Climate change is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the only unprecedented ecological challenge we are facing in the 21st century. Another key arena, intimately associated with the ongoing assault on global biodiversity, is that of toxicity and pollution. In episode 14, we discuss these key issues with Professor Alice Mah of Glasgow University by zeroing in on a key, but much overlooked, protagonist
in the mass production and circulation of toxic chemicals and plastic pollution – the petrochemical industry. In her new book, Petrochemical Planet – Multiscalar Battles for Industrial Transformation (Duke UP, 2023), Mah illuminates
the almost invisible centrality of petrochemicals in the materials of contemporary daily life and their deeply problematic shadow side: as a major (and still growing) source of toxicity, too often associated with concentrated exposures and environmental injustice; as a key ‘hard to abate’ industry regarding GHG emissions; as the producer of all the plastics now in circulation and littering the oceans and, increasingly, the bodies of all living creatures; and even as a major, but often problematic, protagonist in narratives and practices of apparent ‘solutions’, such as the circular economy. Join us as we explore the thorny challenges of reshaping an influential, deeply entrenched and science-dependent industry, its intimate relations with questions and movements of environmental justice and the role of citizen science in responding to these problems.
