Describes the history of the oil industry, the ways in which oil is refined and processed, the uses of oil and oil products, the influence that the need for oil has on the world's current political situation, and the impact of oil byproducts on the environment.

Argues that obtaining energy through the hydraulic fracturing of shale rock is based on unstable economic foundations, and is having much more destructive effects on the economy and the government of the United States than its advocates claim.

"Drawing from hundreds of confidential oil industry documents spanning decades, this explosive work of investigative reporting reveals for the first time the far-right conspiracy that's stopped the world from preventing the climate crisis. In The Petroleum Papers, investigative journalist Geoff Dembicki tells the story of how the American oil companies that founded the tar sands in Alberta, Canada -- home to the third-biggest oil reserves on the planet...

To his fellow crewmembers on rig number 34 of the Bomac Drilling Company, 27-year-old newcomer Zachary Harper is a mystery. To Marty, the derrick hand, he's a welcome working body. To Freddy, the chainhand, he's just another newcomer like himself trying to break out in the oil patch. To Jesse Lancaster, the driller, he's a "worm" -- a risk, taken out of necessity, who just might make it as a roughneck. We join Zachary Harper the day after he has left...

"Bill McKibben is not a person you'd expect to find handcuffed in the city jail in Washington, D.C. But that's where he spent three days in the summer of 2011, after leading the largest civil disobedience in thirty years to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. A few months later the protesters would see their efforts rewarded when President Obama agreed to put the project on hold. And yet McKibben realized that this small and temporary victory was at...

"Fracking has vociferous critics and fervent defenders, but the debate between these camps has obscured the actual story: Fracking has become a fixture of the American landscape and the global economy. It has upended the business models of energy companies around the globe, and it has started to change geopolitics and global energy markets in profound ways. Gold tells the story of this once-obscure oilfield technology--a story with an incredible cast...