Fracking in a Flyover State: The Politics of Oil in the Grassland Prairies

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED

Free and open to the public (pizza lunch available to the first 100 attendees)

About the lecture:

Development of the Bakken formation represents a multitude of trade-offs. The region is one of the great granaries of the world, but it is also the site of a recent oil and gas boom made possible by hydraulic fracturing. Overlapping with these natural resources is also a grasslands biome - one of the largest areas of grasslands in Canada and the US, which contains breeding grounds for millions of birds. How local residents understand the landscape is crucial to making fair and adequate policy to protect the ecosystem and the economy. This talk examines how landowners grapple with economic, environmental, and social trade-offs when making decisions about land-use.

Andrea Olive is an assistant professor of political science and geography at the University of Toronto. She has a PhD in political science from Purdue University (2009), and a MA in political philosophy from Dalhousie University (2003). She is the author of two books, Land, Stewardship and Legitimacy and The Canadian Environment in Political Context. Her main areas of research include species at risk conservation and private lands, environmental justice and natural resource development, and Canada-US environmental policy.

Sponsored by:
University of Michigan Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP)

Co-Sponsored by:
University of Michigan Program in the Environment (PitE)
University of Michigan Energy Institute
University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment

For more information visit www.closup.umich.edu or call 734-647-4091.  Follow on Twitter @closup

• fracking
• Hydraulic fracturing