I have not read this yet but looks like a LOT of resonance with #OilBeach. "Most large petrochemical facilities are located in coastal regions, near to ports, for access to shipping lines. Tightly enclosed behind security gates, they resemble cities with tall towers and giant cylindrical storage tanks. They flare and steam and crackle.
How do these petrochemical plants relate to the ports? How are they regulated? Who are
the main global corporate players? Who are the biggest polluters?"

🐦 🗺️ "scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology developed “shared stewardship” maps.. Each map displays the key wintering grounds for the migratory species that have a significant summer presence in a particular U.S. state or region."

One of the e.g.'s is California coast also featured in #OilBeach, which is on the Pacific Flyway. Birds & other animals have lost a ton of habitat to industrial & real estate development here.

🎁 🔗 :
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/29/science/bird-migration-connections.html?unlocked_article_code=Xc9EgeQ7TlEkkUFbTp-P1ME4qQCandAxEx18qj_R5ofpRCEm16-LKsauh03H0OI1RXJk2IhcBsasez5jH-iwQVq1wjV5s9vJJKZV71qIMfQk6QGuuPLgsKCLxi7y--oJBrcC2-BDwE19-9DkS9FSyFoYIybKdKjryQECNfoqxFCnE8AmyjSnthjDMweTDbsER85tRXJJysfVfl67S7RQi7xDipZgwiSSX-AuyEgeoMOcc-jsvd4NkqppIsnHw6syYvlRHXWYThiicEp3q6Po0lKaEXpa4VvmRX-fGfyJFn4DdIAr6KaHMVnHTMEng0Zi0_P0PxcLU4waRy6iac8uBFmjqDF6DmJdzlrGU4F-WlDpsqJQ&smid=url-share

#OilBeach sighting, at #eseh2023 ! (European Society for Environmental History)
sent by a colleague who’s there

🎧 📙 Oh, hey, the audio book of #OilBeach is now available! On Google Play or from the publisher, @UChicagoPress . It's only $10!

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo185167017.html

(I don't love that it's read by a robot, but would rather have the book accessible in more formats, as some people really prefer/need to read with their ears)

This is cool: modern cargo ships that are sail/wind-powered. But the bigger-capacity one here can handle 250 metric tons. https://www.sailcargo.inc/

Compare to a regular modern cargo ship, the capacity of which is 37,000 metric tons. The biggest dry bulk carriers can handle as much as 110,000 tons. Not a typo. https://www.suiscagroup.com/en/noticias/types-of-cargo-ships-according-to-the-load-they-carry/

This is why in #OilBeach I argue that SCALE of modern shipping needs to be reevaluated, not just fuel

A peer reviewer for #OilBeach suggested that one of the chapters should be about the bygone Marineland of the Pacific, which trained animals for Hollywood and the military. I didn't write that chapter. But here's "Si, the Politician," a sea lion, addressing an audience, 1958

🛢️ 🏖️ 📙 My new book #OilBeach is not even discounted for Prime Day, BUT you can get it for 30% off if you order directly from the press, @UChicagoPress, using code UCPLIF!! Also works on all other books in their life sciences catalog!!

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo185167017.html

#NewBooks #Science

My just-out book #OilBeach is nonfiction, not petro-fiction, but some of what it chronicles is all but unbelievable.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo185167017.html

Thank you @athena for this super generous (and fediversal!) review of #OilBeach! 🧡

"Oil Beach is a remarkable example of how #STS (science & technology studies) can engage with what is wondrous about the world while offering rigorous sociopolitical critique. The #Ports of #LosAngeles and #LongBeach are a global nexus for #oil production and trade. Christina Dunbar-Hester employs the concept of infrastructural vitalism to explore how LA port and shipping infrastructure is constructed as +

The first real review of #OilBeach has come in and it’s lovely: “Attentive to power, this is a hopeful vision of a more thoroughgoing kind. And it is an approach to justice that might drive activism and action in ports, large and small, around the world.”

Thank you, Alessandro Antonello & @hnet_reviews! https://networks.h-net.org/node/19397/reviews/12876045/antonello-dunbar-hester-oil-beach-how-toxic-infrastructure-threatens

#EnvHist #STS #EnvHum @geography @sts @academicchatter #Commodon

If you think I'm gonna miss a chance to showcase my new book on #WorldOceanDay, think again! 🌊 🛢️ 📙

#OilBeach "reveals how logistics infrastructure threatens ecologies as it circulates goods and capital—and helps us to consider a future where the accumulation of life and the accumulation of capital are not in violent tension."

Its story is emplaced in Southern California but the phenomenon of how conservation subsumed by industry is a much broader:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo185167017.html

Got the chance to have a nice conversation with Matt Haugen about my new book #OilBeach in his newsletter, Terrain:

https://www.terrain.news/p/christina-dunbar-hester-on-toxic

This has been worrying me since digging into the coastline around the SoCal #ports while researching #OilBeach. There's an unfathomable amount of toxic petrochemical crap barely above sea level. A big storm surge will unleash a lot of poison.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/05/02/as-rising-seas-disrupt-toxic-sites-communities-of-color-are-at-most-risk/

#ToxicLA

Best May Day present ever? Friend went back and snapped #OilBeach in the bookstore, displayed on the shelf next to City of Quartz!! cc @UChicagoPress @josephcalamia

Looking for weekend audio?

New Cultures of Energy podcast featuring #OilBeach! It's the second half, after something to do with cli-fi and walruses 🧊

There is one kinda-spoiler for the 📙, but I don't think it rises to the level of true spoiler because I'm not even sure if that's possible with this kind of text...

https://cenhs.libsyn.com/214-oil-beach-with-christina-dunbar-hester

#podcast #energy #Anthropology #NewBooks #STS #EnvHist #EnvHum #Anthropocene

#OilBeach podcast alert! 🛢️ 🏖️ 🎧

Had a lovely conversation with Dave O'Brien about all (well, some) things #wildlife & #infrastructure for the #NewBooksNetwork:

https://newbooksnetwork.com/oil-beach

#AnimalStudies #energy #Podcast #NewBooks #STS #EnvHist #California @geography

#OilBeach podcast alert! 🛢️ 🏖️ 🎧

Had a lovely conversation with Dave O'Brien about all (well, some) things #wildlife & #infrastructure for the #NewBooksNetwork:

https://newbooksnetwork.com/oil-beach

#AnimalStudies #energy #Podcast #NewBooks

Here's an image I'd have used in #OilBeach, but Disney lawyers took three months to get back to me before saying "NO"

It's an artist's rendering of a theme park and ocean research station they never built, called Port Disney, (idly) planned for Long Beach in the 1990s. (for @acousticmirror)

@UChicagoPress THrilled to see #OilBeach on this list! Thank you 🙂

🛢️ 🏖️ 📙 #OilBeach launch discussion coming up in a few days! April 24, 12 noon Pacific.

Details and registration (open to anyone! online) are all in this post, as is a discount code for the book, tho registered attendees will also get an excerpt or two to read.

Come to see Ashley Carse and Deborah Cowen say brilliant things! And me to say things.

https://union.place/@inquiline/110141281594690598