There be tales of two Sean Fields on this week’s podcast. Happily, we are only welcoming (8:56) the smart and accomplished Dr. Field to the podcast to talk about his pathbreaking new ethnography of oil and finance, Carbon Capital: Climate Change and the Ethics of Oil Investing (NYU Press, 2025). We begin with why it matters to understand the moral landscape and ethical values of oil investment. From there, the conversation evolves to include oil and Christianity, the intersection of value and values, why the oil industry “inhales capital” and how private equity firms helped US oil and gas industry explode in size. We dig into how both finance and oil discount the future, the moral philosophy of oil evangelist Alex Epstein and much, much more. Please listen and share! Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.
Cymene and Dominic talk about screamo music and the band Phish and how you can’t fake the feels on this week’s intro to the podcast. Then (13:07) expert in all things Mancunian, the great and wondrous Hannah Knox joins the conversation to discuss her recent book Thinking Like a Climate: Governing a City in Times of Environmental Change (Duke UP). Hannah explains to us how climate change has challenged both the concepts and methods of urban governance and how governmental and non-governmental experts in Manchester have sought to come to terms with the scope of the problem. We talk carbon footprints, emissions tracking, vernacular engineers and much more, concluding with a discussion of how climate change challenges conventional anthropological concepts and methods too. Please listen and share! Hang in there, everyone, peace and love.