Up to Heaven and Down to Hell
eBook - ePub

Up to Heaven and Down to Hell

Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town

  1. 280 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Up to Heaven and Down to Hell

Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town

About this book

A riveting portrait of a rural Pennsylvania town at the center of the fracking controversy

Shale gas extraction—commonly known as fracking—is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet—whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the very land beneath our feet—is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public's consent.

The United States is the only country in the world where property rights commonly extend "up to heaven and down to hell," which means that landowners have the exclusive right to lease their subsurface mineral estates to petroleum companies. Colin Jerolmack spent eight months living with rural communities outside of Williamsport as they confronted the tension between property rights and the commonwealth. In this deeply intimate book, he reveals how the decision to lease brings financial rewards but can also cause irreparable harm to neighbors, to communal resources like air and water, and even to oneself.

Up to Heaven and Down to Hell casts America's ideas about freedom and property rights in a troubling new light, revealing how your personal choices can undermine your neighbors' liberty, and how the exercise of individual rights can bring unintended environmental consequences for us all.

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Yes, you can access Up to Heaven and Down to Hell by Colin Jerolmack in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & American Government. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. List of Illustrations
  8. Introduction. Land of the Freehold
  9. Chapter 1. Billtown
  10. Chapter 2. Boomtown
  11. Chapter 3. The Fracking Lottery
  12. Chapter 4. My Land
  13. Chapter 5. The Public/Private Paradox
  14. Chapter 6. Indentured
  15. Chapter 7. Unmoored
  16. Chapter 8. Overruled
  17. Chapter 9. Town and Country
  18. Chapter 10. Our Land
  19. Conclusion. Bust and Beyond
  20. Notes
  21. Index