Polk, Siena2020-07-282020-07-282020-06https://hdl.handle.net/1794/25416Submitted to the Undergraduate Library Research Award scholarship competition: 2020. 64 pages.While many are aware of the inputs required to maintain food production at an industrial level in the United States, we seldom reflect on the profound significance of a food system that is so deeply rooted in what Matthew Huber calls the “dead ecologies of fossilized energy.” In order to more fully understand and critique the linkages between fossil fuels and agriculture, as well as their ecological and social implications, I examine the use of fossil fuels in agriculture through an eco-socialist framework. I employ Wim Carton’s fossil fuel landscape and Marx as developed by John Bellamy Foster’s concept of metabolic rift to illuminate the linkages between combustible carbons and the food we eat. Ultimately, these two concepts lead to a place of critical understanding in attempts to envision a more sustainable and resilient future. Such an inquiry is of the upmost urgency considering the dual threats of climate change and soil erosion. Both threats are exacerbated by our continued use of fossil fuels and the machines they power.enCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USclimate changesustainable agriculturefossil fuelsfood supplycombustible carbonsThesis / Dissertation