The rapid expansion of the oil industry there had resulted in the proliferation of so-called “man camps” housing oil workers from out of state, causing a surge in drug trafficking and violent crimes. See →.
For a comprehensive historical account of the Standing Rock uprising and the events that led to it, see Nick Estes, Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance (Verso, 2023).
Advancements in the technology of hydraulic fracturing in the early 2000s had made the exploitation of Bakken shale oil profitable (see →). Since extraction began in 2008, North Dakota has become the third largest crude-oil-producing state in the US. In 2014, there were 12,100 active oil wells (see →). As of December 2024, there were 19,286 active wells, with over forty thousand total wells drilled. The majority of these wells are fracked, first drilled vertically down for two miles and then horizontally for another two. A mixture of water, propellant (often sand), and proprietary chemical compounds is then injected into the well under high pressure (see →), causing the horizontal shale rock layer to fissure, and the trapped oil and gas to be released. Because oil was the commodity of interest, and natural gas capture infrastructure expensive to install, over 30 percent of the natural gas (mainly methane) which came up with the oil was either burnt off (flared) or released directly into the atmosphere (vented). Only in 2014, six years into the oil boom, did North Dakota mandate natural gas capture rates. Nonetheless, in 2019, 20 percent was still being flared or vented.
See →.
See →.
In September 2019, a federal court blocked the riot-boosting legislation in South Dakota after lawsuits by the ACLU (see →). Kristi Noem is now the Secretary of the Department for Homeland Security, making her responsible for the oversight of ICE and the enforcement of the current Trump administration’s terrorizing policies against migrants in the US.
In March 2025, a jury in North Dakota found Greenpeace liable for over $660,000 in damages to Energy Transfer Partners, the company that constructed the Dakota Access Pipeline, for defamation and incitement in relation to the protests at Standing Rock in 2016–17 against the construction of the pipeline. Although “riot boosting” laws do not exist in North Dakota, Energy Transfer Partners filed their first lawsuit against Greenpeace in 2017 in federal court, under the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act. This initial lawsuit was dismissed in 2019. See →.
George Caffentzis, No Blood for Oil (Autonomedia, 2017).
Namely, the financial crisis driven by the austerity measures demanded by the Troika, the so-called “refugee crisis” in the wake of the civil war in Syria, and an ongoing environmental crisis surrounding the construction of the Skouries open-pit gold mine northeast of Thessaloniki.
In 2019, when Trump withdrew the US troops that had been supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces from northern Syria, some remained to protect these oil wells. See →.
Also, much of the electricity produced inside Rojava is from generators that run on crudely refined diesel. They want ecologically friendly solar, wind, etc., but the surrounding geopolitical powers prevent importing this technology at scale. The downfall of the Assad regime in December 2024 brought with it new uncertainties for Rojava. See for example →.
See →.
Felix Guattari, Chaosmosis: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm (Indiana University Press, 1995), 16.
See →.
The documentary Delta Force (1995), directed by Glenn Ellis, shows the destruction caused by oil production there.
