Abundant Land and professor emeritus of anthropology at Appalachian
State University
This story is a tragedy, and not just because of what’s happening
to the people of Kivalina. It’s a tragedy because it’s unnecessary,
the product, as the author shows, of calculation, deception,
manipulation, and greed on the part of some of the biggest and
richest companies on earth.”
Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New
Planet
I watched the lights of the oil fields grow in intensity and
proximity, although they were many miles away. The flaring of the
gas became a harbinger of hard nights on call, due to increases in
respiratory illness among our people. Compounding this were changes
to the land and water around us, affecting the animals and their
[habits].
This book provides an understanding of the obstacles I
have been facing while working on the basic issues of promoting and
protecting the health, culture, and traditions of our people.”
Rosemary Ahtuanguaruak, board member of the Inupiat Community of
the Arctic Slope, founding member of REDOIL (Resisting
Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands), and community
health practitioner
Shearer pulls no punches in this extraordinary account of one
Alaskan village’s confrontation with the violence of climate
change. Villagers sued fossil fuel companies for endangering their
homeland and lying about it, underscoring the importance of sound
science, traditional knowledge, and accurate information as
critical ingredients for sustaining the climate justice movement.
Shearer also considers the history of the Product Defense Industry,
through which she links the politics of energy to a host of other
sectors whose supporters have made it their business to manufacture
doubt and misrepresentation about the risks associated with oil,
coal, asbestos, lead, and tobacco. The casualties are adding up and
they include public health, ecosystems, and our democracy. So where
is the hope in all of this? It lies in the simple fact that the
people of Kivalina fought back and struggled for a
better world for themselves and for all of us.”
David Naguib Pellow, member of the board of directors of
Greenpeace USA, author of Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational
Movements for Environmental Justice, and Don Martindale Professor
of Sociology at the University of Minnesota
Christine Shearer’s Kivalina: A Climate Change Story is a fast and
bumpy ride that begins with the history of outrageous corporate
deceptions through public relations and legal campaigns, continuing
with building of the coal-and-oil empire to fuel progress in the
United States, leading to the horrendous politics of climate
crisis, and finally arriving at its destination, a ground-zero of
climate
refugee, Kivalinaan Inupiat community along the Chukchi Sea coast
of arctic Alaska. I was angry when I turned the last page. I urge
you to get a copy, read it, share the story, and join the now
global climate justice movement.”
Subhankar Banerjee, writer, activist, and photographer of Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land
The climate catastrophe is real and growing, and this is the story
of some of its first known victims, with many millions more to
follow. This is an important tale of greed and propaganda,
scientific corruption, and the bill coming due for our allowing a
corporate elite to control and dictate our energy
and environmental policies.”
John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy
With Kivalina Christine Shearer has managed to do something quite
remarkable, which is to take the incredibly complex
geo/economic/political process of global climate change, present it
in a way that is both comprehensible and compelling and then
directly link it to one of the first bellwether communities to be
affected by the process. The book is beautifully written and the
community of Kivalina is a harbinger of what our failure to control
our technology and our greed will be bringing to coastal
communities and cities across the planet."
Robert Gramling, coauthor of Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill
Disaster and the Future of Energy in America and professor of
sociology at the University of LouisianaLafayette
Kivalina, Shishmaref, Point Hopethree of the first communities,
in this case all in the Arctic of Alaska, that are casualties of
global climate change. Household names? No. But they should be.
Christine Shearer, in Kivalina: A Climate Change Story, presents
the human and environmental evidence of frustration and devastation
of one of these ancient Inupiat Eskimo villages in a detailed and
compelling fashion. Citing the tobacco and asbestos examples of
profit at all costs” corporate obfuscation, she makes the case
that climate change is the latest on this sorry list of the failure
of our corporations and their supporters in the federal and state
government to look past
those profits to their dire consequences. Peter, Paul, and Mary in
their famous folk song, When Will They Ever Learn,” can add
another verse. Christine Shearer will write it.”
Harvard Ayers, senior author of Arctic Gardens: Voices from an
Abundant Land and professor emeritus of anthropology at Appalachian
State University
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