Review
"In this intelligent and refreshingly readable--if inevitably depressing--expose, Freudenburg and Gramling, professors of environmental studies and sociology respectively, and longtime collaborators and observers of the oil industry, analyze the origins of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and its aftermath... Readers interested in energy crisis, peak oil, environmental and climate change issues will appreciate the straightforward analysis and will hope this important book finds its way into the hands of policy makers." -- Publishers Weekly "Blowout in the Gulf is a fast-paced, vivid account of the century-long rush to exploit that led to the BP disaster. As finite and remote oil and gas supplies dwindle, the risks, human and environmental, will only increase. As the age of oil approaches an end, the authors point us in other, sustainable, directions." -- Bruce Babbitt, former governor of Arizona and secretary of the Interior, board of directors, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy "A smashing book. Freudenburg and Gramling put the spill into the perspective of energy dependence, take us gracefully through technical details blurred by the popular press, grasp the local and national politics (offering some political detergents of their own along the way), and give the spill what will likely be its most masterful handling. The authors' years of work on oil drilling and the carbon economy get a dramatic payoff in this very timely book." --Charles Perrow, author of The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters "An extremely timely and important offering from two of the world's preeminent environmental scholars. Accessibly written for a wide audience, Blowout in the Gulf is both a brilliant analysis and an indictment of the energy-growth machine that gave us one of the signal environmental assaults of our time." --Lee Clarke, author of Worst Cases: Terror and Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination
"In 'Blowout in the Gulf', William Freudenburg and Robert Gramling put forth the thesis that the insatiable demand for oil in the US has pushed the country into dangerous waters, both literally and figuratively. They point to the extraction and transportation of oil from deposits in northern Alaska, entanglements in the Middle East and deepwater drilling as all part of a larger pattern; one in which the need to secure oil has pushed US society into embracing highly risky activities. The BP oil spill earlier this year in the Gulf of Mexico, they argue, should be interpreted in this context, rather than as an isolated incident of technological failure. They suggest that the spill should be viewed as a warning signal that something is wrong with US energy policy. The general thesis is not a new one, but Freudenburg and Gramling are the right people to apply it to the BP spill. Both have written extensively about the offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico and the risks associated with that industry. By weaving the specifics of what happened in the Gulf earlier this year with a broader history of the oil industry, they attempt to integrate two narratives- one associated with events surrounding the blowout and one dealing with the larger issue of US energy policy- into a single book. For the most part, they succeed....After examining the immediate and systemic causes of the spill, Freudenburg and Gramling ask what can and should be done to prevent such occurrences in the future. Again, they examine the question at two different scales, both in terms of narrow regulation focused on preventing spills while allowing deepwater drilling, and in terms of broader change in US energy policy. The narrow, technical discussion about how to make deepwater drilling less risky is quite interesting. For example, they note that the airline industry has developed a culture highly sensitive to risk. When a component fails, the cause is identified and every similar component in service is tracked down and, if appropriate, redesigned and replaced. What would it take to develop that culture in the offshore oil industry? They point to several practical and, one would assume, well-known methods for improving blowout protectors. In addition, they suggest giving an agency with no particular interest in the oil industry, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in the US Department of Labor, more authority over ensuring the safety of offshore drilling practices...In the end, though, the authors conclude that none of these changes will matter in the long term unless changes also occur at higher levels of policy. They encourage conservation rather than faster extraction; encourage the development of new ways to provide the same services provided by petroleum; and end the habit of making reserves seem artificially cheap . Is what Freudenburg and Gramling argue accurate? Is it difficult to discourage risky technological practices while embracing unsound policies at the national level? Although I agree with their conclusion (that the two scales are connected), I suspect that readers hostile to a fundamental restructuring of US energy policy will be unconvinced. At the same time, anybody who reads this book will be less likely to completely separate the two issues in the future." --Hugh Gorman, Times Higher Education
About the Author
William R. Freudenburg is Dehlsen Professor of Environmental Studies at University of California, Santa Barbara. Robert Gramling is Professor of Sociology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
