In this week’s episode, host Daniel Raimi talks with Colin Jerolmack, a professor of sociology and environmental studies at New York University. Jerolmack recently published “Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town”—a book that Raimi insists is one of the best on the shale revolution that’s been written to date. Jerolmack lived for several months in a rural Pennsylvania county that had been experiencing the shale revolution; he documented what residents experienced over a span of eight years. The result is a thoughtful, nuanced, and human portrait of how shale development has affected one community—for better and for worse.

References and recommendations:

“Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town” by Colin Jerolmack; https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179032/up-to-heaven-and-down-to-hell

“Not in Your Backyard! Organizational Structure, Partisanship, and the Mobilization of Nonbeneficiary Constituents against “Fracking” in Illinois, 2013–2014” by Fedor A. Dokshin and Amanda Buday; https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023118783476

“They Couldn’t Drink Their Water. And Still, They Stayed Quiet.” by Colin Jerolmack; https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/opinion/sunday/fracking-pennsylvania-water-contamination.html

“This Is Chance! The Great Alaska Earthquake, Genie Chance, and the Shattered City She Held Together” by Jon Mooallem; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/565952/this-is-chance-by-jon-mooallem/

“Scene on Radio” Season 5, “The Repair,” with hosts John Biewen and Amy Westervelt; https://www.sceneonradio.org/the-repair/