The six-part Permian Climate Bomb series explores the ongoing oil, gas and petrochemical boom in the Permian Basin, a story of runaway toxic infrastructure, environmental injustice and climate overshoot.
This series analyzes the climate, public health, economic and social impacts of the Permian fracking boom. It illuminates the Permian Basin's link to environmental injustice and petrochemical expansion on the Gulf Coast. The report also follows the flow of Permian hydrocarbons to export markets. Finally, it gives voice to the impact fossil fuel infrastructure places on communities, spotlighting the individuals confronting the oil and gas industry in the region.
Oil and gas production in the Permian Basin has grown more than 5 times in the past decade. Despite the climate crisis, it is still expected to grow aggressively in the coming decade. At a time when the world’s leading scientists agree that “rapid, transformative, and sustained action is needed to ensure that global warming does not exceed 1.5°C temperature levels,” the United States cannot afford to develop new fossil fuel reserves, nor continue to increase its exports overseas.
The Permian Basin is also responsible for fueling an explosion in plastic processing and manufacturing along the Gulf Coast. Communities already burdened with toxic chemical plants are witnessing expansions of new and existing plants, raising their cumulative toxic burden higher than ever before. This plastics production boom ignores the outcry of communities and governments worldwide over the plastic pollution crisis, threatening the survival of countless species, and causing immeasurable harm to public health and ecosystems worldwide.
While production, exports and plastics all pose unique threats to frontline communities, decades of regulatory failure and insufficient environmental enforcement have enabled Permian oil and gas operations to become some of the dirtiest in the world. The intensity of drilling, water, sand and chemical use, and the lack of regulatory oversight, has turned parts of the basin into an industrial wasteland; decreasing the quality of life for residents, threatening local agriculture, ranching, tourism and recreation, and relegating the basic health and safety of residents as an afterthought to the industry’s pursuit of growth.
Permian Climate Bomb is a collaboration between Oil Change International, Earthworks and the Center for International Environmental Law to reveal the true costs of the Permian Basin’s explosive growth.
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