Environmental Internship Program - 2023 Booklet
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Max Widmann ’24<br />
HISTORY<br />
Certificates: <strong>Environmental</strong> Studies, Urban<br />
Studies<br />
ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY<br />
AND URBAN SUSTAINABILITY<br />
PROJECT TITLE<br />
Mining for the Climate<br />
ORGANIZATION(S)<br />
Blue Lab,<br />
Effron Center for the<br />
Study of America,<br />
Princeton University<br />
LOCATION(S)<br />
Pasadena, California;<br />
Thacker Pass, Nevada;<br />
Princeton, New Jersey;<br />
Gaston County, North<br />
Carolina<br />
MENTOR(S)<br />
Allison Carruth,<br />
Professor of American<br />
Studies and the High<br />
Meadows <strong>Environmental</strong><br />
Institute, Princeton<br />
University; Nate Otjen,<br />
Postdoctoral Research<br />
Associate, High Meadows<br />
<strong>Environmental</strong> Institute,<br />
Princeton University;<br />
Juan Manuel Rubio, UC<br />
President’s and Andrew<br />
W. Mellon Postdoctoral<br />
Fellow, Department of<br />
Global Studies, University<br />
of California, Santa<br />
Barbara<br />
I researched lithium extraction in the United<br />
States. Lithium is an alkali metal essential for<br />
most electric vehicle batteries and grid-scale<br />
energy storage, but its mining is damaging<br />
and irreversible. I wanted to understand the<br />
competing narratives behind the green energy<br />
transition and inherently unsustainable<br />
extractive systems. Working with my co-interns<br />
and postdoctoral researchers in Princeton’s Blue<br />
Lab, I compiled an archive of statements from<br />
government agencies and mining corporations<br />
and secondary literature from environmental<br />
studies and the energy humanities. Additionally,<br />
I worked to identify potential stakeholders to<br />
interview, including environmental activists,<br />
mining corporation executives, affected Native<br />
American tribes, and ranchers. I participated<br />
in fieldwork in Gaston County, North Carolina;<br />
Pasadena, California; and northern Nevada.<br />
There, I conducted semi-structured interviews<br />
about residents’ experiences living near planned<br />
lithium mines. The first season of our podcast,<br />
“Mining for the Climate,” focuses on a junior<br />
mining company whose project, Carolina<br />
Lithium, has raised concerns among locals about<br />
noise, dust, water contamination and the future<br />
of their rural community. Working with the Blue<br />
Lab, interacting with environmental activists,<br />
and observing the insufficiency of environmental<br />
legislation has reaffirmed my desire to pursue a<br />
career that protects biodiversity and equitable<br />
access to federal lands.
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