For over 130 years, Imperial Oil dominated Canada's oil industry. Their 1947 discovery of crude oil in Leduc, Alberta transformed the industry and the country. But from 1899 onwards, two-thirds of the company was owned by an American giant, making Imperial Oil one of the largest foreign-controlled multinationals in Canada. Imperial Standard is the first full-scale history of Imperial Oil. It illuminates Imperial's longstanding connections to Standard Oil of New Jersey, also known as Exxon Mobil. Although this relationship was often beneficial to Imperial, allowing them access to technology and capital, it also came at a cost, causing Imperial to be assailed as the embodiment of foreign control of Canada's natural resources. Graham D. Taylor draws on an extensive collection of primary sources to explore the complex relationship between the two companies. This groundbreaking history provides unprecedented insight into one of Canada's most influential oil companies as it has grown and evolved with the industry itself.

American dependence on foreign oil has long been described as a serious threat to U.S. national security, and continues to be a political flashpoint even as domestic fracking eases the US' reliance on imported energy. Oil and American Identity offers a fresh perspective on the subject by reframing 'energy dependency' as a cultural discourse with intimate connections to American views on independence, freedom, consumption, abundance, progress and American exceptionalism. Through a detailed reading of primary literature, Sebastian Herbstreuth also shows how the dangers of foreign oil are linked to American descriptions of foreign oil producers as culturally different und thus 'undependable'. Herbstreuth shows how even reliable imports from the Middle East are portrayed as dangerous and undesirable because this region is particularly 'foreign' from an American point of view, while oil from friendly countries like Canada is cast as a benign form of energy trade. Oil and American Identity rewrites the history of U.S. foreign oil dependence as a cultural history of the United States in the 20th century.

"Oil is a fairy tale, and, like every fairy tale, is a bit of a lie."-Ryzard Kapuscinski, Shah of Shahs The scale and reach of the global oil and gas industry, valued at several trillions of dollars, is almost impossible to grasp. Despite its vast technical expertise and scientific sophistication, the industry betrays a startling degree of inexactitude and empirical disagreement about foundational questions of quantity, output, and price. As an industry typified by concentrated economic and political power, its operations are obscured by secrecy and security. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the social sciences typically approach oil as a metonym-of modernity, money, geopolitics, violence, corruption, curse, ur-commodity-rather than considering the daily life of the industry itself and of the hydrocarbons around which it is built. Subterranean Estates gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars and experts to instead provide a critical topography of the hydrocarbon industry, understood not solely as an assemblage of corporate forms but rather as an expansive and porous network of laborers and technologies, representation and expertise, and the ways of life oil and gas produce at points of extraction, production, marketing, consumption, and combustion. By accounting for oil as empirical and experiential, the contributors begin to demystify a commodity too often given almost demiurgic power. Subterranean Estates shifts critical attention away from an exclusive focus on global oil firms toward often overlooked aspects of the industry, including insurance, finance, law, and the role of consultants and community organizations. Based on ethnographic research from around the world (Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Oman, the United States, Ecuador, Chad, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Canada, Iran, and Russia), and featuring a photoessay on the lived experiences of those who inhabit a universe populated by oil rigs, pipelines, and gas flares, this innovative volume provides a new perspective on the material, symbolic, cultural, and social meanings of this multidimensional world.

With global demand for energy poised to increase by more than half in the next three decades, the supply of safe, reliable, and reasonably priced gas and oil will continue to be of fundamental importance to modern economies. Central to this supply are the pipelines that transport this energy. And while the fundamental economics of the major pipeline networks are the same, the differences in their ownership, commercial development, and operation can provide insight into the workings of market institutions in various nations. Drawing on a century of the world's experience with gas and oil pipelines, this book illustrates the importance of economics in explaining the evolution of pipeline politics in various countries. It demonstrates that institutional differences influence ownership and regulation, while rents and consumer pricing depend on the size and diversity of existing markets, the depth of regulatory institutions, and the historical structure of the pipeline businesses themselves. The history of pipelines is also rife with social conflict, and Jeff D. Makholm explains how and when institutions in a variety of countries have controlled pipeline behavior - either through economic regulation or government ownership - in the public interest.

The recent escalation in the violent conflict in the Niger Delta has brought the region to the forefront of international energy and security concerns. This book analyses the causes, dynamics and politics underpinning oil-related violence in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. It focuses on the drivers of the conflict, as well as the ways the crises spawned by the political economy of oil and contradictions within Nigeria's ethnic politics have contributed to the morphing of initially poorly coordinated, largely non-violent protests into a pan-Delta insurgency. Approaching the issue from a number of perspectives, the book offers the most up-to-date and comprehensive analysis available of the varied dimensions of the conflict. Combining empirically-based and analytic chapters, it attempts to explain the causes of the escalation in violence, the various actors, levels and dynamics involved, and the policy challenges faced with regard to conflict management/resolution and the options for peace. It also examines the role of oil as a commodity of global strategic significance, addressing the relationship between oil, energy security and development in the Niger Delta.

"The real story of global oil over the past twenty-five years is not about the spillover effects of Palestinians fighting Israelis, or terrorist attacks on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, or Iraq's stormy relationship with Kuwait. It is not even about periodic small- and large-scale U.S. attacks on Iraq. Rather, the real story is about longer-term developments that have changed the international relations of the Middle East, politics at the global level, and world oil markets. These developments have increased oil stability." from the Introduction

Thirty years after OAPEC shattered world markets for oil, the Western world remains profoundly dependent on foreign, particularly Middle Eastern, sources of petroleum. U.S. political rhetoric is suffused with claims about the vulnerability caused by this dependence. Hence, many political analysts assume that a search for stability of petroleum supplies is an important element of contemporary American foreign policy.

Steve A. Yetiv argues that common assumptions about oil markets are wrong. Although prices remain volatile, Yetiv's account portrays a world market in petroleum products far more benign and predictable than the one to which we are accustomed. In Crude Awakenings, he identifies and analyzes real and potential threats to the global energy supply, including wars, revolutions, coups, dangerous alliances, oil embargoes, Islamic radicalism, and transnational terrorism. However, he also shows how some of these threats have been mitigated and how global oil security has been reinforced."

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and formerly part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, is a city built on and with oil. In fact, oil and urbanism in Baku have been completely intertwined, economically, politically, and physically in the spaces of the city. Its first oil boom in the late 19th century was driven by the Russian branch of the Nobel family modernising the exploitation of oil fields around Baku, and local oil barons pouring their new wealth into building a cosmopolitan city centre. During the Soviet period, Baku became the site of an urban experiment: the shaping an oil city of socialist man. This project included Neft Dashlari, a city built on trestles in the Caspian Sea, housing thousands of workers, schools, shops, gardens, clinics, cinemas and more. This first off-shore rig in the world became the emblem of Baku's second oil boom. Today, Baku is experiencing its third oil boom. For Baku's city planners and business elites, that future is based on a careful reading of Baku as a project in which urbanism and oil are inextricably linked. This new book investigates how oil stimulated urban development in Baku, and explores in detail the more complex and important question of how the disparate spatial logics, knowledge bases, and practices of oil production and urban production intersected, impacted and transformed one another. Based on a vast research project and drawing on rich and previously unpublished material, Baku - Oil and Urbanism is organised into three broadly conceived historical periods defined by the political, economic, technological conditions in which the interwoven evolution of oil and urban production unfolded. The book also features a new photo essay by celebrated photographer Iwan Baan.

The 1973 'Oil Shock' is considered a turning point in the history of the twentieth century. At the time it seemed to mark a definitive shift from the era of low priced oil to the era of expensive oil. For most Western industrialized countries, it became the symbolic marker of the end of an era. For many oil producers, it translated into an unprecedented control over their energy resources, and completed the process of decolonization, leading to a profound redefinition of international relations. This book provides an analysis of the crisis and its global political and economic impact. It features contributions from a range of perspectives and approaches, including political, economic, environmental, international and social history. The authors examine the origins of what was defined as an 'oil revolution' by the oil-producing countries, as well as the far-reaching effects of the 'shock' on the Cold War and decolonization, on international energy markets and the global economy. In doing so, they help place the event in its historical context as a key moment in the transformation of the international economy and of North-South relations.

The Emirate of Kuwait hardly resembles the city-State it was at the start of the 20th century. The discovery of oil in 1938 rapidly transformed the tiny tribal sheikhdom of the Al-Sabah into a modern oil-producing state where, by the early 1980s, citizens were enjoying one of the highest standards of living in the world. While much has been written on the reasons why and how the Al-Sabah became a ruling dynasty, little is known about the nature of their authority and its relationship to Kuwait's social structure. Rivka Azoulay shows how despite the rapidity of change in the oil-rich, family-run emirate, it is the pre-oil dynamics of social and political life that dictate how society operates. The author shows that Kuwait's ambitious diversification plans to reduce oil-dependence by 2035 require a renegotiation of the regime's pact with society, which threatens the pre-oil alliances upon which the Al-Sabah's regime has been built.

"An academic career was in front of me, but I sampled the oil and gas industry and stayed. Thirty years later I became CEO of an international company based in Greece." Michael Earle's story is full of exploration and adventure from beginning to end. He witnessed the aftermath of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and felt the threat of nuclear war between Pakistan and India; in the Sahara Desert he crossed a minefield in the war zone between Libya and Chad, and he was attacked by gigantic hornets in the spectacular mountains of Papua New Guinea - all in the line of duty. Extensive international travel came with the territory, and the narrative contains interesting portraits of many countries, and insights into the pros and cons of expatriate life. Finally, I am CEO recounts the hard lessons learned at each stage of a tortuous path through corporate life, and how passion for work and the need to support a family strained marriages and determined career choices.

One of The Observer's 'Thirty books to help us understand the world' Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Recycle. Fly less. Eat less meat. These are some of the ways that we've been told we can save the planet. But are individuals really to blame for the climate crisis? Seventy-one per cent of global emissions come from the same hundred companies, but fossil-fuel companies have taken no responsibility themselves. Instead, they have waged a thirty-year campaign to blame individuals for climate change. The result has been disastrous for our planet. In The New Climate War, renowned scientist Michael E. Mann argues that all is not lost. He draws the battle lines between the people and the polluters - fossil-fuel companies, right-wing plutocrats, and petro-states - and outlines a plan for forcing our governments and corporations to wake up and make real change.

Thanks to increasingly extreme forms of oil extraction, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador underwent exceptional economic growth from 2005 to 2015. Fossilized investigates the environmental policy trends that supported this development trajectory, such as institutional restructuring that prioritizes extraction over environmental protection, alongside inadequate environmental assessment, land-use planning, and emissions controls. Angela Carter’s detailed analysis situates the policy dynamics of Canada’s largest oil-producing provinces within the historical and global context of late-stage petro-capitalism and deepening neoliberalization. As the global community moves toward decarbonization, Canada's petro-provinces are instead doubling down on oil – to their ecological and economic peril.

'One of the world's most prominent radical scientists.' The Guardian This book is classic of the environmental movement. In it, Vandana Shiva envisions a world beyond our current dependence on fossil fuels and globalization, and makes the compelling case that food crises, oil dependency and climate change are all inherently interlinked. Any attempt to solve one without addressing the others is therefore doomed to failure. Condemning industrial agriculture and biofuels as recipes for ecological and economic disaster, Shiva instead champions small independent farmers. What is needed most, in a time of hunger and changing climates, are sustainable, biologically diverse farms that are better able to resist disease, drought and flooding. Calling for a return to local economies and small-scale agriculture, Shiva argues that humanity’s choice is a stark one: we can either continue to pursue a market-centred approach, which will ultimately make our planet unliveable, or we can instead strive for a people-centred, oil-free future, one which offers a decent living for all. This edition features a new introduction by the author, in which she outlines recent developments in ecology and environmentalism, and offers new prescriptions for the environmental movement.

Contemporary life is founded on oil - a cheap, accessible, and rich source of energy that has shaped cities and manufacturing economies at the same time that it has increased mobility, global trade, and environmental devastation. Despite oil's essential role, full recognition of its social and cultural significance has only become a prominent feature of everyday debate and discussion in the early twenty-first century. Presenting a multifaceted analysis of the cultural, social, and political claims and assumptions that guide how we think and talk about oil, Petrocultures maps the complex and often contradictory ways in which oil has influenced the public's imagination around the world. This collection of essays shows that oil's vast network of social and historical narratives and the processes that enable its extraction are what characterize its importance, and that its circulation through this immense web of relations forms worldwide experiences and expectations. Contributors' essays investigate the discourses surrounding oil in contemporary culture while advancing and configuring new ways to discuss the cultural ecosystem that it has created. A window into the social role of oil, Petrocultures also contemplates what it would mean if human life were no longer deeply shaped by the consumption of fossil fuels.

Oil is one of the world's most important commodities, but few people know how its extraction affects the residents of petroleum-producing regions. In the 1960s, the Texaco corporation discovered crude in the territory of Ecuador's indigenous Cofan nation. Within a decade, Ecuador had become a member of OPEC, and the Cofan watched as their forests fell, their rivers ran black, and their bodies succumbed to new illnesses. In 1993, they became plaintiffs in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit that aims to compensate them for the losses they have suffered. Yet even in the midst of a tragic toxic disaster, the Cofan have refused to be destroyed. While seeking reparations for oil's assault on their lives, they remain committed to the survival of their language, culture, and rainforest homeland. Life in Oil presents the compelling, nuanced story of how the Cofan manage to endure at the center of Ecuadorian petroleum extraction. Michael L. Cepek has lived and worked with Cofan people for more than twenty years. In this highly accessible book, he goes well beyond popular and academic accounts of their suffering to share the largely unknown stories that Cofan people themselves create-the ones they tell in their own language, in their own communities, and to one another and the few outsiders they know and trust. Their words reveal that life in oil is a form of slow, confusing violence for some of the earth's most marginalized, yet resilient, inhabitants.

The emergence of the international oil corporation as a political actor in the twentieth century, seen in BP's infrastructure and information arrangements in Iran. In the early twentieth century, international oil corporations emerged as a new kind of political actor. The development of the world oil industry, argues Katayoun Shafiee, was one of the era's largest political projects of techno-economic development. In this book, Shafiee maps the machinery of oil operations in the Anglo-Iranian oil industry between 1901 and 1954, tracking the organizational work involved in moving oil through a variety of technical, legal, scientific, and administrative networks. She shows that, in a series of disagreements, the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC, which later became BP) relied on various forms of information management to transform political disputes into techno-economic calculation, guaranteeing the company complete control over profits, labor, and production regimes. She argues that the building of alliances and connections that constituted Anglo-Iranian oil's infrastructure reconfigured local politics of oil regions and examines how these arrangements in turn shaped the emergence of both nation-state and transnational oil corporation. Drawing on her extensive archival and field research in Iran, Shafiee investigates the surprising ways in which nature, technology, and politics came together in battles over mineral rights; standardizing petroleum expertise; formulas for calculating profits, production rates, and labor; the "Persianization" of employees; nationalism and oil nationalization; and the long-distance machinery of an international corporation. Her account shows that the politics of oil cannot be understood in isolation from its technical dimensions.

The Polar North is known to be home to large gas and oil reserves and its positionholds signifi cant trading and military advantages, yet the maritime boundaries of the region remain ill-defined. In the twenty-first century the Arctic is undergoing profound change. As the sea ice melts, a result of accelerating climate change, global governance has become vital. In this first of three volumes, the latest research and analysis from the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, the world's leading Arctic research body, is brought together. Arctic Governance: Law and Politics investigates the legal and political order of the Polar North, focusing on governance structures and the Law of the Sea. Are the current mechanisms at work effective? Are the Arctic states' interests really clashing, or is the atmosphere of a more cooperative nature? Skilfully delineating policy in the region and analysing the consequences of treaty agreements, Arctic Governance's uncovering of a rather orderly 'Arctic race' will become an indispensable contribution to contemporary International Relations concerning the Polar North.

Lean Refining: How to Improve Performance in the Oil Industry addresses the tremendous opportunities this quality improvement system can exploit to achieve huge financial gains, while simultaneously improving morale, timeliness, quality, safety, reliability, and environmental performance. The book offers numerous examples of how lean methodologies can be applied, the gains that can be achieved, and takes readers through a prescriptive process of implementation. The book is divided into 3 parts. Part I is specific to the topic of lean manufacturing, and explains exactly what lean is... as well as what it isn't. Part II addresses lean manufacturing in the oil industry in general, and refining in particular. It explains why lean is not the prevalent improvement strategy in refining, and why it's more likely to appear among the smaller companies first. It also explains the differences that petroleum refining brings to the lean model. Part III covers topics needed to understand how to implement, organize, and roll out a lean transformation from the top down. An affiliated website boasts tons of valuable information, including: Forms and evaluations for such topics as The 10 Lean Killers, The 6 Roll Out Errors, The 5 Precursors to a Lean Transformation, and more; Samples of working documents such as A3s, Leader Standard Work, and 5 supervisory tools, in both template form and completed; A comprehensive reading and reference list of nearly 500 resources, broken into topical material; Links to 3rd-party websites where readers can download e-forms and other related information. "Lonnie Wilson merges his extensive knowledge and experience of both lean manufacturing and refining in an easy-to-grasp way." -N. Brandon Hughes, ChEng & Energy MBA, Optimization & Production Analyst, YASREF an Aramco JV"No matter what your business, the principles identified in this book can positively change your company's operating and financial results-and your management skills.... I highly recommend it." -Eugene J. Voiland, Founding President & CEO (retired), Aera Energy, LLC"It is simply uncanny how he breaks down complexity to deliver valuable insight and, most importantly, solutions that work." -Jason Farley, Founder BridgeGap Consulting"I have found in Lonnie Wilson a rare combination of both passion for, and the ability to clearly communicate, the principles of continuous improvement." -Michael J. Wiseman, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt MJW Lean Consulting LLC"A 'must read' for all refinery employees, these are instructions on how to create a world-class re fining team." -R.R. Kooiman, PE"I wish I could have had the opportunity to have Lonnie teach and mentor me 25 years ago." -Fred Kaschak, Global Manufacturing Director, The Woodbridge Group"It is not just the best book on the subject; it is the only book. Lean Refining will change the industry forever." - Robert H. Simonis, Founder, KCE Consulting, Director of Rapid Improvement, CEVA Logistics, Lieutenant Colonel (retired), U.S. ArmyLonnie Wilson, a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt and Six Sigma trainer, has been teaching and implementing Lean techniques for 40 years. His experience spans 20 years in manufacturing management with an international oil company. In 1990, he founded Quality Consultants, which teaches and applies Lean techniques to small entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 Firms, principally in the US, Mexico, and Canada. Mr. Wilson has taught for the El Paso Community College and the University of Texas at El Paso, and is an active Senior Member of the American Society for Quality Control. He has spoken at the iSixSigma annual Petroleum Energy Conferences, Industry Week, Honda Lean Suppliers Network, APICS, ASQ, and ARM (Association of Rotational Molders) Annual Conferences. Wilson is the author of the highly successful, How to Implement Lean Manufacturing, published by McGraw-Hill. Preface Introduction The Story of the Toyota Headrest Cell, the Theta Cell What Is Lean Manufacturing? Why Is Lean Manufacturing So Misunderstood? How Much Has Lean Penetrated the Refining Business? Where Will Lean First Appear in the Refining Industry? How Can Lean Benefit the Refining-Focused Businesses? What Differences Does Petroleum Refining Bring to Lean? The House of Lean Lean Manufacturing Foundational Issue-People Lean Manufacturing Foundational Issue-Process Stability Lean Manufacturing: The Quality Control Tools How Lean Has Worked in the Oil Business Distinguishing Lean from Other Improvement Methodologies Implementing the Lean Transformation.

Published in Cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University. Because oil has made fortunes, caused wars, and shaped nations, no one questions the assertion that the quest for oil is a quest for power. The question we should ask, Finding Oil suggests, is rather what kind of power prospectors have wanted. This book revises oil's early history by exploring the incredibly varied stories of the men who pitted themselves against nature to unleash the power of oil. Brian Frehner shows how, despite the towering presence of a figure like John D. Rockefeller as a quintessential "oil man," prospectors were a diverse lot who saw themselves, their interests, and their relationships with nature in profoundly different ways. He traces their various pursuits of power from 1859 to 1920 as a struggle for cultural, intellectual, and professional authority over both nature and their peers. Charting the intersection between human and natural history, their stories trace the ever-evolving relationship between science and industry and reveal the unexpected role geology played in shaping our understanding of the history of oil.

Russia is among the world's leading oil producers, sitting atop the planet's eighth largest reserves. Like other oil-producing nations, it has been profoundly transformed by the oil industry. In The Depths of Russia, Douglas Rogers offers a nuanced and multifaceted analysis of oil's place in Soviet and Russian life, based on ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in the Perm region of the Urals. Moving beyond models of oil calibrated to capitalist centers and postcolonial "petrostates," Rogers traces the distinctive contours of the socialist-and then postsocialist-oil complex, showing how oil has figured in the making and remaking of space and time, state and corporation, exchange and money, and past and present. He pays special attention to the material properties and transformations of oil (from depth in subsoil deposits to toxicity in refining) and to the ways oil has echoed through a range of cultural registers. The Depths of Russia challenges the common focus on high politics and Kremlin intrigue by considering the role of oil in barter exchanges and surrogate currencies, industry-sponsored social and cultural development initiatives, and the city of Perm's campaign to become a European Capital of Culture. Rogers also situates Soviet and post-Soviet oil in global contexts, showing that many of the forms of state and corporate power that emerged in Russia after socialism are not outliers but very much part of a global family of state-corporate alliances gathered at the intersection of corporate social responsibility, cultural sponsorship, and the energy and extractive industries.

This encyclopedia presents important research on the Middle East. Some of the topics discussed herein include Iran's ballistic missile and space launch programs; Iran sanctions; politics, governance, and human rights in Iraq; the Israel-Hezbollah conflict; reform, security and U.S. policies of Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, The United Arab Emirates, and Yemen; and security, and U.S. trade and investment in the Middle East and North Africa.

Winner of the 2014 Book of the Year Award from the Petroleum History Society! The importance of energy to the functioning of any economy has meant that energy industries are amongst the most regulated of industries. What might appear to be purely private decisions are made within a complex and evolving web of government regulations. Petropolitics: Petroleum Development, Markets and Regulations, Alberta as an Illustrative History provides an economic history of the petroleum industry in Alberta as well as a detailed analysis of the operation of the markets for Alberta oil and natural gas, and the main governmental regulations (apart from environmental regulations) faced by the industry. The tools used within this study are applicable to oil and gas industries throughout the world.

Oil and gas are important to every aspect of our economy, yet the oil and gas industry is distinguished by its combination of increasing demands and decreasing discovery volumes--and it is an industry shrouded in an environment of extremely volatile pricing. Although the profits enjoyed by the oil and gas industry are enormous, the industry remains one of the most capital-intensive in a world where rising expenses continue to threaten to squeeze profit margins. Geopolitics may continue to be the most important variable in maintaining existing assets and in successfully achieving new discoveries and carrying out their subsequent development. But finding new oil and gas reserves is becoming more challenging and the places where hydrocarbons are being found are more remote. Thus technology advances are also a key variable to enable exploration, drilling and development to become economically feasible in some of these more difficult operating environments. For the last century oil and gas additions have exceeded demand but has this industry now reached a "peak oil" situation? Some experts argue we are on the cusp of maximum oil production while others suggest we are still about a decade away. Natural gas demand however, is rising at a slightly faster rate than oil. Natural gas may be the immediate replacement fuel for oil as a source of clean and efficient electric power generation. Three out of the top ten Fortune 500 companies were oil/gas companies in 2011. This short introduction to the oil and gas industry will focus on history, operations, major companies, outside market forces, regulation and the current challenges the industry faces. Such factors as finite natural resources, the environment, economics, geopolitics, and technology will all come into play in the narrative. The book will demonstrate how the leaders of this industry, former champions of progress, are now coming under scrutiny and being depicted as the biggest culprits of environmental degradation. Yet the industry is likely to continue to grow until some form of alternate fuels is developed. The oil and gas industry will continue to have an enormous impact on life on the planet.