AmericanEnvironments:Climate-Cultures-Cat astrophe

Edited byCHRISTOF MAUCHSYLVIA MAYER

UniversitiitsverlagWINTERHeidelberg

Table of Gontents

lntroduction

Glimate in America-Past and Current Perspectives

Lawrence CulverManifest Destiny and Manifest Disaster: Climate Perceptions andRealities in United States Territorial Expansion

Andreas FalkeWhy is the United States a Laggard in Climate Change Policy? 3l

Cultures of Ecology-Gultures of Risk

Heike EgnerRisk, Space, and Natural Disasters: On the Role of Nature and Spacein Risk Research

Andrew C. IsenbergBuffalo Commons: The Past, Present, and Future of an Idea

Alexa Weik von MossnerFacing The Day After Tomorrow: Filmed Disaster, Emotional Engage-ment, and Climate Risk Perception ..............

Gatastrophe-Natural Disaster and the Media

Sherry JohnsonThe Cuban Earthquake of 1880: A Case Study from the Past withFrightening Implications for the Future

57

79

97

tt7

Vm Table of Contents

Gordon WinderThe Los Angeles Times Reports Japanese Earthquakes, 1923-1995 ..........

Craig E. ColtmForgetting the Unforgettable: Losing Resilience in New Orleans

Stacy AlaimoDispersing Disaster: The Deepwater Horizon, Ocean Conservation,and the Immateriality of Aliens 177

Notes on Contributors

133

159

lntroductionChristof Mauch and Syfu

In the natural sciences, the Plong established and unques*irof an earthquake or Phenonsrentific evidence and analysis.ronmental change, the hummlenges originate in human ifrwithin larger historical, socialthe emerging field of the enviglobal environmental crisis frand in ways that sigrrificadhumanities help us undershexperience, and human decisiother. If we want to undersilature, the double-edgedness oldestruction and conservatim,on scientific knowledge. Visiratives and fictional texts--{as performing a specific rolction. Their imaginative rangerelevant ideas, values, ev€n rpersonal with the large-scalesues, and by combining intdl

Environmental humanitiebefore it gained a foothold dthem, we contend, is the frcderness," seemingly untouchUS cultural history. Americatury. "In the beginning all ltond Treatise on Governmststate of nature, for a disffiEuropean colonization, lhe onent has been accompaniedconcepts ofthe natural envinthe late eighteenth and in thUnited States as "nah[e's n

193

Dispersing Disaster:The Deepwater Horizon, Ocean Conser-vation, and the lmmateriality of AliensStacy Alaimo

The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dis-persant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.(Tony Hayward,14 May 2010)

Deeply rooted in human culture is the attitude that the ocean is so vast, so resil-ient, it shouldn't matter how much we take out of it-or put into it.(Sylvia Earle 2009, ll -12)

Famed oceanographer Sylvia Earle alerts us to how the cultural conception of theocean as vast and resilient enables humans not only to deposit such things as haz-ardous waste in the seas, but also to dispose of culpability, responsibilit5r, and con-cernr. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Guif of Mexico demon-strates this dynamic. It suggests how difficult it is to promote ocean conservationwhen industry, media, and culture imagine that the very scale of the ocean allows itto swallow up human-induced harms yet remain unscathed. Richard A. Kerr, in thearticle "A lot of oil on the Loose, Not so Much to Be Found," states that althoughscientists are still wondering where all the oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexicoin 2010 ultimately went, the official US govemment report (drawn up by the De-partment of the Interior and the National oceanic and Atmospheric Administra-tion) claims that"75%o has been cleaned up by Man or Mother Nature.,, Even moredisturbing than the crass gender dichotomy here is that "nothing in the report sup-ports that interpretation" (134). Moreover, while the report states that the oil "isbiodegrading quickly," Kerr points out that no "documentation for that claim" isprovided (735). Although the disaster itself was highly publicized-with photo-graphs and videos of the oil spewing from the well, the unprecedented volumes ofchemical dispersant being sprayed, and the gulf coast animals and shores coveredwith oil-now that the crisis is supposedly finished, having lived out its media life-span, we are supposed to settle into a secure sense that the oil and the chemical

I rhe quote from Tony Hayward appears in "Tony Hayrvard, Bp cEo: Gulf oil Spill .Rela-tively Tiny."'

178 Stacy Alaimo

dispersants have disappeared: magically "cleaned up" by "Man" or "Mother Na-fure."

The discourse of "cleaning up" deserves critique, since it simplifies and ulti-mately trivializes the disaster, making it seem as if the "spill" can be readily reme-died, just as one would wipe up spilled milk on a countertop. Yet, while such dis-cursive critique remains vital for political contestation, the new materialisttheories-such as those of Karen Barad and Nancy Tuana-would provoke schol-ars to attend to the "intra-actions" (Barad) or the "interactions" (Tuana) betweenostensibly separate material and discursive domains. Barad's explanation of her"agential realist account," for example, refuses to endorse the gulf befween natureand culfure, discourse and the material world: "discursive practices are not human-based activities but specific material (re)configurations of the world through whichboundaries, properties, and meanings are differently enacted" (183). Indeed,Barad's term "intra-action," "signtfies the mutual constitution of entangled agen-cies," (emphasis in original,33), which means that entities do not preexist their re-lations and that these relations are always part of the "world's radical aliveness"(33). The homey "cleanup" scenario, by contrast, assumes that the oil, the watersof the ocean, the creafures living in the ocean, "Man," and "Mother Nature" aresomehow separate, stable, distinct entities. It assumes that an agent, "Man," oreven "Mother Nature" can act in a direct, unimpeded manner in order to remedythe disaster, a disaster that is extemal to the agent. It removes human actions andknowledge practices from the turbulent sea of swirling material agencies, granting"Man" a secure position apart from Nature. It is crucial, however, in terms ofocean conseryation, to recognize that the BP disaster unleashed substances that arethemselves agential. They will have predicted and unpredicted effects on theplants, animals, and ecosystems of the Gulf waters, on the coastal areas, the openseas, and on who knows how many other habitats and living creatures, includinghumans. Some of these effects will be captured and documented by scientists, gov-ernment agencies, and other groups, and some will not; the extent of our under-standing will depend on economic, political, technological, ideological, and otherfactors. Some substances released by the BP disaster will interact with other toxinshumans have dumped in the oceans, affecting sea life and coastal life. Some toxinswill travel back to the land, carried by "seafood" consumed by humans and theirdomestic pets. It is impossible to simply "clean up" the BP disaster, since the disas-ter was not an isolated event, but instead, consists of ongoing, emergent, dynamicintra-actions. Thus, an ethical response to the disaster, in Barad's terms would notbe "about right response to a radically exteior/ized other, but about responsibilityand accountability for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are apart"(3e3).

As the "new materialisms"-theories that account for the substance, signifi-cance, and agency of material forces-emerge across interdisciplinary theories of

The DeepwaterHuizo

the humanities and social scitdigms can be extended to &the current crisis in o€im omand benthic zones, poses partirestrial humans have often foimaginary than to undertake dtrace substantial intercomectimarine habitats.

New Materialisms, Tral

In the wake of the linguisic/rnary critical theory, scholars itheory, and other fields havefor material, as well as discuagencies wi thin predominantscholarly inquiries, especialllor the physical world, such at

studies, science studies, and t

must analyze the ideologicalbut, at the same time, study tcally separate cultural formatmaterial world. It is crucial dmental humanities do notpmtween "nature" and "culture-'for example, have persrasivclture" and "culture" is imposssuch phenomena as the hokKatrina reveal no clear de:mAs Tuana puts it, "witnessiqveals that the social md thstructed, are not dualisms we

While predominant thurmized or excluded material serism of everyday life, espec

2 See Latour 1993; Haravay l9t

The Deepwater Horizon, Ocean Conservation, and the Immateriality of Aliens 179

the humanities and social sciences, it is important to consider whether these para-digms can be extended to the cultural, philosophical, and political questions thatthe current crisis in ocean conservation demands. The ocean, especially the pelagicand benthic zones, poses particular challenges for the new materialisms, in that ter-restrial humans have often found it more convenient to imagine that the seas areimaginary than to undertake the scientific, cultural, and political work necessary totrace substantial interconnections between human discourses, human practices, andmarine habitats.

New Materialisms, Trans-Corporeality, and the Deep Sea

In the wake of the linguistic/discursive turn that has long dominated interdiscipli-nary critical theory, scholars in environmental philosophy, science studies, feministtheory, and other fields have been developing modes of analysis that can accountfor material, as well as discursive, agencies. The denial or bracketing of materialagencies within predominant theoretical paradigms in the humanities has thwartedscholarly inquiries, especially in fields that focus on human corporeality, animals,or the physical world, such as feminist corporeal studies, disability studies, animalstudies, science sfudies, and environmental sfudies. The environmental humanitiesmust analyze the ideological, cultural, and discursive constructions of "nature,"but, at the same time, study these conceptions in such a manner so as not to radi-cally separate cultural formations from the actions, systems, and processes of thematerial world. It is crucial that the parameters and methodologies of the environ-mental humanities do not parallel the persistent yet distorting conceptual divide be-tween "nature" and "culture." Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, and Nancy Tuana,for example, have persuasively demonstrated that the very opposition between "na-ture" and "culture" is impossible to sustain, in that even a cursory examination ofsuch phenomena as the hole in the ozone layer, the oncomouse, and HurricaneKatrina reveal no clear demarcation between these ostensibly separate domains.2As Tuana puts it, "witnessing the world through the eyes of Hurricane Katrina re-veals that the social and the natural, nature and culture, the real and the con-structed, are not dualisms we can responsibly embrace" (209).

While predominant theoretical paradigms since the linguistic turn have mini-mized or excluded material substances and forces from consideration, the consum-erism of everyday life, especially in the mainstream of the United States, is predi-

2 See Latour 1993;Haraway 1989; and Tuana.

180 Stacy Alaimo

cated upon the manufactured ignorance,3 denial, or dismissal of harmful materialagencies circulating through food, water, clothing, furniture, cleaning products, andother substances. In Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self,lsuggest that in the United States, if not in the rest of the industrialized, world, oneof the primary impediments to environmentalism is the pervasive denial of the un-predictable material agencies of the myriad xenobiotic substances that surround us.People routinely spread hazardous chemicals on their lawns, public restroomsspray toxic "air fresheners," and even food products and cosmetics riddled withcarcinogenic substances are decorated with the ubiquitous "pink ribbon" of theSusan B. Komen Foundation, whose mission it is, ironically, to spread "awareness"of breast cancer. That pink ribbon epitomizes how successfully the semioticstreams of capitalist consumerism wash away any "awareness" of the harmfulchemicals harbored by the products themselves. I argue that we need to cultivate atangible sense of connection to the material world as well as an onto-epistemologythat makes space for the unpredictable material agencies that will unfold as stag-gering amounts of xenobiotic substances become part of our bodies and environ-ments. I propose that environmental movements and cultural theories situate them-selves within "trans-corporeality," that is, the material interchanges across humanbodies, animal bodies, and the wider material world. As the material self cannot bedisentangled from networks that are simultaneously economic, political, cultural,scientific, and substantial, what was once the ostensibly bounded human subjectfinds herself in a swirling landscape of uncertainty where practices and actions thatwere once not even remotely ethical or political matters suddenly become so. Ac-tivists as well as everyday practitioners of environmental health, environmentaljustice, and climate change movements, work to reveal and reshape the flows ofmaterial agencies across regions, envfuonments, animal bodies, and human bod-ies----even as global capitalism and the medical-industrial complex reassert a moreconvenient ideology of solidly bounded, individual consumers and benign, con-tained, passive products.

Trans-corporeality demands recognition of the material agencies that cut acrosshuman bodies, environments, and social and economic systems. As a mode ofposthumanism, it occupies the outline of the human, only to dissolve corporealboundaries by tracing how the substantial interchanges between bodies and placesextend into global flows. In short, although trans-corporeality as an ethics and poli-tics must trace the travels in toxins across geo-political boundaries, it nonethelessbegins as an assessment of (post)human bodies in their own, local sites. Marineconservation, however, even for coastal peoples, demands some kind of reckoning

The Deepwater Horizor

with distant and unknown Pel,and environmental justice mcpractices that contend withschools, playgrounds---oceanopen oceans that are beyond iEven though many coastal gedges about the sea creatures I

though there are some amateboats and dolphin watches, wted to marine life, for most Iforms-such as films, PhotogThus, the ocean eludes the fimodels of ordinary exPerts, s

and trans-corporeal subjects uenvironmentalism as a scientil

Whether or not the new tr

and breadths of the oceans mrences have the funding, techlaccounts, and analyses ofbentime, the massive global indroil, minerals, and "seafood')that are being radically alteiscribed. Furthermore, desPitefor whales and dolphins, mostthe habitat of Western envilbook, The Silent Deep, withanother, comfortably seated odon't care about the bottom o

It is well known to those rservation movements that thetion ofthe ocean as so snornimpervious to human harm- l

Evils: Modern Marine PoUuaeral religious traditions havecultures have revered the sea,

wash away whatever was ofr(xi). Whether or not these rthazardous nature ofwhat is r

cient times. Nonetheless, coage. weapons, toxic chemicasubstances or forces across i3 For more on "manufacfured igrrorance," see Proctor.

The Deepwater Horizon, Ocean Conservation, and the Immaterialify of Aliens I 81

with distant and unknown pelagic and benthic zones. While environmental healthand environmental justice movements foster embodied, participatory knowledgepractices that contend with the local-regions, watersheds, neighborhoods,schools, playgrounds----ocean conservation movements must make sense of theopen oceans that are beyond international law and the boundaries ofnation states.Even though many coastal peoples have developed traditional ecological knowl-edges about the sea creatures that they fish, hunt, or otherwise encounter, and eventhough there are some amateur ocean scientists, such as those operators of diveboats and dolphin watches, who are especially knowledgeable about and commit-ted to marine life, for most people sea life is "encountered" in highly mediatedforms-such as films, photography, coffee table books, websites, and aquariums.Thus, the ocean eludes the feminist, environmentalist, and environmental justicemodels of ordinary experts, situated knowers, domestic carbon fooprint analysts,and trans-corporeal subjects who take science into their own hands and conceive ofenvironmentalism as a scientifically mediated but also immediate sort of practice.

Whether or not the new materialisms can extend their reach across the depthsand breadths of the oceans may well depend, in part, on whether or not marine sci-ences have the funding, technology, and motivation to provide more data, images,accounts, and analyses of benthic and pelagic ocean environments. At this point intime, the massive global industries of marine dumping and marine extraction (ofoil, minerals, and "seafood") dwarf the scientific studies of the marine ecosystemsthat are being radically altered or even destroyed before they can even be de-scribed. Furthermore, despite the rather long history of environmentalist concernfor whales and dolphins, most ocean creatures and ocean ecologies float far beyondthe habitat of Western environmental concern. Aptly, Tony Koslow begins hisbook, The Silent Deep, with a New Yorker cartoon in which one woman says toanother, comfortably seated on a couch behind a coffee table, "I don't know why Idon't care about the bottom of the ocean, but I don't" (n.p.).

It is well known to those who study histories of marine science and marine con-servation movements that the vastness of the seas has buoyed the cultural concep-tion of the ocean as so enornous, so powerful, so abundantly fulI of life that it isimpervious to human harm. Kimberly C. Patton, inThe Sea Can Wash Away AllEvils: Modern Marine Pollution and the Ancient Cathartic Ocean, argues that sev-eral religious traditions have conceived of the sea as a place of purification: "manycultures have revered the sea, and at the same time they have made it to bear and towash away whatever was construed as dangerous, dirty, or morally contaminating"(xi). Whether or not these religious beliefs have persisted, both the scale and thehazardous nature of what is dumped into the seas has changed, entirely, from an-cient times. Nonetheless, contemporary global practices of dumping garbage, sew-age, weapons, toxic chemicals, and radioactive waste assume that dispersing thesubstances or forces across the breadth and depth of the seas will make them dis-

-//182 Stacy Alaimo

appear. Tony Hayward, the infamous representative of the BP Petroleum deep seadrilling disaster of 2010, merely echoes the common sentiment that the scale ofocean so fabulously diminishes any human action that all traces of human culpabil-ity ebb away into invisibility when he stated, "The Gulf of Mexico is a very bigocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny inrelation to the total water volume" ("Tony Hayward" n.p.).

Ironically, despite the ostensible ability of the ocean to swallow all evils, BPchose to dump massive quantities of a chemical dispersant, Corexit, onto the mas-sive oil spill, in order to make the oil disappear. If the primary reason for usingdispersants is to help the oil biodegrade more quickly, three decades ofresearch ondispersants has not demonstrated that this will be the case. Instead, the results ofthe research have been "mixed," showing "evidence for enhancement, inhibition,and no effect" (Johnson and Torrice 5).

It does not take a public relations expert to recognize that the oil itself-highlyvisible, easily photographed, as it coated coastal birds and even as it movedthrough the gulf waters in "plumes"-y,'as not only physically sticky, but alsovisually, ethically, legally, and financially "sticky." Even as it was distributed bywind and tides, it stuck to BP, tagging them as the cause of dead birds, dead marinelife, and blackened beaches. It is much more difficult, of course, to trace the shortor long-term effects of the chemical dispersant, dumped in astonishing amounts.Carl Safina contends, "Personally, I think that the dispersants are a major strategyto hide the body, because we put the murderer in charge of the crime scene. Butyou can see it. You can see where the oil is concentrated at the surface, and then itis attacked, because they don't want the evidence, in my opinion" (2010: n.p.). Thespectacle ofthe disaster is dispersed by the "Corexit" (which sounds like "correctsit"), but the environmental devastation is, most likely, exacerbated by the unprece-dented volume of this chemical that was dumped into the living waters of the Gulf.As Ame Jernel<iv states, "to disperse the oil may help protect birds and beaches,but it will increase the exposure of fishes, crustaceans, molluscs, and all other or-ganisms that live and breath in water" (356). Joseph Romm, interviewing scientistCarys Mitchelmore, writes that the dispersants "can lead to far greater accumula-tion in living organisms of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons." Dispersing the oilinto the depths of the gulf waters means that "subsurface creatures-from oystersto coral to larval eggs-that may never have had significant exposure to the oil arenow going to get a double whammy, getting hit by the oil and by the dispersants."Worse, he continues, "the oil droplets are now in a form that looks like food (e.g.the same size as algae) to filter feeders like oysters" (n.p.).

Despite the vivid imagery of Romm's explanation, the BP disaster epitomizeshow difficult it is to maintain a steady focus on the flow of harmful substancesthrough the oceans. At what point do dispersed toxins become, in both senses ofthe word, "immaterial," both lacking in substance and devoid of consequence?

The Deepwater Horizl

While it may be possible in Ithat dealt the hnal blow to t

over the edge into extinctioneffects of this disaster on htocean ecosystems a decade fstop affecting the living crrzMoreover, will the political iscientific studies necessary Ilife? How many scientists hlucrative contracts to Purchacross the expanses ofthe gltainment, as it makes it nearlfects, and culpabilities? El'enas the primary sense of "to qmean either to "disseminate'to disappear." InterestinglY,OED dates only from 1944"'Refiner. Dispersants, in monthe petroleum industrY.

Ironically, BP's resPonsewaters of the ocean, indee{tions statement, available asSpill Response: Dispersant Ihide the oil," but instead to'oil" (British Petroleum 6)- Ithe dispersant favors the shdocument notes, in a few ditbreak up the remaining srf"principally are used to Ftmluting and dispersing oil fusensitive shoreline habiffi'target the more readilY reAnd we would be remiss toeasily calculated in terms othat are seeking compmitries have already taken legtbehalf of the environmeffiLiszka, observing the ParallDeepwater Horizon, stat€s tporate officials on short-tenan under-emphasis on tk k

[\

The Deepwater Horizon, ocean conservation, and the Immateriality of Aliens l g3

while it may be possibre in the future to assess whether it was the Bp oil disasterthat dealt the finar blow to the endangered Kemp,s Ridley ,"u turtt", pushing itover the edge into extinction, will it be scientifically possibre to trace the broadereffects of this disaster on hundreds of other sea creafures, coastal creatures, andocean ecosystems a decade from now? when, if ever, do the oil and the dispersantstop affecting the living creatures and theMoreover,

",;-u,r, " p o r i,i car inc l inati o" "r0,";[rXT"jf"'H, iff il T;il:1",f :scientific sfudies necessary to assess the widespread, long-term damage to oceanlife? How many scientists have already been bought up by Bp, which has offeredlucrative contracts to purchase their silence (Raines)? Is dispersing a disasteracross the expanses of the globe, paradoxically, the supreme mode of political con_tainment, as it makes it nearly impossible for environmentalists to trace causes, ef_fects, and culpabilities?.Even the word "disperse,, bears a contradictory denotation,as the primary sense of "to cause to separate in different directions', may ultimatelymean either to "disseminate" and "make known abroad" or, conversely, to ..causeto disappear." Interestingly, the earliest sighting of the word ;airf"rrunt,, i' trr"oED dates only from 1944, whenit was cined in the trade journal The petroreumRefiner' Dispersants, in more than just an erymologicul serrse, have their origins inthe peholeum industry.Ironically, Bp's response to the Deepwater Horizon demonstrates that the deepwaters of the ocean' indeed, lie beyond the horizons of concern. Bp,s pubric rela_tions statement, availabre as a pDF on their website, entitled ..o""p."u,". Horizonspill Response; Dispersant Use," argues that the ..intent of dispersant use is not tohide the oil," but instead to "minimize the damage that would be caused by floatingoil" (British petroleum 6). But the document also admits that the decision to usethe dispersant favors the shore rather than the wider ocean. This rather repetitivedocument notes, in a few different buleted statements, that dispersants ..are used tobreak up the remaining surface oil before it can drift onto shore,,,that dispersants'principally are used to prevent oil sheen from reaching the shore,,,and that by ,.di_

luting and dispersing oil far from shore, they reduce the risk that oil wilr wash ontosensitive shoreline habitats" (British petroieum r). crearly, the recovery ef.fortstarget the more readily accessible, more readily photographed ."gi* of the shore.And we would be remiss to ignore the fact that the damage to coastal areas is moreeasily calculated in terms of economic harm to the fishing and tourism industriesthat are seeking compensation for damages. whire Gulf area residents and indus_tries have already taken legal action agailst Bp, the risk of lawsuits undertaken onbehalf of the environments and organisms of the wider ocean is negligible. JamesLiszka, observing the parallels betw"e., the disasters of the Exxon yardezand theDeepwater Horizon, states that "there is an over-emphasis by gover:nment and cor_porate officials on short-term damages to the tourism and fishing industries, withan under-emphasis on the long-run damages to the ecological coirmon s,, (23-24).

184 Stacy Alaimo

The open oceans and the deep seas epitomize a global "ecological commons," acommons that is not only ripe for the "tragedy" of which Garrett Hardin wamed,but also in danger of being overlooked as well as overused. The BP document ad-mits that a "decision to use dispersant involves balancing the risks to certain ani-mals and plants at the water surface and in shoreline habitats against the potentialrisk to other organisms in the water column and seafloor" (British Petroleum 3)."Other organisms," nameless and invisible, are readily cast aside.

The Deep Sea as Alien Space

The lack of scientific understanding and public concern for these unnamed 6'organ-

isms in the water column and seafloor" pose formidable challenges for new materi-alisms, as well as for conservation movements. Without an understanding of newlydiscovered or even as yet undiscovered marine creatures, and without basic knowl-edge of how various marine ecosystems function, it will be difficult for scientists tocapture the effects of the BP oil disaster. Another type of challenge, however, isthat many depictions of the deep seas in popular culture have contributed to thesense that the pelagic and benthic zones are not only distant and perhaps unknow-able, but unreal. It is astounding to discover how many films, memoirs, scientificand popular accounts ofthe deep seas depict them as not only alien regions but asregions inhabited by aliens. Stefan Helmreich titles his anthropological study ofmicrobial ocean science,Alien Ocean, in order "both to diagnose a scientific, so-cial, and cultural imagination about the sea" and "to suggest the limits of represent-ing this sea, for both oceanographers and social scientists" (xi). While the Deepwa-ter Horizon disaster and the public relations campaigns that followed in its wake dounderscore the representational limits of ocean environments, they also suggesthow the metaphor of the ocean as an alien space may cast it, in the human imagina-tion, as unreal, and thus immaterial. While Helmreich sees the figure of the alien as"a stranger who may be friend or foe," and "a channel for exchange between theoceanic and the human" (xi), I think the discourse of "alien oceans" is much moreinsidious, as it implies that ocean life is conjured by science fiction fantasies. Italso suggests that even ifthe creatures ofthe deep do exist, they dwell in a place sodistant, so foreign, that they are radically disconnected from terrestrial environ-ments, processes, and flows. (Or, in more everyday parlance: aliens don't exist, butif they do, they don't matter, except at the box office or in Roswell, New Mexico.).Moreover, even as all postmodem disasters-whether they be natural, unnatural,or, more likely, a swirling mixture of the two-are depicted as media spectacles,ripe for consumption and then for forgetting, any disaster involving the oceans maybe especially at risk ofbeing dispersed into oblivion because ofthe underlying be-lief that ocean environments are not actually real places to begin with. The belief

The Deepwater Horizr

that it is possible to dispene 1

way that they will no longer (those very waters are not juscut off from human terrestriihighly imaginative flights ofimmaterial, irrelevant, unneu

Two films by James Carenvironments as alien. In thederwater oil rig workers andgate an American ballistic mifilm is set in the ocean, wiftthe water in dive suits and stSponges, corals, dolPhins, share strangely devoid of orgacivilization of alien creatwesresemble that of E.T., whilegelatinous, watery substanenous city, significantly, are Ilight. In this strange Cold Snot to destroy the human rmwater to create huge tidal r

scream and try to nm axBy,halt at their apex--aoised ab

because the protagonist, hilclear missile that tbe hrrlmOctavia Butler's OankaE thmans deserve extermindktnVietnanr, the Holocaust" mdrine environmentalism, ftcsupplanting them wift $ris irings are watery, eftercal" incfact, during the pivotal whim like angels, accorymiscene: as the angel-hte utasubmerged aliens with thc hmoments divert our a$eilioable to dismantle the ntrcleano mention of the disperswreak their hanns on mrilplot ofthe fiLn securely cm

trlr

The Deepwater Horizon, Ocean Conservation, and the Immateriality of Aliens 185

that it is possible to disperse harmful substances throughout living waters in such away that they will no longer cause harm is problematic enough, but the fantasy thatthose very waters are not just diffrcult to encounter or understand but completelycut off from human terrestrial and coastal habitats and thus exist, exclusively, as

highly imaginative flights of fancy, threatens to render ocean conservation effortsimmaterial, irrelevant, unnecessary, even unthinkable.

Two films by James Cameron epitomize this strange desire to depict marineenvironments as alien. In the 1989 film, The Abyss, a lengthy Cold War drama, un-derwater oil rig workers and Navy SEALs are forced to work together to investi-gate an American ballistic missile submarine that has sunk. Despite the fact that thefilm is set in the ocean, with many long scenes of the characters moving throughthe water in dive suits and submersibles, the film does not feature any marine life.Sponges, corals, dolphins, sharks, rays, fish, eels, andjellyfish are absent. The seasare strangely devoid of organisms. Until, that is, near the end of the film, a vastcivilization ofalien creatures, living on the bottom ofthe sea, appears. (Their facesresemble that of E.T., while their bodies mix the shape of rays or angels with thegelatinous, watery substance of jellies.) These creatures, as well as their diapha-nous city, significantly, are beautiful yet insubstantial, comprised of sheer, waterylight. In this strange Cold War morality tale, the aliens decide, at the last minute,not to destroy the human race. The aliens, it turns out, have harnessed the power ofwater to create huge tidal waves that tower above the terrestrial humans, whoscream and try to run away, only to be happily surprised when the waves abruptlyhalt at their apex-poised above the cities. The aliens change their collective mindbecause the protagonist, Bud (Ed Harris), gives his life to save them from the nu-clear missile that the humans have dropped into their neighborhood. Not unlikeOctavia Butler's Oankali, this alien species possesses plenty of evidence that hu-mans deserve extermination: they show Bud a television montage of Hiroshima,Vietnam, the Holocaust, and other horrors. Significantly, however, in terms of ma-rine environmentalism, the film erases existing ocean creatures and ecosystems,supplanting them with this imaginary alien civilization of glowing light. These be-ings are watery, ethereal, insubstantial, and ultimately, of course, not at all real. Infact, during the pivotal scene in which Bud encounters the aliens, they float abovehim like angels, accompanied by tinkling bells and choral music. Cut to the nextscene: as the angel-like creatures fade out, the clouds fade in, visually merging thesubmerged aliens with the heavens as well as with outer space. Such transcendentmoments divert our attention from the deep waters. While the hero of the tale isable to dismantle the nuclear missile that could have destroyed the aliens, there isno mention of the dispersed radioactivity and other pollutants that continuallywreak their harms on marine creatures and environments that actually exist. Theplot of the film securely contains the ongoing, destructive power of all the radioac-

186 Stacy Alaimo

tive waste in the seas-from weapons disposal, the bombing of Pacific islands, and

other sources-within that one small missile.cameron,s more recent frlm, Aliens of the Deep (2005), documents deep ocean

expeditions, in which he, along with marine biologists, astrobiologists, other scien-

tisis, an astronaut, and Russian Mir space station pilots explore the depths of the

seas via submersible vehicles and rover cameras. Much of the film portrays engi-neering challenges and other technological dramas, highlighting the rather self-

consciously enacted heroics of Cameron himself. Strangely, the viewer learns littleabout the ocean, the creatures the explorers encounter, or Ocean conservation.

When Cameron and planetary scientist Kevin Hand see a large gelatinous animal,Hand exclaims, "Look at that thing! That is absolutely unreal!" Cameron says,

"Look at this thing. Look at this thing; It's just incredible. . . Beautiful." The filmlingers here, letting us watch the entrancing gelatinous animal billowing like a

translucent scarf. Despite this arresting and entrancing scene, the film's narrativeand structure makes the ocean creatures themselves subservient to space explora-tion.

In one scene, Michael Henry, a marine animal physiologist, sitting underwaterin a submersible and operating a roving robotic device, encounters an octopus'

When the octopus grips the gnpper of the device-a lovely moment in which the

curious octopus, not the human, becomes the explorer-Michael says, "It was an

extraordinary encounter. It was as though I got to shake hands with an alien'" The

connection between sea creatures and those creatures who may exist in space is not

merely a metaphor or simile in this film, unfortunately. Indeed, the ocean is touted

as the perfect practice arena for space explorers; marine biology is cast as a good

starting point for astrobiology, and the samples from the ocean are just the "nextbest thing" for the planetary scientist to examine. The ethereal trumps the aqueous,

the transcendent transcends the immanent. Marine biologist Dijanna Figuero'scompelling and informative discussion of symbiosis in riftia, the giant tube worms,for example, is followed by a cut to cameron telling Hand, "The reql question is,

can you imagine a colony of these on [Jupiter's moon] Europa?"The film concludes with a scene that morphs from science to science fiction'

Figuero, the marine biologist, descends in the same submersible used for the

documentary scenes, but when she reaches out and presses her hand to the glass ofthe submersible in order to make contact with an octopus-like sea creature it be-

comes clear that the creature is an alien and the documentary is now science fic-tion. Even worse, despite the beauty and significance of the marine life forms that

the film documents, the film's triumphant conclusion involves not only an imagi-

nary alien encounter, but an obvious reference to Cameron's own imaginary civilization of oceanic aliens depicted in The Abyss. The concluding scene expands to

reveal a vast, luminous, blue city, but contracts when we consider that we are no

The Deepwater Horizm'

longer discovering living beingCameron's mind.a

If onlY to assure readers dmerely a James Cameron obsMonsters (2010). Monsten (Cn

that resemble octoPi with extrathe borderlands between T€xasof the creatures moving thrroqlong, thin tentacles suggests frentrenched in the PoPular imai

survive on land and move in vInterestinglY, Edwards based t

fascinated Cameron: *There bthe moons of JuPiter, is corysustain life, similar to what is Iof going with a creature that nmediately thought of either a r

that resembled an octoPus cosame time" (Wixson n.P')' Thand the crises of ocean conspleasures of fear and beautY u

Conclusion: Making Or

Political struggles to Protectdevastation wrought bY the gthat all threats to the oceans I

tion movements must also G

these waters are so vast and s

terial zones. Scholars in the eport ocean conservation mrthat pose the Pelagic and bqtial interchanges, interconnotific knowledge, and culurral

o Cameron Plans to transform dintends to descend 36'000 ftdtdr-

I

i

til

t

I

The Deepwater Horizon, Ocean Conservation, and the Immateriality of Aliens 187

longer discovering living beings in the world's wide oceans but are trapped withinCameron's mind.a

If only to assure readers that equating deep sea creatures with aliens is notmerely a James Cameron obsession, we should note the recent low-budget filmMonsters (2010). Monsters (Gareth Edwards) features enonnous glowing creaturesthat resemble octopi with extra legs, who have fallen from outer space and invadedthe borderlands between Texas and Mexico. The unlikely and unnerving spectacleof the creatures moving through air as if it were water and somehow walking onlong, thin tentacles suggests that the trope of ocean creatures as aliens has becomeentrenched in the popular imagination. The fact that these giant aquatic creaturessurvive on land and move in ways that defy the laws of physics goes unremarked.Interestingly, Edwards based the creatures on the same sort of research that hasfascinated Cameron: "There has been scientific research that says Europa, one ofthe moons of Jupiter, is composed of ice with oceans beneath that ice that couldsustain life, similar to what is here on Earth. It was based on that datathat I thoughtof going with a creature that resembled something you'd see from the ocean. I im-mediately thought of either a crab or an octopus but ultimately thought somethingthat resembled an octopus could be both scary but beautiful for audiences at thesame time" (Wixson n.p.). The creatures, removed from their marine environmentsand the crises of ocean conseryalion, are conjured up to deliver the alternatingpleasures offear and beauty to human audiences.

Conclusion: Making Oceans Matter

Political struggles to protect the ocean from future disasters, as well as from thedevastation wrought by the global dumping and pillaging, must contest the beliefthat all threats to the oceans become dispersed in its vast waters. Ocean conserva-tion movements must also contest the odd but nonetheless pervasive sense thatthese waters are so vast and so unimaginable as to actually be unreal, alien, imma-terial zones. Scholars in the environmental humanities and science studies can sup-port ocean conservation movements both by contesting the culfural constructionsthat pose the pelagic and benthic zones as immaterial, and by tracing the substan-tial interchanges, interconnections, and flows between industrial practices, scien-tific knowledge, and cultural fabrications, as well as their effects on marine envi-

o Cameron plans to transform deep sea habitats into science fiction at least one more time. Heintends to descend 36,000 feet into the Mariana Trench to film footage for the sequal to lva-tar.

188 &acyAlaimo

ronments' This is a tall order, in that the very remoteness of the ocean depthsseems to position them beyond the horizon of human concern.Prominent ocean advocates carl safina and Sylvia Earle responded to the Bpoil disaster by attempting to bridge the disconnect between terrestrial humans andthe ocean environments. carl Safina, in a brief essay on the website cNN.com, ar-gues that the Bp disaster will harm the endangered Kemp,s Ridrey turtre, the blue_fin tuna, and many migrating birds. He concludes his piece by lamenting our lackof palpable connection to the oceans: "why do we fail to know this always, in ourbones? The Gulf is not a thing unto itsetf. Neither is the oil eruption. we are allGulf victims now" (2010: 2.). However sincere, this plea falls a bit flat, as it fails toconstruct or reveal substantial connections befween terrestrial humans and the in-habitants of the seas. Moreover, by spotlighting familiar animals he fails to pro_voke concern for the many lesser known tir" ror-, that have been and will con_

!11ug to be harmed by the disaster. sylvia Earle, whose recent book is titred, Theworld is Blue: How our Fate and the oceans Are one, reasserts her argument thathuman life depends on the oceans during a pBS interview about the Bp disaster:"we're all dependent on the sea. with wery breath we take, every drop of waterwe drink, we're connected to the ocean. It doesn,t matter whether iou "r", see theocean or not. You're affected by it. you_yo'r life depends on it,, 1..Gulf Coast OilSpill"). Sadly, despite Earle's own passion-for the ocean and its ..")tur"r, she findsit necessary to appeal to human seliinterest.while Safina relies on well-known animars to make his plea, Julia whitty,s es-say in Mother Jones, "The Bp cover fJp," is much bolder, introducing readers toless familiar creafures. The fourteen-pug" .rruy begins with photos of an octopod,lantem fish' and hatchetfish. what is most fascinating about,hi,

"rruy, however, isthat whitfy begins by expraining how a vast collection of creatures Ligrates eachday, "the mysterious movements of a vast community of organisms known as thedeep scattering layer,' (DSL):

This aggregation of life forms was unknown until the 1920s, when early hydro_graphers mapping the ocean with sound encountered a daytime ..seafloor,,around 3,300 feet, which rose perplexingly toward the surfacs at night. Namedfor its echo-reflecting signature, ttre osi was eventually recognized by marinebiologists in 1948 to_be layers of living creatures hiding on the cusp betweenperpetual twilight and darkness. (2)

The daily vertical movement of the DSL, as Koslow explains, is the ..most massiveanimal migration on the planet, involving some hundreds of millions of tonnes ofanimals eachday" (5r). In the wake or;re gp disaster, whitty,s attention to theDSL accomplishes at least two different things. Firstly, and more obviously, itdemonstrates how deep sea ocean environments are enmeshed with the marine re_

The Deepwater Horizon- t

gions with which humans ae I

ethos throughout the waters: Tscattering layer would be the biwaters, depleting the coasts, caland to denude both natural md

Secondly, and less obviouslalso counteract the PercePtion dterial. The very terrn "scatterinlthe implication that what is sca

entist Kelly Benoit-Bird exPlair

Cold War ... but onlY its acoustiand Soviet navies wanted to khide their submarines" (13)- Ononly originally detected becaus"layer" is now valued bY marinBruno Latour, arguing for theexplains that the scientific "cbsimply too far and too cormtsideep scattering laYer of mYridor was, invisible to human techcast as simply alien or immarermoment in the flow of scientffir

The emerging Picture is ontcate interaction between Pwater column, night and dwei ghtless three-dimensioothe oceans were brought bties to feed or to avoid bein

Whitty explains that the oil Pftabove, below, or within them.their food, traPPing them in athem in Poison. Her maPshot r

interplay between different a1

rich. dynamic, aquatic envimScientific, j ournalistic' Ph

BP oil and disPersant on speccial for rendering the ocem nc

and dynamic environment tfowith, the landscaPes hrrmans i

The Deepwater Horizon, Ocean Conservation, and the Immateriality of Aliens 189

gions with which humans are more concerned, thus extending a conservationistethos throughout the waters: "For the ocean, any loss of productivity in the deepscattering layer would be the biggest cataclysm of all-impoverishing the surfacewaters, depleting the coasts, cascading across the boundaries between ocean andland to denude both natural and human economies" (Whitfy 14-15).

Secondly, and less obviously, Whitty's focus on the deep scattering layer mayalso counteract the perception that dispersing toxic substances renders them imma-terial. The very term "scattering" parallels the action of "dispersing," but withoutthe implication that what is scattered will dissolve or disappear. Ironically, as sci-entist Kelly Benoit-Bfud explains to Whitfy, "the DSL was a hot topic during theCold War ... but only its acoustic properties, not its biological properties. Americanand Soviet navies wanted to know how to use its sound-reflecting properties tohide their submarines" (13). Once valued for its potential to shield military vessels,only originally detected because it scattered the pulses of the echo sounders, this"layer" is now valued by marine biologists as an essential part of the living oceans.Bruno Latour, arguing for the importance of the "flowing character" of science,explains that the scientific "chain" "leads toward what is invisible, because it issimply too far and too counterintuitive to be grasped directly" (2010: 122). Thedeep scattering layer of myriad living marine beings calls us to realize that what is,or was, invisible to human technologies of perception and knowledge should not becast as simply alien or immaterial. \Yhitty provides a poetic rendition of the currentmoment in the flow of scientific understandings of the DSL:

The emerging picture is one of an incalculably complex, finely tuned, and deli-cate interaction between predators and prey, chemistry and light, currents andwater column, night and day. Some semblance of this spatial ballet, played inweightless three-dimensional darkness, has likely been part of the oceans sincethe oceans were brought to life: layers of life gathering in extremely high densi-ties to feed or to avoid being eaten. (14)

Whitty explains that the oil plumes may trap the frsh and invertebrates of the DSLabove, below, or within them, preventing the migratory creafures from accessingtheir food, trapping them in a zone where they will surely be eaten, or envelopingthem in poison. Her snapshot of this flow of living creatures captures the dynamicinterplay between different organisms as well as between the organisms and theirrich, dynamic,'aquatic environments.

Scientific, journalistic, photographic, and artistic accounts of the effects of theBP oil and dispersant on specific ocean creatures, systems, and processes are cnr-cial for rendering the ocean not as an alien or immaterial domain, but as a complexand dynamic environment that is significantly different from, yet interconnectedwith, the landscapes humans inhabit. Ocean creatures call on us to stretch our abil-

ity to cuceptralize life itselt so that we will be more mindful and protective ofenvironments that barery register on anthropocentric horizons as living praces.Rather .han projecting outer-space fantasies onto the deep seas, or using them asthe proving ground for xenobiology, we need to remain-with the assistance ofdeep sea submersibles and other scientific and technological apparatuses-in theGulf of Mexico and in other oceanic places around the grlbe in order to assess theavalanche of anthropogenic damages and to construct the most effective methods,policies, and social movements to minimize further harm. It may not be possible tocultivate meaningfur modes of cornection to oceanic creatures that arc so far re-moved from human rives-a jellyfish is an unlikely candidate for a ..companionspecies"s-but we could at least stop indulging in magical thinking that the oceanis impervious to human harm. Staying focused on the lives or sp""in" animars-rather than evoking the ocean as a vast void-may be a way to ioster movementsfor ocean conservation, movements that, despite the dreadfui state of ocean health,are not at all inevitable. Minnie-Bruce pratt's poem "Burning water,,,composed asa response to the BP oil disaster, concludes with a memo.y orno. small sting rays"winged" between her feet as she stood in the Gulf. After the Bp disaster contami_nated the waters with oil and other toxic chemicals she wonders, .Now what wilrthey eat?/The connection between there and now not inevitable,/matter striking mymind, me trying to catch the spark.',

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glement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, N.c.: Duke university press, 2007.British Petroleum- "Deepwater Horizon spill Response: Dispersant use.,, BritishPetroleum website- 19 June 2010. <http://www.bp.com/riveassets,6p internet/globalbp/globalbp-uk-english/incident_response/STAGlNG/local assets/downloadsldfs/Dispersant background_and_FAes.pdF.Butler. Octavia. Litith's Brood. New york: Warner, 2000.

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Notes on Contrit

Stacy Alaimo is a Professor twhere she co-chairs the PresiPhD from the UniversitY of trenvironmental art and architetenvironmental PedagogY, gendof "queer" animals. Among heing Nature as Feminist SPaeHekman (2008), and BodilY N'(2010). Her new book ProjectAnimal Studies: Science, Aesrt

Craig E. Colten is the Carl (University. Before coming tosity, worked for the state of Illton, DC. His research focused(Innatural MetroPolis: VraKatrina (2005). In the wake oleans to the BBC, CNN, the.lVMore recently he Published ftion in Coastal Louisima (ACommunity and Regional ReLaboratory.

Lawrence Culver is m mState University. He receiwdgeles, in 2004. His dissermirsertation from the Armbm !thor of The Frcntiq {I'eiilAmerica (2010). In 2OlO fthCenter in Mrmich to wdoMaking of America- &ltlrisson Center.

Heike Egner is a ProfmoKlagenfurt, Austria Her rwand the environment, md in cfaculty at Klagenfiug H€ftelcating Disastef' at the C€ffitaught at the universities ofl