Published on GEOG 430: Human Use of Environment (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog430)

Home > Course Outline > Week 9 - Natural Resource Extraction

Week 9 - Natural Resource Extraction

The links below provide an outline of the material for this lesson. Be sure to carefully read through the entire lesson before returning to Canvas to submit your assignments.

Introduction

This week will focus on Natural Resource Extraction and, in particular, the energy industry and natural gas drilling. Rising energy demands around the world since the Industrial Revolution place an increasing burden on the environment and those who work and live in the landscapes of oil and gas drilling, and the pollution resulting from the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels is distributed unevenly. We will use our previous work - especially ideas of "scarcity," "nature," and environmental justice - to think about social, environmental, and economic costs, and about more just and sustainable ways we might regulate the extraction of natural resources.

Assignments Due During Week 9:

  • Take the Week 9 Quiz by Tuesday at 11:59 pm Eastern Time.
  • Submit your 3rd Current Event Essay by Thursday at 11:59 pm Eastern Time.
  • Begin working on your Final Essay Outline (due on Tuesday of Week 10).

Check the calendar in Canvas for specific due dates.

Materials for Week 9:

  • Tom Wilber (2012) Under the Surface - Fracking, Fortunes, and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale.
  • Seamus McGraw (2011) The End of Country. Prologue, Chapter 4.
  • Nancy Perkins (2012) The Fracturing of Place - The Regulation of Marcellus Shale Development and the Subordination of Local Experience.
  • Matthew Huber (2011) Enforcing Scarcity - Oil, Violence, and the Making of the Market.

Objectives:

  • Analyze the social, economic, and environmental impacts of natural gas extraction, and the visions of nature upon which the energy industry relies.
  • Discuss the different interests at stake in drilling the Marcellus Shale and how they may conflict with one another. The following stakeholders are particularly important:
    • land owners in the Shale region
    • drilling workers
    • drilling companies
    • environmentalists
    • the environment (and think carefully about what the interests of non-human nature might be and whether/how we should respect them)
    • government regulators and elected officials
    • taxpayers
    • consumers
  • Discuss how natural gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale is currently being regulated and the environmental and justice concerns raised.
  • Explain how the idea of resource scarcity has been used to justify violence and global "resource wars," and discuss the implications of "scarcity" and "overproduction" for the natural gas industry.

In your assignments, you are expected to include the full citations for these and other materials as detailed in our Quick Guide to Citations & References [1]. Note that some of the information is (deliberately) missing from the references provided above! You will have to find the rest of the information yourself!

Let's dive in!

Wilber "Under the Surface"

Tom Wilber has worked as an environmental journalist for more than 17 years and has won awards for his coverage of the Marcellus Shale and natural gas extraction. Below is the jacket material and trailer for his book Under the Surface:

Running from southern West Virginia through eastern Ohio, across central and northeast Pennsylvania, and into New York through the Southern Tier and the Catskills, the Marcellus Shale geological formation underlies a sparsely populated region that features striking landscapes, critical watersheds, and a struggling economic base. It also contains one of the world's largest supplies of natural gas, a resource that has been dismissed as inaccessible—until recently. Technological developments that combine horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") have removed physical and economic barriers to extracting hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of gas from bedrock deep below the Appalachian basin. Beginning in 2006, the first successful Marcellus gas wells by Range Resources, combined with a spike in the value of natural gas, spurred a modern-day gold rush—a "gas rush"—with profound ramifications for environmental policy, energy markets, political dynamics, and the lives of the people living in the Marcellus region. Under the Surface is the first book-length journalistic overview of shale gas development and the controversies surrounding it.

Control over drilling rights is at stake in the heart of Marcellus country—northeast Pennsylvania and central New York. The decisions by landowners to work with or against the companies—and the resulting environmental and economic consequences—are scrutinized by neighbors faced with similar decisions, by residents of cities whose water supply originates in the exploration area, and by those living across state lines with differing attitudes and policies concerning extraction industries. Wilber's evenhanded treatment gives a voice to all constituencies, including farmers and landowners tempted by the prospects of wealth but wary of the consequences, policymakers struggling with divisive issues, and activists coordinating campaigns based on their respective visions of economic salvation and environmental ruin. Wilber describes a landscape in which the battle over the Marcellus ranges from the very local—yard signs proclaiming landowners' allegiances for or against shale gas development—to often conflicting municipal, state, and federal legislation intended to accelerate, delay, or discourage exploration.


Click for a transcript of "Under the Surface" video.

TOM WILBER: Before frack became a loaded word, there was a time when the public was generally enthusiastic about shale gas development. I began covering the story of the Marcellus Shale when I was a reporter for the Press & Sun-Bulletin in 2008. Few people then really appreciated what the Marcellus was or what it was worth.

Landmen were leasing rights to all the land they could find for $5 an acre. When a group of farmers in Broome County landed to deal with a Texas company, XTO Energy, to lease 50,000 acres for $110 million, that's when people began paying attention. People who were sold on the prospects of clean-burning natural gas as a means to cleaner energy, national independence, and untold fortunes for the working farmer facing tax debts.

And then, on January 1, 2009, Norma Fiorentino's well exploded. It was an event that became iconic of the greatest environmental movement since Love Canal. Norma is a plumber's widow and home health aide who lives across the border of New York state in a trailer on a 7-acre homestead in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.

NORMA: DEP was here today. And he said, I have to take your well and I have to take two different sites because, he said, the last one came back 25% gas. So whatever you do, don't drink it, he said.

TOM WILBER: I think of Norma as the Rosa Parks of the anti-fracking movement. Under the Surface chronicles the circumstances that ushered in a new era of on-shore drilling. It's a story of hope, naivete, and dashed expectations. And it's the story of a clash of ideology in two states straddling one of the richest natural gas resources in the world.

Source: 2014 Cornell University Press

As you read and reflect, consider these questions:

  • How has Penn State, along with other public universities, played a key role in the development of the natural gas extraction industry?
  • How have international economic and political relations impacted the development of the Marcellus Shale?
  • How have drilling companies worked to secure drilling rights to the natural gas deposits in the Marcellus Shale?
  • What different factors do landowners need to consider when deciding whether to sell rights to their land? What are the potential risks and benefits to signing with a drilling company? What are the risks and benefits to not signing?
  • What are the public risks to drilling in the Marcellus Shale? (These can be economic, environmental, and social justice risks).
  • What are the potential benefits to drilling in the Marcellus Shale?
  • What made Victoria Switzer and Ken Ely initially sign a lease with the drilling company Cabot Oil and Gas? What made them change their minds and become activists critical of the drilling company's conduct?
  • Can you think of ways that natural gas drilling could be regulated that might have prevented some of the problems detailed in Wilber's book?

McGraw "The End of Country"

Seamus McGraw grew up pitching hay and spreading manure on the same fields the gas companies are now prospecting, and he still lives in the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and four children. McGraw is a freelance writer who has published extensively on the drilling industry in his home state.

You can read more of his coverage of the Marcellus Shale here:

Pittsburgh Quarterly articles:

Workers wanted: the Marcellus Shale [2]

Marcellus Shale: A Tricky Situation [3]

Click on the image below to watch an interview with the author.

Picture of 'The End of Country' book. 1 lone post with an orange band in a muddy fie;d [4]
Credit: Dartmouth via YouTube [5]

As you read and reflect, consider these questions:

  • What different conflicting reactions do McGraw and his family and neighbors have to the gas industry?
  • What risks and benefits to natural gas extraction does McGraw identify?
  • How do you think you would respond if you were approached by a landman about leasing rights to your land to a drilling company?
  • Can you think of regulations that, if enforced, would help protect the rights of land owners? That would help protect the environment? That would help protect jobs and the local economy?

Perkins "The Fracturing of Place"

Nancy D. Perkins is Associate Dean and Professor of Law at Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She teaches Property and Environmental Law, and her research and scholarship explores the intersection of these two areas with a special focus on sustainability, equity, and feminism.

This article examines the legislation regulating horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale, with a particular focus on Act 13, which privileges the zoning rights of the state over those of local municipalities, and which Perkins argues prioritizes the interests of drilling companies over local social and environmental concerns. Since the writing of this article, this provision has been challenged in court.

Click on the link below for recent news coverage of Act 13 of Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale drilling law.

"Pennsylvania Supreme Court declares portions of shale-drilling law unconstitutional" [6]

As you read and reflect, consider these important questions:

  • What are the "Three E's" in Perkins' definition of sustainability?
  • How does Perkins define feminism? According to Perkins, how is a feminist approach important to pursuing sustainability? Look back to Paul Robin's reading back in the beginning of the class to situate feminist scholarship within human-environment scholarship (hint: it's not just about women).
  • What is "intersectionality" and why is it important for understanding how social inequality is produced?
  • How, according to Perkins, is Act 13 part of an unsustainable approach to development?
  • Do you agree that the local municipalities most directly impacted by natural gas extraction should be involved in developing drilling regulations?
  • How would you want to change state regulations to achieve a balance between economic development, social equity, and environmental protection?

Huber "Enforcing Scarcity"

Matthew T. Huber is an assistant professor of geography at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. His article, like Perkins', confronts the tensions between the regulation of natural resource extraction at different scales. Unlike the other articles for this week, his does not focus on natural gas, but rather on the oil industry. However, his analysis is central to our discussion of the Marcellus Shale, because "peak oil" is often raised as justification for extracting natural gas quickly and in maximum volumes.

You should notice similarities between Huber's article and our previous engagements with ideas of "scarcity" in Weeks 2 and 3. You will also notice parallels between the discussion of the dangers of overproduction between this article and our look at the national corn industry. Remember, geographers who study human-environment relations and natural resource management have long been interested in the different meanings of resource scarcity. Pay close attention to how maintaining overproduction or resource scarcity serves different interests, and how this conflict has influenced resource extraction.

Cartoon featuring an oil well labeled Texas blowing vast amounts of money (oil) into the air. People trying to gather all the money.
Political cartoon featured in Huber's article."Texas, by its opposition to "Federal Encroachment" in the oil fields, recklessly squanders the nation's resources."
Credit: Daniel R. Fitzpatrick.

As you read this article, consider the following questions:

  • Whose interests are served by extracting as much oil as quickly as possible? What are the costs of this overproduction?
  • How can maintaining resource scarcity help stabilize oil markets?
  • Do you experience the kind of fear of scarcity that Huber describes in his article? Do your feelings change after learning how policymakers create scarcity through regulating natural resource extraction?
  • Did you know that, in the history of the United States oil market, overproduction has been more of a threat than scarcity? Does this knowledge change how you think about the oil and gas industries?
  • What were the competing interests between oil companies, oil regulators in east Texas and Oklahoma, and the federal government? How do you think states' rights and private business interests should be balanced with the need for national market stability?
  • What do you think about Huber's argument that resource scarcity is often an effect, not a cause, of political conflict and wars? (In other words, he argues that conflicts are sometimes about trying to maintain "artificial" scarcity, rather than being driven by scarcity as a geological fact. This argument is common in other industries besides oil and gas, including the diamond industry. You can also see parallels with the corn industry, in which corn is being produced for animal feed and ethanol rather than for human consumption).

Final Essay Component: Outline Instructions

The outline should be approximately 2-3 pages, and should include the structure that your final essay will follow. For each section of your outline, you should provide key supporting sentences that explain what you will write in your paper. You should also indicate where you will include some of the resources that you listed in your annotated bibliography.

Your outline should:

  1. Begin with a paper title and a 1 sentence description of your thesis statement. Again, it is fine if you just want to copy your topic from the previous essay discussions.
  2. Outline the structure of your paper using headings to separate main ideas/points. For example, each of your outlines should contain sections called, ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’, as well as other headings that are specific to your paper topic.
  3. For each heading, provide several sub-headings with detail regarding what topics will be covered in each section of your essay. Your sub-headings can be phrases or complete sentences, but should be clear enough that your classmates understand what you hope to do.
  4. In your headings and sub-headings, indicate what resources you will be drawing on to make your point. You will be drawing on resources from your annotated bibliography, but the assumption is that you will have developed your bibliography even further at this point. (See example below)
  5. Make sure your resources are listed in a proper bibliographic format at the end of your outline. In alphabetical order list the references you note in your outline in FULL APA format. Refer to the Quick Guide to Citations and References [7] for more information about citations.
  6. Submit your outline by Tuesday of week 10 as a word document or a pdf file. This will be easier for your classmates to download and read.
  7. Respond to two of your peers by Thursday of week 10 with feedback and suggestions for how they may structure their essay more effectively, or with more detail.

Here is an example of what part of your outline might look like:

  1. Background: The Mass Media and Climate Change
    1. Knowledge development through the media (Hannigan, 2014)
    2. The media as a powerful actor (Weingart et al., 2000; Boykoff and Boykoff, 2007)
    3. Graphics in the mass media of climate change (Swim and Bloodhart, 2015)
      1. Charismatic Mega-fauna and other graphics
    4. Maps as a form of climate change media

Reference List:

Boykoff, M. T., & Boykoff, J. M. (2007). Climate change and journalistic norms: A case-study of US mass-media coverage.Geoforum,38(6), 1190–1204.

Hannigan, J. (2014).Environmental sociology. New York: Routledge.

Swim, J. K., & Bloodhart, B. (2015). Portraying the Perils to Polar Bears: The Role of Empathic and Objective Perspective-taking Toward Animals in Climate Change Communication.Environmental Communication,9(4), 446–468.

Weingart, P., Engels, A., & Pansegrau, P. (2000). Risks of communication: discourses on climate change in science, politics, and the mass media.Public Understanding of Science,9(3), 261–283.

Deliverable (due in week 10)

You should begin working on your outline so you not rushed when it is due in week 10. Your outline should be submitted as a word document or a pdf file.

When you are ready to submit your outline, return to Canvas and open the Final Essay Component: Outline assignment in the Lesson 10 module.

NOTE:
If your submission is late, you will NOT be assigned anyone to peer review and you will miss out on the 20 available peer review points. Also, no one will review your work, so please be on time.

Peer Reviews:
After the Tuesday night due date has passed for your initial outline submission, please return to the Final Essay Component: Outline assignment page in the Week 10 module in Canvas and click on the "Peer Review" link to see who you have been assigned to peer review.

Week 9 Assignments

This week, we have learned about how natural resource extraction is shaped by political struggles, and how it can transform the environment and the lives of those who live and work in landscapes of extraction. We have focused on the natural gas and oil industries to consider the social, economic, and environmental impacts of natural resource extraction. We have studied how ideas of scarcity and overproduction influence decisions about who has the right to extract what resources, where, how, and what kinds of protections are put in place for the people and environments that are impacted the most. And, we have also examined how government regulation can shape the impacts of natural resource extraction.

Assignments:

  • Take Week 9 Quiz by Tuesday at 11:59 pm Eastern Time.
  • Submit your 3rd current event essay by Thursday at 11:59 pm Eastern Time.
  • Be working on your Final Essay Outline (due on Tuesday of Week 10).

All assignments will be submitted in Canvas, check the calendar in Canvas for specific due dates.


Source URL: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog430/node/288

Links
[1] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog430/node/280
[2] http://pittsburghquarterly.com/pq-commerce/pq-energy/item/20-workers-wanted.html
[3] http://pittsburghquarterly.com/pq-commerce/pq-energy/item/1075-marcellus-shale-tricky-situation.html
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYGMnG2hRsc
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYGMnG2hRsc
[6] http://www.post-gazette.com/local/2013/12/19/Pennsylvania-Supreme-Court-declares-portions-of-shale-drilling-law-unconstitutional/stories/201312190254
[7] https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog430/280