The Ecology Of Oil

Publisher Description

The Political Ecology of Oil and Gas Activities in the Nigerian Aquatic Ecosystem reviews the current status of the ecosystems and economic implications of oil and gas development in Nigeria, a key oil-producing state. The ecological and economic impacts of oil and gas development, particularly in developing nations, are crucial topics for ecologists, natural resource professionals and pollution researchers to understand. This book takes an integrative approach to these problems through the lens of one of the key oil-producing nations, linking natural and human systems through the valuation of ecosystem services. Provides background information on Nigerian aquatic environments, its local history of oil exploration and a review of the physical chemistry of crude oil Reviews global and national perspectives on the oil and gas industry from a physical ecological, to a socio-political and economic ecological perspective Demonstrates real-life situations of the interactions and impacts of Nigerian petroleum production on the environment and local populations through case studies

In the 150 years since the birth of the petroleum industry oil has saturated our culture, fueling our cars and wars, our economy and policies. But just as thoroughly, culture saturates oil. So what exactly is “oil culture”? This book pursues an answer through petrocapitalism’s history in literature, film, fine art, wartime propaganda, and museum displays. Investigating cultural discourses that have taken shape around oil, these essays compose the first sustained attempt to understand how petroleum has suffused the Western imagination. The contributors to this volume examine the oil culture nexus, beginning with the whale oil culture it replaced and analyzing literature and films such as Giant, Sundown, Bernardo Bertolucci’s La Via del Petrolio, and Ben Okri’s “What the Tapster Saw”; corporate art, museum installations, and contemporary photography; and in apocalyptic visions of environmental disaster and science fiction. By considering oil as both a natural resource and a trope, the authors show how oil’s dominance is part of culture rather than an economic or physical necessity. Oil Culture sees beyond oil capitalism to alternative modes of energy production and consumption. Contributors: Georgiana Banita, U of Bamberg; Frederick Buell, Queens College; Gerry Canavan, Marquette U; Melanie Doherty, Wesleyan College; Sarah Frohardt-Lane, Ripon College, Matthew T. Huber, Syracuse U; Dolly Jørgensen, Umeå U; Stephanie LeMenager, U of Oregon; Hanna Musiol, Northeastern U; Chad H. Parker, U of Louisiana at Lafayette; Ruth Salvaggio, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Heidi Scott, Florida International U; Imre Szeman, U of Alberta; Michael Watts, U of California, Berkeley; Jennifer Wenzel, Columbia University; Sheena Wilson, U of Alberta; Rochelle Raineri Zuck, U of Minnesota Duluth; Catherine Zuromskis, U of New Mexico.

This book covers the fundamental problems of the interaction of hydrocarbons with biosphere. Hydrocarbons are the global phenomenon of our planet. In the biosphere, hydrocarbons are ubiquitous, and appear in a variety of forms. Hydrocarbons in the form of oil and gas have been released from Earth's core to its surface for thousands of years, nevertheless, no evidence exists that in the early days hydrocarbons were antagonists of the biosphere. In ancient times, humans perceived numerous oil occurrences as part of the environment. Since the 20th century, the humanity's demand for fuel and energy and chemical resources has grown continuously. Oil and hydrocarbon were found on all inhabited continents and under the surrounding seas more often. The expansion of hydrocarbons into the biosphere has gradually come into collision with the naturally established ecological balances. Oil, natural gas, and products of their processing have had a pervasive negative impact on the components of the environment. The global nature of these processes has made oil and gas environmental ecology a pressing scientific challenge, addressing all others areas of ecology.

What light does nearly 25 years of scientific study of the Exxon Valdez oil spill shed on the fate and effects of a spill? How can the results help in assessing future spills? How can ecological risks be assessed and quantified? In this, the first book on the effects of Exxon Valdez in 15 years, scientists directly involved in studying the spill provide a comprehensive perspective on, and synthesis of, scientific information on long-term spill effects. The coverage is multidisciplinary, with chapters discussing a range of issues including effects on biota, successes and failures of post-spill studies and techniques, and areas of continued disagreement. An even-handed and critical examination of more than two decades of scientific study, this is an invaluable guide for studying future oil spills and, more broadly, for unraveling the consequences of any large environmental disruption. For access to a full bibliography of related publications, follow the Resources link at www.cambridge.org/9781107027176.

Oil palms are ubiquitous—grown in nearly every tropical country, they supply the world with more edible fat than any other plant and play a role in scores of packaged products, from lipstick and soap to margarine and cookies. And as Jonathan E. Robins shows, sweeping social transformations carried the plant around the planet. First brought to the global stage in the holds of slave ships, palm oil became a quintessential commodity in the Industrial Revolution. Imperialists hungry for cheap fat subjugated Africa's oil palm landscapes and the people who worked them. In the twentieth century, the World Bank promulgated oil palm agriculture as a panacea to rural development in Southeast Asia and across the tropics. As plantation companies tore into rainforests, evicting farmers in the name of progress, the oil palm continued its rise to dominance, sparking new controversies over trade, land and labor rights, human health, and the environment. By telling the story of the oil palm across multiple centuries and continents, Robins demonstrates how the fruits of an African palm tree became a key commodity in the story of global capitalism, beginning in the eras of slavery and imperialism, persisting through decolonization, and stretching to the present day.

Oil is the lifeblood of the global economy, and its misuse carries the risk of heavy economic and environmental penalties. This book is a collection of essays bearing on economic growth and environmental concerns for a world that will continue to be dependent on oil throughout the next century. Topics include the outlook for petroleum demand and supply, the potential for alternatives to a petroleum-based economy, the costs of controlling automobile emissions, the environmental costs of moving oil by tanker and pipeline, and competition issues in the production and distribution of petroleum products. The wide range of topics reflects the many different ways in which petroleum and use affect the quality of our lives. The essays are the end results of an initiative by the University of California Energy Institute and reflect careful research into the costs and benefits of the petroleum economy. Together, they offer new insights into the critical task of living with oil, for today and for the future.

Introduction : the promise and predicament of crude oil -- Environment : a disastrous history of the hydrocarbon present -- Governing disaster -- Ethical oil -- Occupying the implication -- Petrochemical fallout -- Ecological mangrove -- Conclusion : negative ecologies and the discovery of the environment.

The Canadian oil sands are one of the world’s most important energy sources and the subject of global attention in relation to climate change and pollution. This volume engages ethnographically with key issues concerning the oil sands by working from anthropological literature and beyond to explore how people struggle to make and hold on to diverse senses of home in the region. The contributors draw on diverse fieldwork experiences with communities in Alberta that are affected by the oil sands industry. Through a series of case studies, they illuminate the complexities inherent in the entanglements of race, class, Indigeneity, gender, and ontological concerns in a regional context characterized by extreme extraction. The chapters are unified in a common concern for ethnographically theorizing settler colonialism, sentient landscapes, and multispecies relations within a critical political ecology framework and by the prominent role that extractive industries play in shaping new relations between Indigenous Peoples, the state, newcomers, corporations, plants, animals, and the land.

A. AHNELL and H. O'LEARY 1.1 Environmental technology Perhaps the place to start this book is with definitions of the two key words [1]: • Technology - the scientific study and practical application of the industrial arts, applied sciences, etc., or the method for handling a specific technical problem. • Environmental - all the conditions, circumstances and influences surrounding and affecting the development of an organism or group of organisms. Environmental technology is the scientific study or the application of methods to understand and handle problems which influence our surround ings and, in the case of this book, the surroundings around oil industry facilities and where oil products are used. Traditionally the phrase has meant the application of additional treatment processes added on to industrial processes to treat air, water and waste before discharge to the environment. Increasingly the phrase has a new meaning where the concept is to create cleaner process technology and move towards sustainabili ty. 1.2 The beginning As we begin our discussion of environmental technology, it is important to take a few moments to remember how we became so involved with this substance, oil. Regardless of our opinions about its use, oil is, and has been, the key resource in the twentieth century. From humble beginnings as a medicine and a lamp oil, oil has become the energy of choice for transport and many other applications and the feedstock for a major class of the material used today, plastic.