All that is Frozen Melts into the Sea: Arctic Gas, Science, and Capitalist Natures

Abstract

ABSTRACT Considerable ecological Marxist analysis has investigated the centrality of nonhuman natures such as soil, forests, and rivers in capitalist accumulation: not only the importance of overcoming natural barriers but appropriating the unpaid productivity of natures for free or low cost. The frozen materiality of ice, however, is a particularly unruly and disagreeable nature that defies most attempts to easily subsume it within capital. This article examines the efforts by the Polar Gas Project – a lengthy pipeline proposed during the 1970s that would have shipped large quantities of natural gas from the Canadian Arctic to southern markets – and specific attempts to develop reliable ice science to facilitate its development. Applying Collard and Dempsey’s analytic of five orientations of capitalist natures, this article examines Polar Gas’ attempted production of ice as an “underground infrastructure,” “outcast surplus,” and “threat.” Through this, empirical evidence of scientific work to produce capitalist natures is detailed and the specific materiality of ice examined in the context of proposed accumulation, revealing the historical limits of capital’s production and remaking of nature.