Drawing on ethnographic research in Houston, Texas, I contribute novel ethnographic insights into how oil and gas experts understand notions of value. I show that prevailing notions of value are normatively defined in economic terms and closely tied to understandings of an American “way of life.” Questions of value, I suggest, reveal our idiosyncratic and shared ethical orientations toward what we think is important and the futures we are fighting to create. The climate crisis, as such, is not a crisis of emissions or hydrocarbons but a crisis of how value is assigned to worldly things. I conclude by arguing that until we address questions of value, we are unlikely to address the existential crisis of anthropogenic climate change.

中文翻译：

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作为道德的价值：气候变化、危机和未来的斗争

借鉴德克萨斯州休斯顿的人种学研究，我为石油和天然气专家如何理解价值概念提供了新颖的人种学见解。我表明，流行的价值观念是用经济术语来规范定义的，并且与对美国“生活方式”的理解密切相关。我认为，价值问题揭示了我们对于我们认为重要的事物和我们正在努力创造的未来的特殊且共同的道德取向。气候危机本身并不是排放或碳氢化合物的危机，而是如何赋予世俗事物价值的危机。最后我认为，除非我们解决价值问题，否则我们不可能解决人为气候变化的生存危机。