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Before analyzing the effect of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969 as a turning point towards environmental activism and consciousness, it is essential to contextualize the period of the rise of petroleum culture. The term petroleum culture refers to the history of webs of entanglement between petroleum and people. As people became dependent on petroleum, the resource became an essential commodity for many Americans to fulfill their everyday desires.
Critics against growing Environmental Consciousness Movement
Environmental critics argued that the shift of attention to a less divisive issue such as environmentalism is not towards establishing eco-consciousness but rather to satisfy public outrage. Nevertheless, despite criticisms against the environmental movement, the Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969 became a catalyst for the rise of environmental activism within a period of the rise of petroleum culture in the United States during the 1970s.
The Emergence of Environmental Scholarship
LeMenager, Stephanie. Living Oil : Petroleum Culture in the American Century / Stephanie LeMenager. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014. Print.
Spezio, Teresa Sabol. Slick Policy : Environmental and Science Policy in the Aftermath of the Santa Barbara Oil Spill / Teresa Sabol Spezio. Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018. Print.
Easton, Robert. Black Tide : The Santa Barbara Oil Spill and Its Consequences / by Robert Easton; with an Introduction by Ross Macdonald. New York: Delacorte Press, 1972. Print.
Stephanie LeMenager's "Petroleum Culture in the American Century," through a wide range of mediums, details the history and legacies of petroleum culture from the rise of fossil fuel usage during WWI through what is known as the Tough Oil era. LeMenager, the Barbara and Carlisle Moore Professor of English and Environmental Studies seeks to understand the effect and consequences of the role of oil in the daily lives of Americans in the last century. LeMenager offers a range of perspectives within petroleum culture through the term petro-nostalgia, "I think that centuries of work we have done as modern humans to immerse ourselves in oil means that we loathe disentangling ourselves or our definition of life from it" (LeMenager 7). LeMenager refers to the sense of nostalgia that people can feel as oil entangled with everyday life. People can feel a sense of sentimentality if there is a notion of switching to another alternative not used in the past. Americans can feel a sense of petro-nostalgia as they know the limited cheap energy supply.
After WWII, Americans experienced increasing living standards by relying on fossil fuels to fill familial desires and achieve the sought-out American lifestyle. As America's reliance on oil increased, it was not until an event like the Santa Barbara Oil Spill of 1969 that many Americans put into perspective eco-consciousness. In contrast, others who had an attachment to the petroleum lifestyle felt a sense of the phenomenon of petro-nostalgia. The oil spill became a pivotal moment where Americans began to reflect critically on an oil-saturated culture that allowed and enabled a favored lifestyle, perhaps for the first time.
Want to learn more? Read my complete research paper on the Impact of the 1969 Santa Barbara Oil Spill and the Emergence of Environmental Consciousness
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