Christine Shearer: Christine Shearer is a writer, journalist, activist, and academic. She is Managing Editor and regular contributor to the online progressive magazine Conducive, and a paid contributor for Coalswarm, a network of information on coal and climate change for grassroots activists that is part of the online corporate watch website Sourcewatch. She has an MA in Sociology and in Media Studies, and will receive her PhD in Sociology with a Global Studies emphasis in 2010 from UC Santa Barbara. Prior to UCSB, she worked as a field reporter for the KPFA Radio Evening News and as an Associate Reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting. Her research and work has been published… in magazines, academic journals, science publications, and encyclopedias, including Newsweek, Conservation Letters, Ecological Applications, Spaces for Difference, and Mobilization.