Price Per Barrel: The Human Cost of Extraction
There are human stories that come out of the repeated cycle of boom and bust that has shaped our movement across the North American continent for the last four hundred years. Whether it’s the gold for our banks, the copper for our cell phones, the oil that powers our lives, our quest for the Moon, or our human need for entertainment, we come together to dig for it, drill for it, and race for it.
In each community impacted by the extractive industries, there are men and women in blue shirts & steel-toed boots, in white coats & stethoscopes, in booney hats & badges, who sacrifice themselves to care for their neighbors. Price Per Barrel: The Human Cost of Extraction looks at what a sudden population boom can do to a town and the people who care for it.
This book is broad in theme, reflecting the breadth of work that first responders and healthcare workers do for their communities. It touches on controversial topics like fracking, mining, and radioactive waste, without making a stand for or against extraction. The author visits the drivers of the Indy 500 and the astronauts of the new space race. Price Per Barrel covers housing crises and social protests. And it explores sexual harassment in the pre-&-post #MeToo era.
What emerges is evidence that first responders, once called to duty, refuse to abandon their posts, even when their towns change around them. They rise far and above their job descriptions, putting aside their own PTSD until the boom is over. But the trauma they endure at the hands of the newcomers and outsiders is real, persistent, and contagious. For that reason, it is incumbent upon us to examine our own lives; how much we use, how much we waste, and how we vote.
Price Per Barrel is part travelogue, part mental health journey. Robin spent years on the road, including six months living in her truck, talking to the people on the front lines and having new adventures of her own. By telling their story, perhaps we can more fully understand the price of extracting each barrel of oil or each shovel of ore and be better equipped when the next boom train stops in our town.