For decades communities on the US Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Texas have lived in the shadows of gigantic petrochemical factories belching out toxins that earned their regions ignominious monikers, such as “Cancer Alley” and “Death Valley”.
Now, amid an unprecedented boom in liquefied natural gas exports to Europe, the fossil fuel industry is targeting these same communities to host a fresh wave of industrial facilities with the promise of jobs and investment.
But some locals are demanding a halt to the buildout, arguing they are becoming collateral damage in a race to safeguard European energy supplies following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and boost corporate profits.