Book Launch: Fracking Uncertainty: Hydraulic Fracturing and the Provincial Politics of Risk

On October 18, 2024 the Environmental Governance Lab launched Professor Heather Millar's new book Fracking Uncertainty: Hydraulic Fracturing and the Provincial Politics of Risk.

Hydraulic fracturing – fracking – is an unconventional extraction technique used in the oil and gas industry that has fundamentally transformed global energy politics. In Fracking Uncertainty, Heather Millar explains variation in Canadian provincial policy approaches, which range from pro-development regulation to moratoria and outright bans. Millar argues that although regulatory designs are shaped by governments’ desires to seek out economic benefits or protect against environmental harms, policy makers’ perceptions of said benefits and/or harms are mediated through socially constructed narratives about uncertainty and risk.

Fracking Uncertainty offers in-depth case studies of regulatory development in British Columbia, Alberta, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Drawing on media analysis and interviews with government officials, industry representatives, academics, and environmental advocates, Millar demonstrates how risk narratives foster distinctive forms of learning in each province, leading to different regulatory reforms.

Heather Millar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Brunswick. Her research examines Canadian provincial energy and climate politics and has been published in international journals such as Energy Research and Social Sciences, Environmental Politics, and Policy Sciences. Heather was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa and the Environmental Governance Lab at the University of Toronto. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Toronto and a MPP and BA from Simon Fraser University. Prior to her graduate studies she worked in the Canadian non-profit sector on a range of housing, environmental, and international development issues.

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