Dirty Business

Gr 9 Up—Most people don't realize the amount of coal burned to provide them with electricity. This powerful documentary examines what it really means to be dependent on coal. The narrator, Jeff Goodell, (author of Big Coal and reporter for Rolling Stone), travels to West Virginia to investigate mountaintop mining and its impact on the people and the ecosystem. Interviews with former Massey Coal Company CEO Don Blankenship and community organizer Marie Gunnoe contrast the opposing views. Postulating that the extraction of coal is dirty and destroys people's lives, Goodell travels to Mesquite, Nevada, where a new coal burning plant is planned. The community, along with a rancher in Kansas, demonstrates that there are alternative sources, including solar and wind power, that are less harmful to the environment and to people. China, the biggest user of coal, offers an example of studies being done to test children for toxins and the long-lasting damage to their health and learning abilities. Other topics examined in the film are carbon sequestration, showing both the pros and the cons of this method to rid the atmosphere of CO2, and the financing of coal power plants by corporations such as Citibank. Goodell stresses that the solution to the problem is political and that people must change their lives in order to save the Earth. The film embraces a wide variety of topics, making it suitable for use in science, economics, and government classes.—Patricia Ann Owens, Illinois Eastern Community Colleges, Mt. Carmel, IL