It really shouldn't be a point of pride for any kind of "researcher" to have the revelation as an adult that oil has been important in the history of the California economy. I could understand this level of naive astonishment and bitter demonization if all your education came from an elementary school textbook, but this author is supposed to be some kind of public intellectual.
From the tone of this article, you would think that oil is some kind of purely toxic, useless substance that fiendish villains decided to dig up for fun and hate, "boosterish paper[s] smirk[ing]" all along. I imagine the state of the world if the oilfields in LA and elsewhere had been "left fallow" as the author's misapplied metaphor desires. It is not good: starvation, deprivation, no modern materials or planes, extremely restricted technology development. On the other hand, those of us who still managed to be born likely wouldn't have computers and we'd be spared from having to read this.