Negative Ecologies - Fossil Fuels and the Discovery of the Environment

List of contents

Contents

List of Illustrations 

Introduction: The Promise and Predicament of Crude Oil

1. Environment: A Disastrous History of the Hydrocarbon Present
2. Governing Disaster
3. Ethical Oil
4. Occupying the Implication
5. Petrochemical Fallout
6. The Ecological Mangrove

Conclusion: Negative Ecologies and the Discovery of the Environment

Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

Summary

So much of what we know of clean water, clean air, and now a stable climate rests on how fossil fuels first disrupted them. Negative Ecologies is a bold reappraisal of the outsized role fossil fuels have played in making the environment visible, factual, and politically operable in North America. Following stories of hydrocarbon harm that lay the groundwork for environmental science and policy, this book brings into clear focus the dialectic between the negative ecologies of fossil fuels and the ongoing discovery of the environment. Exploring iconic sites of the oil economy, ranging from leaky Caribbean refineries to deepwater oil spills, from the petrochemical fallout of plastics manufacturing to the extractive frontiers of Canada, Negative Ecologies documents the upheavals, injuries, and disasters that have long accompanied fossil fuels and the manner in which our solutions have often been less about confronting the cause than managing the effects. This history of our present promises to re-situate scholarly understandings of fossil fuels and renovate environmental critique today. David Bond challenges us to consider what forms of critical engagement may now be needed to both confront the deleterious properties of fossil fuels and envision ways of living beyond them.

Product details

• Authors: David Bond
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.03.2022
• EAN: 9780520386778
• ISBN: 978-0-520-38677-8
• No. of pages: 262
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Biology > Ecology; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); Nature / Environmental Conservation & Protection, SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Ecology, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Environmental Policy, LAW / Environmental, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Applied ecology, Food & society, Environmental law, Conservation of the environment, Environmental policy & protocols, Environment law, Cultural studies: food and society, Environmental policy and protocols