Bare Nature

<jats:p>This article considers the ethical implications of a stance toward or relation with the natural environment that could be characterized as dominant across many sectors of not only the economy but consumption patterns generally. Despite popular perception or denial of climate change over the past decades, this is an implicit relation toward the collateral risks and damages to ecosystems by human activity. Not only are livelihoods sustained on the basis of natural resources but the direct costs of hydrocarbon development are borne locally in the environment. For some, this is understood to be without a personal cost despite the fears expressed. The article quotes from interviews with residents. It stages a broader, continuing conversation about the ambivalence of being dependent on hydrocarbons. This article explores the difficulty of developing an ethical engagement with the nonhuman and natural ecosystems when they are relegated to the status of what will be referred to as “bare nature.” Rather than state of exception or standing reserve, nonhuman nature is only present as a form of absence and as nonentities and does not present an ethical challenge or claim.</jats:p>