Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America

There was also something innately American—befitting the libertarian ethos that individualism was the root of success—in the new oil and gas wealth that sprang from the ground.

The greatest good for the greatest number of people made Harley a justifiable casualty in the struggle against melting ice caps and rising sea levels wrought by climate change; against faraway despots bolstered by energy supplies; against a slump in American industry that left millions out of work, including her father.

As he saw it, the benefits to the country outweighed the potential personal costs of contaminated water. Every industrial practice came with risks.

The idea dated back to the Roman Empire. According to a mandate adopted by Justinian, who governed from A.D. 527 to 565, the sea, shoreline, air, and rivers belonged to everyone as part of the commons: Salus populi suprema lex esto. The welfare of the people is the supreme law.

Stacey explained the virtues of signing a lease together: more money and greater influence than going it alone with a corporation.

Her whole life she’d worked on sowing good things, and what she was reaping was, frankly, shit. It made her think of the story of Job.

The increasing crusade mentality risked hurting Harley and Paige by keeping them perpetually trapped in a story of victimhood.

the mills closed in the 1980s, a nascent green movement in Pittsburgh mobilized around reviving the rivers for recreation as well as for environmental health. Eventually the rust belt’s rivers began to grow cleaner. Yet there were ongoing problems. Acid mine drainage polluted fifteen thousand miles of rivers and streams.

Every life seemed to have a central event—a marker of before and after. This would be hers. Still, how could she have contracted PTSD? The diagnosis seemed so extreme.