Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyzes two political cartoons from Punch to illustrate how the characters of King Coal and Prince Petroleo serve as rhetorical tools to understand the transition from coal to oil in Britain in the early 1900s. It also analyzes the metaphor of “addiction” that deGrasse Tyson uses, noting that it characterizes the problem as cultural not technological: viewers lack the will to change. The book examines how the film, Gasland, which investigated the link between hydraulic fracturing and contaminated groundwater in the United States, galvanized environmental activists to oppose natural gas production in the United States starting in 2010. It explores the political and historical moments that laid the groundwork for Venezuela to be transformed from a physical location, a “non-existing country” into the narrative of a “modern oil nation.”