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While fossil fuel interests have long played a powerful role in shaping American politics and culture, in recent decades, transnational oil and gas companies have formed hundreds of "partnerships" with American colleges and universities to fund energy research and development. Moreover, oil and gas interests have established a foothold in major universities by sponsoring research conferences, scholarships, science centers, and laboratories addressing technological advances in hydraulic fracturing methods, including leasing land for drilling on university-owned property. In this article, I critically assess some of the broad economic linkages between fossil fuel companies and higher education in the United States and the role that corporate philanthropy plays today in expanding the profits and power of the oil and gas industry, as well as the financial base and academic stature of select colleges and universities. Finally, I draw some preliminary conclusions about the growing colonization of university space and other public institutions by energy corporations.

Since the oil embargos of the 1970s, the fossil fuel industry and allied energy interests have helped manufacture a variety of discursive narratives that an alternative energy revolution is on the horizon which will someday replace conventional fuels with clean, renewable, noncarbonized sources of energy. A closer inspection of the industry's investments and rhetoric, however, suggests that they are currently investing most of their historic profits in creating a future largely driven by unconventional fossil fuel dependence, intensive hydraulic fracking, and the continued control of the energy sector by essentially the same transnational corporations that control the market today. This article offers a critical analysis of the historical roots of our fossil fuel dependency, some of the key socioenvironmental threats associated with the emerging Third Carbon Era, and the myriad dangers associated with a future based on unconventional energy development, hydraulic fracking, and other "extreme energy" technologies. Focusing on the growing social and ecological impacts of natural gas fracking as a case in point, particularly its myth as a "bridge fuel" to a clean energy future, it is argued that these energy trends represent yet another "New Species of Trouble" in the Risk Society of late modernity.

Despite the increasing socioenvironmental controversy over the use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology in unconventional natural gas development (i.e., fracking), few sociological studies have used citizen interview narratives to examine attitudes toward shale fracking at the local level. Drawing on sociological research, discursive documents, and in-depth interview data collected from regional stakeholder groups/citizens, this article offers a qualitative analysis of the environmental disputes and opportunity-threat impacts perceived to surround natural gas exploration and hydraulic fracking in the Haynesville Shale region of Louisiana. The narratives reveal that the fracking dispute largely revolves around divergent diagnostic and prognostic beliefs about shale gas development, as well as whether the perceived economic opportunities of development outweigh the alleged socioenvironmental risks to the Haynesville community. Some conclusions about the utility of qualitative research for the study of environmental controversies like fracking, as well as the potential future direction of the growing national debate over shale gas and oil extraction, are discussed.

In the face of declining oceanic fisheries throughout the world, industrial aquaculture and corporate fish farming have become the fastest growing sector of the global food industry, accounting for nearly half of all the fish and shellfish consumed by humans today. Despite its contribution to food production, however, the rapid growth of aquaculture has launched an anti-fish farming movement composed of scientists, environmental NGOs, fishers, native peoples, and coastal residents who oppose the industry's negative socio-environmental effects on marine habitats, indigenous fish stocks and cultures, as well as commercial and recreational fisheries. This article examines the growing environmental controversy over the collapse of wild salmon populations and the rise of salmon farming production in the Pacific Northwest, as well as the negative impacts of the aquaculture industry on the region. Drawing on movement literature and documents, as well as interviews with local stakeholder activists in Washington State and British Columbia, I provide a qualitative analysis of the collective action frames of the anti-salmon farming movement and the degree to which the diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames identified in movement discourse are aligned with the individual frames of movement activists. I conclude with some sociological implications of these findings for the usefulness of frame analysis research, the dynamics of the protest over salmon farming, and the future direction of ocean aquaculture and wild salmon.

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico—the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history—represents far more than an oil rig "accident" caused by human error, mechanical failure, or poor engineering decisions driven by an industry mantra of "Drill, Baby, Drill!" At its roots are deeper questions about corporate power, corruption, and accountability; technological risk; government deregulation; fossil fuel dependence; and the inability of most Americans to envision a shift to a clean and renewable energy future. In this article and commentary, the author draws on various media accounts and disaster studies to trace some of the key events leading up to the catastrophe, as well as its preliminary and evolving impacts. The author then offers some critical observations about our ability to prevent future energy-driven disasters in an era marked by corporate power; congressional timidity; and the control that the fossil fuel industry exercises over our economy, culture, and energy policy. As with the 9/11 tragedy a decade ago, the BP blowout represents yet another national wake-up call for the United States to heed the disaster lessons of the last 40 years, reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, and begin the transition to a sustainable energy economy.

Despite sociopolitical controversy surrounding the solid waste crisis, little sociological attention has focused on this crucial environmental issue. Drawing on research from the technological controversies, environmental concern, and solid waste literatures, this study examines the pre‐implementation anxieties of a Louisiana community faced with a proposal to build an incinerator in its backyard. Utilizing survey data, a causal path model is developed in which the perceived advantages of the technology, general environmental concern, and support for recycling initiatives are identified as explanatory variables of incinerator opposition. Implications of these findings for the study of technical controversies and the larger solid waste crisis also are suggested.