I Have 5 sources already along with a brief description of usage. More can be added. Goal is to relate physical mining with the rise in the quantity of computers and electric cars and discuss who is the right/wrong. Assignment instructions are bellow the citations
Citations
Adams, T. (2021, February 1). What is a mine site’s duty of care? Are miners a high-risk group? GRT. https://globalroadtechnology.com/grt-what-is-a-mine-sites-duty-of-care/
This article talks about the ethical concerns about of workplace safety
for miners. The miners themselves are an important part of the
conversation, and this article will help bring their voices in.
Barber, G. (2021, June 17). The Lithium Mine Versus the Wildflower. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/lithium-mine-for-batteries-versus-the-wildflower/
This article discusses a situation about how a lithium mine endangers a
very rare flower, that only grows in one spot. This will help illustrate the
importance of deciding between nature and our growing need for
minerals.
Lohan, T. (2021, March 9). Will the Race for Electric Vehicles Endanger the Earth’s Most Sensitive Ecosystem? The Revelator. https://therevelator.org/ev-batteries-seabed-mining/
This article talks about mining for EV batteries, and more specifically
discusses deep sea mining. I will use this to discuss some of the positive
and negatives of deep sea mining.
Why we all need to care about mining. (2022, March 17). Stantec. Retrieved March 29, 2022, from https://www.stantec.com/en/ideas/topic/energy-resources/why-we-all-need-to-care-about-mining
This talks about a lot of the eco and sustainable options for mining,
including specific examples in Australia. I will use this as one of my
examples for a solution.
Wikipedia contributors. (2022, March 31). Transistor count. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count
This article will be used for discussing growth of the semiconductor
field over the years. It can show the correlation between increased
activity in these fields and increased mining.
Assignment: Write a paper in which you research an ongoing conversation or debate related to mining. Some element of the conversation you research should relate to the above inquiry questions about how (according to what criteria or values) people make decisions about how to interact with the Earth’s environment. Consider how different values and priorities held by individuals and groups influence decisions about how a place—on land or under water—should and will be used.For this paper you will research a conversation or a debate, so your writing should adequately reflect the different positions of speakers or participants in that conversation, whether they are individuals, institutions, informal organizations, or sovereign nations. Not only should you address the perspectives those speakers have, but you should also investigate why the participants in the conversation/debate hold the positions that they do related to mining and resources. What values, convictions, and priorities are behind the positions people and groups take?Use the sources from class as a starting point. Assigned sources and the additional cluster of sources include videos and articles about deep sea mining in the Pacific Ocean, a podcast about hydraulic fracturing and the legacy of coal mining and nuclear power in Appalachia, and poems, stories, and journalism about open pit mining in Mongolia, Germany, and the Southwestern US.Each of the assigned and provided texts introduces not only a conversation/debate about the act of mining itself (its impact on land, water, human/animal/plant health, and economics/employment) but also about who will use the mined resources and for what. While not all sources address this aspect in depth, your research paper should consider and question any implicit assumptions about the “need” for these extracted minerals and materials. In keeping with the work of close reading and analysis we’ve been practicing this semester, your research should carefully read what participants in the conversation are saying but also pay close attention to what is not being said, to what is left unspoken or omitted.Articulating omissions is one way that you, the researcher/writer, will become part of the conversation that you are researching and enter into the dialogue as a participant. For that reason, it is fine to use the first person in your writing. Barber’s article for Wired is a good example of this; he models writing that integrates his own perspectives and observations with those of the people he has interviewed, and he merges both of those together with his own research on the issue of lithium mining in Nevada. His article, or any of the other sources you choose, were built on their authors’ research and will now become part of your research and writing; thus the conversation continues and moves in new directions.