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The Global Petrochemical Map: Drawing the Political-Spatial Nexus of Petrochemical Production

David Brown and Lorenzo Feltrin, University of Warwick Introducing the Global Petrochemical Map In July this year, the Toxic Expertise team launched the pilot version of The Global Petrochemical Map. This public resource is a collaborative project that seeks to make petrochemical connections around the globe visible and to show the commonalities and differences in … Continue reading The Global Petrochemical Map: Drawing the Political-Spatial Nexus of Petrochemical Production

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‘Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Petrochemical, Fossil Fuel, and related Industries’: The 2019 Toxic Expertise Annual Workshop

David Brown, University of Warwick On May 30th and 31st, the fourth annual Toxic Expertise workshop took place at the Arden Conference Centre, University of Warwick. The two-day event involved contributions from 20 scholars from multiple disciplines, backgrounds and perspectives. Entitled ‘Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Petrochemical, Fossil Fuel, and related Industries’, the workshop brought together scholars … Continue reading ‘Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Petrochemical, Fossil Fuel, and related Industries’: The 2019 Toxic Expertise Annual Workshop

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Fighting fossil fuels in South Africa, campaigners invoke the spectre of climate chaos

Patrick Bond, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg  South Africa is one of the most difficult places to combat fossil fuels, including the petrochemical complexes that regularly poison the third largest city, Durban, founded by white settlers on the east coast in the mid-19th century. The average South African emits 9 tons of … Continue reading Fighting fossil fuels in South Africa, campaigners invoke the spectre of climate chaos

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Beyond Containment: Toxic Justice and Space-Time Violence in the Ruhr

Laurie Parsons, Royal Holloway, University of London Toxic fashion is having a moment. Or rather, with modish transience, it had one. 2018 saw a huge spike in interest in the social and environmental cost of seasonally disposable clothing. From the dyes used in manufacturing them, to the burning of garment offcuts by brick workers in … Continue reading Beyond Containment: Toxic Justice and Space-Time Violence in the Ruhr

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The Peruvian oil company Petroperu uses fear and bribery to silence local people and prevent environmental justice

Adrian Gonzalez, University of York adrian.gonzalez.2013@live.rhul.ac.uk; Twitter: @AGonzalez05 Imagine you and your family suffering from the effects of oil pollution and feeling powerless to report it and seek justice. My research shows that this is the situation that rural Peruvian communities face today. Two villages in Peru’s Amazon region of Loreto have both been affected … Continue reading The Peruvian oil company Petroperu uses fear and bribery to silence local people and prevent environmental justice

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Lago Agrio – Sour Lake: Environmental justice through art

Amelia Fiske a.fiske@tum.de  Institute for History and Ethics in Medicine, Technical University of Munich  It is mid-June 2012, and I have travelled from the Amazon to the southern highlands of Ecuador, to see Pablo Cardoso’s exposition of Lago Agrio-Sour Lake in the artist’s home city of Cuenca.[i] Lago Agrio-Sour Lake merges art and activism to … Continue reading Lago Agrio – Sour Lake: Environmental justice through art

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Social impacts of oil developments in Uganda: The past, present and future scenarios

Tom Ogwang, Department of Cultural Geography, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Contact details: t.ogwang@rug.nl, or ogwangtom@gmail.com  Introduction Following the discovery of oil in 2006, production licences were issued to the Joint Venture Partners, CNOOC (2014), Total E&P Uganda (2017), and Tullow Uganda Operations (2017). The licences will run for 25 years, … Continue reading Social impacts of oil developments in Uganda: The past, present and future scenarios

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Santa Cruz Verde 2030: A new dawn for Tenerife?

Chris Waite, University of Warwick When Alexander von Humboldt reached the peak of El Teide in June 1799, he described how the ‘prodigious transparency of the atmosphere’ contributed to ‘the magical effect’ of Tenerife’s landscape1. Humboldt was on route to what would become an extraordinary Latin American expedition that saw him scale higher peaks than … Continue reading Santa Cruz Verde 2030: A new dawn for Tenerife?

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Places of decision and flows of power: Disentangling petrochemical corporate networks

Dr Thomas Verbeek, University of Warwick @thverbeek In our contemporary globalized economy, it is increasingly complex to disentangle the relationships between different places, different companies and different products. Through global production networks, globally operating conglomerates, global elite networks as well as through all kinds of inter-firm alliances such as joint ventures and license agreements, different … Continue reading Places of decision and flows of power: Disentangling petrochemical corporate networks