July 6, 2010 — This week on HFTF, I interviewed Brian Black, professor of history and environmental studies at Pennsylvania State University – Altoona, and author of the books, Petrolia: The Landscape of the World’s First Oil Boom and of the forthcoming work,Declaring Dependence: The Ecology of Petroleum in Twentieth Century American Life. He discusses the the global petroleum industry’s messy origins in northwestern Pennsylvania and the environmental ethic that guided its development: “the rule of capture” (i.e. there are no rules). Continuing, Black explores the parallels between the world’s first oil boom, and its latest catastrophe: the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
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