The story of how a chain of failures, missteps, and bad decisions led to America's biggest environmental disaster.
On April 20, 2010, the gigantic drilling rig Deepwater Horizon blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven crew members and causing a massive eruption of oil from BP's Macondo well. For months, oil gushed into the Gulf, spreading death and destruction. Americans watched real-time video of the huge column of oil and gas spewing from the obviously failed “blowout preventer.” What was missing, though, was the larger story of this disaster. In Blowout in the Gulf, energy experts William Freudenburg and Robert Gramling explain both the disaster and the decisions that led up to it. 
Blowout in the Gulf weaves a fascinating narrative of failures, missteps, and bad decisions, explaining why this oil spill was a disaster waiting to happen―and how making better energy choices will help prevent others like it.

Blowout in the Gulf: The BP Oil Spill Disaster and the Future of Energy in America

Freudenburg, William R.

Gramling, Robert

Sports & Outdoors

Mit Pr

Business & Money

Biography & History

Proposed energy resource development in the arid western United States raises a number of potential problems for an environment that does not have a great deal of resiliency. Projected population increases associated with large-scale development activities may go beyond the capacity of small, isolated rural communities to absorb them; and constraints on western agricultural and industrial development--for example, demands for water already exceeding the supply available--also limit energy development. The authors of this wide-ranging book first evaluate western energy resources, then objectively discuss the consequences of development on the region's physical and social environments. Among the questions they consider are: Who will reap the economic benefits of development, and who will bear the environmental costs? What will be the effects on the environment? The social structure? The quality of life? Are open spaces a national treasure in their present form, or should they be regarded as space available for development? What are the unique demands of reclamation in the arid west? And, given the recent trend of western states-rights militancy and shifts of population to the southwest, what impact will new federal and state policies have on resource management?

Paradoxes Of Western Energy Development: How Can We Maintain The Land And The People If We Develop?

Politics & Social Sciences

Mckell, Cyrus M

Browne, Donald G

Cruze, Elinor C.

Social Sciences

Routledge

A true synthesis for environmental studies. This is the first textbook to fully synthesize all key disciplines of environmental studies. Humans in the Landscape draws on the biophysical sciences, social sciences, and humanities to explore the interactions between cultures and environments over time, and discusses classic environmental problems in the context of the overarching conflicts and frameworks that motivate them.

Humans in the Landscape: An Introduction to Environmental Studies

Engineering & Transportation

Lee, Kai N.

Howarth, Richard B.

Engineering

W.W.Norton and Company

In some coastal regions of the United States, such as western Louisiana, offshore oil development has long been welcomed. In others, such as northern California, it has been vehemently opposed. This book explores the reasons behind this paradox, looking at the people, the regions, and the issues in sociological and historical contexts. What has been in very short supply on this issue, as in a growing number of other cases of technological gridlock, is balanced analysis. That is what this book provides. The authors' case studies, derived from interviews with Louisiana and California residents and from environmental impact statements, demonstrate that easy answers are not the most valid ones. The region that should be considered unusual, they find, is coastal Louisiana, where historical, social, and environmental factors combine to favor the offshore oil industry. But this combination of factors, they argue, is unlikely to be found in other coastal regions of the U.S. in the near future.

Oil in Troubled Waters: Perceptions, Politics, and the Battle Over Offshore Drilling (Environ Public Policy (Dis))

Economics

State University of New York Press

In some coastal regions of the United States, such as western Louisiana, offshore oil development has long been welcomed. In others, such as northern California, it has been vehemently opposed. This book explores the reasons behind this paradox, looking at the people, the regions, and the issues in sociological and historical contexts. What has been in very short supply on this issue, as in a growing number of other cases of technological gridlock, is balanced analysis. That is what this book provides. The authors’ case studies, derived from interviews with Louisiana and California residents and from environmental impact statements, demonstrate that easy answers are not the most valid ones. The region that should be considered unusual, they find, is coastal Louisiana, where historical, social, and environmental factors combine to favor the offshore oil industry. But this combination of factors, they argue, is unlikely to be found in other coastal regions of the U.S. in the near future.

Science & Math

Westview Press

No markings. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. Some loose pages have been glued back in place. Edges slightly foxed. Very clean, crisp, and tight copy. Includes index. Not Ex-Library. All books offered from DSB are stocked at our store in Fayetteville, AR. Save on shipping by ordering multiple titles. 284pp. Softcover Very Good Condition Size: 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" English Text

Coping With Rapid Growth In Rural Communities

Howell, Robert E

Weber, Bruce A.

Krannich, Richard

When houses are flattened, towns submerged, and people stranded without electricity or even food, we attribute the suffering to “natural disasters” or “acts of God.” But what if they’re neither? What if we, as a society, are bringing these catastrophes on ourselves? That’s the provocative theory of Catastrophe in the Making, the first book to recognize Hurricane Katrina not as a “perfect storm,” but a tragedy of our own making—and one that could become commonplace. The authors, one a longtime New Orleans resident, argue that breached levees and sloppy emergency response are just the most obvious examples of government failure. The true problem is more deeply rooted and insidious, and stretches far beyond the Gulf Coast. Based on the false promise of widespread prosperity, communities across the U.S. have embraced all brands of “economic development” at all costs. In Louisiana, that meant development interests turning wetlands into shipping lanes. By replacing a natural buffer against storm surges with a 75-mile long, obsolete canal that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, they guided the hurricane into the heart of New Orleans and adjacent communities. The authors reveal why, despite their geographic differences, California and Missouri are building—quite literally—toward similar destruction. Too often, the U.S. “growth machine” generates wealth for a few and misery for many. Drawing lessons from the most expensive “natural” disaster in American history, Catastrophe in the Making shows why thoughtless development comes at a price we can ill afford.

Catastrophe in the Making: The Engineering of Katrina and the Disasters of Tomorrow

Gramling, Robert B.

Laska, Shirley

Erikson, Kai

Shearwater

Island Press

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