Description: "Can the stories of bananas, whales, sea birds, and otters teach us to reconsider the seaport as a place of ecological violence, tied to oil, capital, and trade? San Pedro Bay, which contains the contiguous Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, is a significant site for petroleum shipping and refining as well as one of the largest container shipping ports in the world--some forty percent of containerized imports to the United States pass through this so-called America's Port. It is also ecologically rich. Built atop a land- and waterscape of vital importance to wildlife, the heavily industrialized Los Angeles Harbor contains estuarial wetlands, the LA River mouth, and a marine ecology where colder and warmer Pacific Ocean waters meet."--
Brief description: Christina Dunbar-Hester is a science and technology studies scholar and associate professor in the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. She is the author of Low Power to the People: Pirates, Protest, and Politics in FM Radio Activism, winner of the McGannon Award for Social and Ethical Relevance in Communications Technology Research, and Hacking Diversity: The Politics of Inclusion in Open Technology Cultures, winner of the Information Science Book of the Year Award from the Association for Information Science and Technology.
Review Quotes: "I love this book because it ties our insatiable demand for stuff to local, regional, and, indeed, global pollution and environmental destruction that threatens human and animal life. Each chapter presents an eye-opening case study, my favorite of which explains all the steps that occur to bring bananas from far-off places and into grocery stores through Southern California's largest ports. In fact, while Oil Beach spells out the impacts of oil refining, shipping, and trucking on humans, I love it, especially because it focuses on birds, whales, and other non-humans. The sad irony of oil-coated birds being treated at a clinic funded by oil companies will not be lost on the reader. I also love books that are compelling reads. I read this book from start to finish without putting it down."--Michael R. Adamson "Shepherd"