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Land of Extraction Property, Fracking, and Settler Colonialism

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View the page of Rebecca Scott

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Through meticulous research and poignant storytelling, Rebecca Scott unravels the complex web of relationships between humans, places, and the environment, all bound by the concept of private property.

Image courtesy of interviewee. February 21, 2024

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This video video discusses the author's exploration of environmental justice and the concept of "sacrifice zones," which refers to areas and communities that are disregarded for the sake of a perceived greater good. The author highlights fracking as a modern form of a sacrifice zone, characterized by its diffuse impact across landscapes, as opposed to the concentrated devastation seen in traditional examples like nuclear waste sites or coal mining areas.

The author reflects on the cultural implications of fracking and property ownership, linking it to settler colonialism. They argue that property ownership is deeply intertwined with environmental degradation and plays a dual role: providing a means for people to defend their land while also facilitating exploitation by extractive industries. This video video contradiction highlights the challenges of sustainable environmental activism in the context of property rights.

Through collecting stories—both fiction and nonfiction—and interviewing property owners in West Virginia, the author investigates these themes further. They emphasize the importance of understanding how property rights can obstruct effective environmental justice and advocacy, often prioritizing individual ownership over community well-being.

This video video suggests that the dominant narrative around land ownership must be reconsidered, proposing alternative perspectives on human relationships with land and nature. It calls for a reimagining of narratives surrounding settler colonialism to open up new possibilities for a sustainable future, especially in the context of environmental movements. The author aims to challenge preconceived notions about property, environmentalism, and colonization to foster innovative thinking and action in addressing these intertwined issues.

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Here are some similar articles that explore themes such as environmental justice, sacrifice zones, property ownership, and the cultural implications of resource extraction, particularly in the convideo of settler colonialism and sustainable activism:

1. **"Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States"** by Steve Lerner
- This article discusses the concept of sacrifice zones in the U.S., highlighting communities disproportionately affected by environmental hazards and industrial pollution.

2. **"Fracking and the Environment: A Comparative Analysis of Environmental Justice"** by Karen Bakker
- This piece delves into the environmental justice implications of fracking, examining how it affects marginalized communities and the balance between property rights and environmental protection.

3. **"Landownership, Environmental Degradation, and Indigenous Rights"** by Robert D. Bullard
- This article explores the relationship between landownership paradigms, environmental degradation, and the struggle for Indigenous land rights, connecting these issues to broader themes of justice and sustainability.

4. **"The Environmental Justice Movement: Children of the Earth or Sacrifice Zones?"** by Laura Pulido
- Pulido evaluates the environmental justice movement's goals, discussing the concept of sacrifice zones and the need for a critical examination of how environmental policies impact vulnerable communities.

5. **"Decolonizing Environmental Justice: Indigenous Perspectives and Activism"** by Jaskiran Dhillon
- This article emphasizes the importance of Indigenous perspectives in discussions of environmental justice, aiming to decolonize narratives around land use and resource extraction.

6. **"Reimagining Property: From Individual Ownership to Collective Stewardship"** by Susan Easton
- This piece proposes alternative frameworks for understanding property and land use that prioritize community well-being and environmental sustainability over individual ownership and exploitation.

7. **"Crisis in the Appalachian Mountains: The Intersection of Environmental Justice, Economic Insecurity, and Community Resilience"** by Margaret McKeown
- This article focuses on the challenges facing communities in the Appalachian region due to fracking and coal mining, detailing efforts to promote environmental justice and community resilience.

8. **"Postcolonial Ecologies: Nature, Culture, and Agency in the Anthropocene"** by Anjali Mitter Duva
- Duva examines the intersections of colonialism, environmental degradation, and the Anthropocene, advocating for a rethinking of human-nature relationships in light of historical injustices.

These articles can provide further insights into the interplay between environmental justice, property ownership, extractive industries, and the cultural narratives surrounding these issues.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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The book is really coming from my interest in,

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environmental justice and sacrifice zones.

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Broadly defined sacrifice zones are places that are,

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written off or places

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or communities that are written off in the name

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of some kind of greater good.

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And, you know, the classic examples of those are, of course,

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nuclear sacrifice zones,

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but also, coal mining, areas

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or, industrial waste disposal areas.

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And, so part of it was thinking about fracking

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because that's become, that was becoming more

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and more important in West Virginia.

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And I, was trying to understand how fracking was kind

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of a different type of sacrifice zone,

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because it's much less concentrated,

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it's more diffuse in the landscape,

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and it, it doesn't really, stick to one spot

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or one community, like some of these more classic examples.

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Instead, it's kind of sprinkled across the, the landscape

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and across, not even just inside, for example,

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Appalachia, but all across the us.

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And another thing about fracking that was different from,

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say coal mining as a sacrifice zone,

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that interested me was that there didn't seem

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to be much culturally interesting about fracking.

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It's like, you know,

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there's a political economic critique that can be made.

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There's, you know, a lot to be said about that.

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But, at, at first glance, I was like, well,

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what's culturally interesting about fracking?

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And, so I, I started thinking about that

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and thinking about, the fact that property ownership is

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so critical in fracking, that that itself is kind

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of a lens into the culture.

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And of course, property ownership is intrinsic

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to settler colonialism, as being one

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of the main technologies of settler colonial.

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This settler colonial project is transforming

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land to property.

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And so, the, that's

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where those things all came together.

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And it made me, you know, interested in the way

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that fracking is one way into one lens,

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into understanding the relationship

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between subtler colonialism and environmental destruction

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and environmentalism in general.

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The book is, it draws on a lot of different things.

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And, the first thing I did was kind

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of start collecting stories, and I mean, fiction

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and nonfiction stories, stories that really rang those bells

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for me about, about fossil fuels and extraction

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and, sacrifice zones and property.

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Um, things that really brought that up for me

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that included things like the flint water, crisis.

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Um, property was involved there

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because of the property values of the homes, plummeting

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to the point where people couldn't sell

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them. Um, they were kind

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Of trapped, in those houses.

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Um, so stories like that that kind of said, you know,

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property and environmental, justice.

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And then, other things that had to do with property

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and activism in general.

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Like some of the stories I collected

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involved things like the Bundy Ranch standoff, where,

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the, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but Clive

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and Bundy had a standoff

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with the federal government over his use of Bureau

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of Land Management land, for,

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grazing his cattle without a permit,

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which he'd been doing for like 20 years.

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And they were trying to get him to pay,

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and, you know, he was,

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he was doing activism based on property there.

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And so it was like, there's all kinds of like, stories

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that I collected, that have to do with,

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this intersection of property

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and environment, an environmental justice.

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And when I was doing that, you know, I, it came,

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it became obvious that the property is related

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to settler colonialism,

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and to ignore that was, you know, impossible.

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So I had to kind of bring that into my, analysis

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and start thinking, you know, what,

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what can I learn from that?

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And then, in West Virginia, I,

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took these stories kind of as a background and went in there

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and interviewed people with, with property.

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Um, most of the people I interviewed are property owners,

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and so the, the interviews were directly focused on like,

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how does property figure into this story?

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Property owners who are fighting, the pipeline

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or, the, the natural gas pipeline that was planned to go

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through their property, or people who had frack pads

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or, you know, other kinds

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of infrastructure stuck on their property.

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So it was basically about the

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intersections of fracking and property.

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I did those things and sort of in a way to, try

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to make a different argument than just the, you know,

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what fracking is doing to people,

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but like, how is property involved

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and how is settler colonial culture involved?

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I'm gonna speak mostly about West Virginia

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because that's where I know

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that most all the fracking is

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happening all over the country.

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It's, like I said, it goes way beyond any kind of,

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regional impact.

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It's all over the place.

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Um, but you know, West Virginia had a oil

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and gas industry that started in the middle

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of the 19th century and sort of peaked at 1900.

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So there's a culture there of like oil and gas,

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and it remained kind of there in a very small way

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with people having small, small gas wells

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and small containers on their property and small pipelines.

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But in, at the beginning of the 20, the,

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the two thousands, there was this fracking boom

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that started taking place, you know, in Oklahoma,

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in Texas, in Pennsylvania, and in West Virginia.

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And, some of the techniques that were developed

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that were really highly, technological feats of,

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you know, engineering where, they're able to, get,

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natural gas from what they call natural gas plays,

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which are deposits sometimes a mile underground,

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in West Virginia, it concerns the Marcellus Shale,

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which is a formation

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that pretty much underlies the Appalachian, mountains

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and, extends up to New York.

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And what they do is they,

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shoot this really highly pressurized, liquid

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that is comprised of sand and chemicals

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and water, into the rock.

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That's the, the shale, the shale.

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And it cracks it, and they bring up the, that

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that enables the, gas to escape

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and be, extracted through the,

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well those wells produce the most in the first two years.

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So there's a constant race to get more, it's constantly,

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you know, drilling new wells.

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Um, and so that's led to this kind of, in West Virginia,

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at first it was like a wild west scene with lots

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of people coming in, and there were no regulations.

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The regulations that existed were based on the previous gas

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industry, much smaller gas industry.

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So the West Virginia State legislature passed a law in 2011

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regulating the, hydraulic fracturing.

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Um, and since then, it's been kind of like a,

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a little bit of a boom and bust where people are trying

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to get more

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and more, it's, you have to keep drilling wells in order

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to keep your business alive, is sort of the idea.

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And on top of that, you have to create a demand

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for the gas in order to make the whole thing make sense.

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So they are, the pipelines are part of that.

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The pipelines are part of that story, getting the gas away.

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So it can go somewhere where it can be

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used to have a market.

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And that is usually either a power plant

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or, some of, some of the gas is aimed for, ex export

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as liquid liquified natural gas.

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Some of it is going to cracker plants where it's in,

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you know, petrochemical facilities that make plastic.

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There's a planned Appalachian storage hub on the Ohio River

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where they can store the gas, because that's a problem.

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You know, what are you gonna do with this gas?

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It's so fluid, it's going every, you know, you have

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to figure out a way to hold it and then use it

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or find a market for it.

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So it's just kind of problematic economically,

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and it creates this kind of urgency that in all of this

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where, the Appalachian storage hub would allow them

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to hold it on the Ohio

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River, build, petrochemical facilities

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of all kinds, and then, you know, export it from there.

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It's kind of like, the same kind of situation

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that exists in the St.

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James Parish in Louisiana that is known as Cancer Alley.

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A sacrifice zone property is an impediment to,

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environmental justice

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and, environmental activism,

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that is really sustainable.

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Um, and part of that

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came out through the research when people,

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I could see that people were using property as both,

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a way to defend the environment

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and, it's also the basis

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for the whole project in the first place of the extractive,

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the extractive project.

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Um, so, you know, for example,

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a lot of people use the term sacred

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to talk about their land when they want to defend it from

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some kind of extractive project.

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And in West Virginia, that's, that's interesting

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because, you know, it's kind

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of contradictory on the face of it.

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Um, people are like, my land is sacred,

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it's sacred to my family.

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We've lived here for 200 years

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and this is the sacred, you know, the land

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that it shouldn't be treated this way.

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It should be treated, you know, we should protect it.

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And, you know, it struck me as being really interesting

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because that doesn't really hold water in settler colonial

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culture because, you know, that's the basis for a lot

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of indigenous land claims that are not respected, you know,

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the long term inhabitation, the right to have

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that land be protected.

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Um, and so I was interested in that, you know,

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that contradiction, it really seemed like

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what I was seeing instead was that sacred, the sacred in,

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in, in subtler colonial culture is really about

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the sacredness of the property, right?

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Itself. Like, what

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the bottom line in,

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settler colonial culture in the US is

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that every individual has the right to do

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with their property what they want.

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Property is basically that right to do with what that,

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that piece of land do with that what you want.

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Um, and so there was an interesting, incident that I had

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during my research while I was trying to take a picture of,

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the pipeline, path.

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And it was, next to this little house.

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And so I was with this guy who was giving me a tour of the,

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pipeline region.

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He's like an activist who does this for people.

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And, so I got outta the car and was taking pictures

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and, the guy came out of his house and yelled at me

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and he was like, get off, you know,

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get off my property, basically.

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Um, you know, he was like, don't,

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why are you interested in this property?

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It was just, he was really yelling at me

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and I was really embarrassed.

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I was like deeply embarrassed,

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because I felt like I had, I was really being rude,

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you know, taking pictures

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of this guy's property is really rude.

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And so it really brought home to me in a personal way,

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how, what our culture really thinks is sacred,

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is that right to do with your land what you want.

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And the guy in the car who's the activist is like breaking

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those rules all the time

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because he, you know, he knows

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that this ist just an individual issue.

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This is a community issue, but the idea of private ownership

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and control breaks up the community

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and creates the possibility for the pipeline company

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to get in there in the first place

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and use neighbors against neighbors.

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And other, other examples are when people don't wanna sell

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because they really love their land,

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but you know, they're selling the right of way.

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So it's like they're selling, you know, a certain amount

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of space that goes in between the rest of their property.

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And so some people consider that

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to be making the whole property worthless

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because you can't go across there, you can't build,

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you can't use that piece.

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And so people would say, you know, I don't wanna sell the

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right of way, but I'll sell the whole thing, you know?

13:28.305 --> 13:31.455
So, there, you see, you know, it's not

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so much about protecting the land

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as it is protecting your own property.

13:36.275 --> 13:37.615
And so it's a contradiction.

13:37.715 --> 13:39.935
And, so people are trying to use property

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as a technology to say, this is mine.

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I wanna protect it. But it's not set up for that.

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It's just not set up for that.

13:47.775 --> 13:51.315
Um, and so even places where people can use it, you know,

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and if you know what NIMBY is, it's like not in my backyard.

13:55.135 --> 13:56.915
And that's a lot of the way, you know,

13:57.135 --> 13:58.555
people protect their neighborhoods.

13:58.555 --> 14:00.715
People with privilege protect their neighborhoods by saying,

14:00.715 --> 14:05.445
no, we don't want that unsightly land

14:05.445 --> 14:06.445
development or whatever.

14:07.545 --> 14:10.085
Um, people will use that to protect their property.

14:10.145 --> 14:13.565
But with the, for example, the Porter Ranch crisis

14:13.595 --> 14:16.685
that I talk about in the book, there's a natural gas well,

14:16.945 --> 14:18.965
actually storage facility right next to

14:18.965 --> 14:20.245
that neighborhood, and it starts leaking.

14:20.265 --> 14:21.525
And, you know,

14:21.525 --> 14:24.125
you can't protect your property from these kinds of things.

14:24.185 --> 14:26.845
So it's just, there's a contradiction there,

14:26.995 --> 14:29.005
that just comes out in all these different ways

14:29.115 --> 14:32.325
that the tools that our culture gives us to try

14:32.325 --> 14:34.805
to protect our rights and our communities

14:34.805 --> 14:37.765
and our families, are not set up to really protect us.

14:37.765 --> 14:40.165
They're set up to create extraction

14:40.385 --> 14:42.245
and, economic development.

14:42.435 --> 14:44.725
This book does a lot of things that's like trying

14:44.725 --> 14:46.845
to bring things together that are kind of,

14:47.135 --> 14:50.845
funny in combination and, but I

14:50.845 --> 14:54.825
Really kind of want it to be opening up space

14:54.925 --> 14:56.265
for different kinds of thinking.

14:56.485 --> 14:58.425
And, you know, one of the things

14:58.425 --> 14:59.865
that property does along

14:59.865 --> 15:02.505
with all the other stuff I described is kind

15:02.505 --> 15:04.465
of tell us a story about human development.

15:04.685 --> 15:07.225
Um, where property owning

15:08.025 --> 15:11.465
property ownership is like a characteristic of modernity and

15:12.135 --> 15:15.465
therefore somehow a, you know, up on the ladder

15:15.525 --> 15:16.585
of human development.

15:17.605 --> 15:21.185
And, by questioning it, you know, by thinking

15:21.185 --> 15:23.705
what are the other ways we can think about land

15:23.725 --> 15:25.465
and our relationship to non-human nature?

15:25.525 --> 15:26.665
And,

15:30.015 --> 15:32.875
the book tries to open up space for that kind of thinking.

15:33.135 --> 15:36.325
Um, and one of the reasons why I like

15:36.325 --> 15:37.885
to use stories in the book is

15:37.885 --> 15:41.525
because in a way it's like the stories that we tell,

15:42.225 --> 15:43.955
whether they're fiction or nonfiction,

15:44.145 --> 15:45.555
help us kind of imagine the future.

15:47.075 --> 15:50.175
And, you know, I, I talk in the book about stories,

15:50.175 --> 15:53.935
about the end times because subtler colonial stories always

15:53.935 --> 15:55.735
seem to end in an apocalypse.

15:56.995 --> 16:00.095
And, you know, what other kinds of ways

16:00.095 --> 16:02.935
of thinking about time and human, human development

16:02.955 --> 16:04.495
and human possibility are there?

16:04.495 --> 16:07.455
What other kinds of ways of being human are there?

16:08.275 --> 16:11.775
Um, and just to open up a little space for that kind of,

16:11.855 --> 16:15.815
thinking differently, imagining life differently,

16:16.515 --> 16:18.575
may be, you know, really in really important

16:18.675 --> 16:20.655
to imagining a different kinds

16:20.655 --> 16:21.975
of future, a more sustainable future.

16:22.315 --> 16:26.195
And part of that is taking subtler colonialism

16:26.415 --> 16:28.915
and thinking differently about it.

16:29.015 --> 16:33.515
You know, it's like, instead of sort of thinking

16:33.515 --> 16:35.955
that settler colonialism is inevitable

16:36.335 --> 16:39.935
and you know, just the condition of our time

16:39.955 --> 16:44.015
and the inevitable kind of way that our culture goes, sort

16:44.015 --> 16:46.255
of take treating it like an object

16:46.255 --> 16:48.055
and saying, this is just a thing that happened

16:48.275 --> 16:50.535
and this is a thing that's happening historically.

16:50.555 --> 16:51.655
It doesn't have to last forever.

16:51.965 --> 16:55.815
It's, we can analyze it, we can, deconstruct it

16:55.955 --> 16:57.975
and think differently about it opens up

16:57.975 --> 16:59.095
all kinds of possibilities.

16:59.115 --> 17:00.535
And I think it's really important for

17:01.115 --> 17:03.495
the environmental movement to move in that direction.

17:03.855 --> 17:03.975
Honestly.

00:00 - The book is really coming from my interest in, environmental justice and sacrifice zones. Broadly defined sacrifice zones are places that are, written off or places or communities that are written off in the name of some kind of greater good.

00:15 - And, you know, the classic examples of those are, of course, nuclear sacrifice zones, but also, coal mining, areas or, industrial waste disposal areas. And, so part of it was thinking about fracking because that's become, that was becoming more and more important in West Virginia. And I, was trying to understand how fracking was kind of a different type of sacrifice zone, because it's much less concentrated,

00:45 - it's more diffuse in the landscape, and it, it doesn't really, stick to one spot or one community, like some of these more classic examples. Instead, it's kind of sprinkled across the, the landscape and across, not even just inside, for example, Appalachia, but all across the us. And another thing about fracking that was different from, say coal mining as a sacrifice zone, that interested me was that there didn't seem to be much culturally interesting about fracking.

01:17 - It's like, you know, there's a political economic critique that can be made. There's, you know, a lot to be said about that. But, at, at first glance, I was like, well, what's culturally interesting about fracking? And, so I, I started thinking about that and thinking about, the fact that property ownership is so critical in fracking, that that itself is kind of a lens into the culture. And of course, property ownership is intrinsic

01:50 - to settler colonialism, as being one of the main technologies of settler colonial. This settler colonial project is transforming land to property. And so, the, that's where those things all came together. And it made me, you know, interested in the way that fracking is one way into one lens, into understanding the relationship between subtler colonialism and environmental destruction

02:17 - and environmentalism in general. The book is, it draws on a lot of different things. And, the first thing I did was kind of start collecting stories, and I mean, fiction and nonfiction stories, stories that really rang those bells for me about, about fossil fuels and extraction and, sacrifice zones and property. things that really brought that up for me that included things like the flint water, crisis. property was involved there

02:52 - because of the property values of the homes, plummeting to the point where people couldn't sell them. they were kind Of trapped, in those houses. so stories like that that kind of said, you know, property and environmental, justice. And then, other things that had to do with property and activism in general. Like some of the stories I collected involved things like the Bundy Ranch standoff, where,

03:23 - the, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but Clive and Bundy had a standoff with the federal government over his use of Bureau of Land Management land, for, grazing his cattle without a permit, which he'd been doing for like 20 years. And they were trying to get him to pay, and, you know, he was, he was doing activism based on property there. And so it was like, there's all kinds of like, stories

03:47 - that I collected, that have to do with, this intersection of property and environment, an environmental justice. And when I was doing that, you know, I, it came, it became obvious that the property is related to settler colonialism, and to ignore that was, you know, impossible. So I had to kind of bring that into my, analysis and start thinking, you know, what, what can I learn from that?

04:18 - And then, in West Virginia, I, took these stories kind of as a background and went in there and interviewed people with, with property. most of the people I interviewed are property owners, and so the, the interviews were directly focused on like, how does property figure into this story? Property owners who are fighting, the pipeline or, the, the natural gas pipeline that was planned to go through their property, or people who had frack pads or, you know, other kinds

04:51 - of infrastructure stuck on their property. So it was basically about the intersections of fracking and property. I did those things and sort of in a way to, try to make a different argument than just the, you know, what fracking is doing to people, but like, how is property involved and how is settler colonial culture involved? I'm gonna speak mostly about West Virginia because that's where I know

05:13 - that most all the fracking is happening all over the country. It's, like I said, it goes way beyond any kind of, regional impact. It's all over the place. but you know, West Virginia had a oil and gas industry that started in the middle of the 19th century and sort of peaked at 1900. So there's a culture there of like oil and gas, and it remained kind of there in a very small way

05:41 - with people having small, small gas wells and small containers on their property and small pipelines. But in, at the beginning of the 20, the, the two thousands, there was this fracking boom that started taking place, you know, in Oklahoma, in Texas, in Pennsylvania, and in West Virginia. And, some of the techniques that were developed that were really highly, technological feats of, you know, engineering where, they're able to, get, natural gas from what they call natural gas plays,

06:19 - which are deposits sometimes a mile underground, in West Virginia, it concerns the Marcellus Shale, which is a formation that pretty much underlies the Appalachian, mountains and, extends up to New York. And what they do is they, shoot this really highly pressurized, liquid that is comprised of sand and chemicals and water, into the rock. That's the, the shale, the shale.

06:47 - And it cracks it, and they bring up the, that that enables the, gas to escape and be, extracted through the, well those wells produce the most in the first two years. So there's a constant race to get more, it's constantly, you know, drilling new wells. and so that's led to this kind of, in West Virginia, at first it was like a wild west scene with lots of people coming in, and there were no regulations. The regulations that existed were based on the previous gas

07:21 - industry, much smaller gas industry. So the West Virginia State legislature passed a law in 2011 regulating the, hydraulic fracturing. and since then, it's been kind of like a, a little bit of a boom and bust where people are trying to get more and more, it's, you have to keep drilling wells in order to keep your business alive, is sort of the idea. And on top of that, you have to create a demand for the gas in order to make the whole thing make sense.

08:00 - So they are, the pipelines are part of that. The pipelines are part of that story, getting the gas away. So it can go somewhere where it can be used to have a market. And that is usually either a power plant or, some of, some of the gas is aimed for, ex export as liquid liquified natural gas. Some of it is going to cracker plants where it's in, you know, petrochemical facilities that make plastic. There's a planned Appalachian storage hub on the Ohio River

08:33 - where they can store the gas, because that's a problem. You know, what are you gonna do with this gas? It's so fluid, it's going every, you know, you have to figure out a way to hold it and then use it or find a market for it. So it's just kind of problematic economically, and it creates this kind of urgency that in all of this where, the Appalachian storage hub would allow them to hold it on the Ohio River, build, petrochemical facilities

09:00 - of all kinds, and then, you know, export it from there. It's kind of like, the same kind of situation that exists in the St. James Parish in Louisiana that is known as Cancer Alley. A sacrifice zone property is an impediment to, environmental justice and, environmental activism, that is really sustainable. and part of that came out through the research when people,

09:37 - I could see that people were using property as both, a way to defend the environment and, it's also the basis for the whole project in the first place of the extractive, the extractive project. so, you know, for example, a lot of people use the term sacred to talk about their land when they want to defend it from some kind of extractive project. And in West Virginia, that's, that's interesting

10:16 - because, you know, it's kind of contradictory on the face of it. people are like, my land is sacred, it's sacred to my family. We've lived here for 200 years and this is the sacred, you know, the land that it shouldn't be treated this way. It should be treated, you know, we should protect it. And, you know, it struck me as being really interesting because that doesn't really hold water in settler colonial

10:43 - culture because, you know, that's the basis for a lot of indigenous land claims that are not respected, you know, the long term inhabitation, the right to have that land be protected. and so I was interested in that, you know, that contradiction, it really seemed like what I was seeing instead was that sacred, the sacred in, in, in subtler colonial culture is really about the sacredness of the property, right? Itself. Like, what

11:16 - the bottom line in, settler colonial culture in the US is that every individual has the right to do with their property what they want. Property is basically that right to do with what that, that piece of land do with that what you want. and so there was an interesting, incident that I had during my research while I was trying to take a picture of, the pipeline, path. And it was, next to this little house.

11:48 - And so I was with this guy who was giving me a tour of the, pipeline region. He's like an activist who does this for people. And, so I got outta the car and was taking pictures and, the guy came out of his house and yelled at me and he was like, get off, you know, get off my property, basically. you know, he was like, don't, why are you interested in this property? It was just, he was really yelling at me

12:14 - and I was really embarrassed. I was like deeply embarrassed, because I felt like I had, I was really being rude, you know, taking pictures of this guy's property is really rude. And so it really brought home to me in a personal way, how, what our culture really thinks is sacred, is that right to do with your land what you want. And the guy in the car who's the activist is like breaking those rules all the time

12:43 - because he, you know, he knows that this ist just an individual issue. This is a community issue, but the idea of private ownership and control breaks up the community and creates the possibility for the pipeline company to get in there in the first place and use neighbors against neighbors. And other, other examples are when people don't wanna sell because they really love their land, but you know, they're selling the right of way.

13:08 - So it's like they're selling, you know, a certain amount of space that goes in between the rest of their property. And so some people consider that to be making the whole property worthless because you can't go across there, you can't build, you can't use that piece. And so people would say, you know, I don't wanna sell the right of way, but I'll sell the whole thing, you know? So, there, you see, you know, it's not so much about protecting the land

13:33 - as it is protecting your own property. And so it's a contradiction. And, so people are trying to use property as a technology to say, this is mine. I wanna protect it. But it's not set up for that. It's just not set up for that. and so even places where people can use it, you know, and if you know what NIMBY is, it's like not in my backyard. And that's a lot of the way, you know, people protect their neighborhoods.

13:58 - People with privilege protect their neighborhoods by saying, no, we don't want that unsightly land development or whatever. people will use that to protect their property. But with the, for example, the Porter Ranch crisis that I talk about in the book, there's a natural gas well, actually storage facility right next to that neighborhood, and it starts leaking. And, you know, you can't protect your property from these kinds of things.

14:24 - So it's just, there's a contradiction there, that just comes out in all these different ways that the tools that our culture gives us to try to protect our rights and our communities and our families, are not set up to really protect us. They're set up to create extraction and, economic development. This book does a lot of things that's like trying to bring things together that are kind of, funny in combination and, but I

14:50 - Really kind of want it to be opening up space for different kinds of thinking. And, you know, one of the things that property does along with all the other stuff I described is kind of tell us a story about human development. where property owning property ownership is like a characteristic of modernity and therefore somehow a, you know, up on the ladder of human development.

15:17 - And, by questioning it, you know, by thinking what are the other ways we can think about land and our relationship to non-human nature? And, the book tries to open up space for that kind of thinking. and one of the reasons why I like to use stories in the book is because in a way it's like the stories that we tell, whether they're fiction or nonfiction, help us kind of imagine the future.

15:47 - And, you know, I, I talk in the book about stories, about the end times because subtler colonial stories always seem to end in an apocalypse. And, you know, what other kinds of ways of thinking about time and human, human development and human possibility are there? What other kinds of ways of being human are there? and just to open up a little space for that kind of, thinking differently, imagining life differently, may be, you know, really in really important

16:18 - to imagining a different kinds of future, a more sustainable future. And part of that is taking subtler colonialism and thinking differently about it. You know, it's like, instead of sort of thinking that settler colonialism is inevitable and you know, just the condition of our time and the inevitable kind of way that our culture goes, sort of take treating it like an object and saying, this is just a thing that happened

16:48 - and this is a thing that's happening historically. It doesn't have to last forever. It's, we can analyze it, we can, deconstruct it and think differently about it opens up all kinds of possibilities. And I think it's really important for the environmental movement to move in that direction. Honestly.

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