In Floating Coast, Demuth argues for the allowance of agency of non human actors in ways both similar to and contradicting with White's Organic Machine. She posits that the linking factor in Beringia is not work or labor as described by White but energy and change. In an environment that is less efficient in its transformation of solar energy into calories ,life is necessarily in a constant flux. Focusing more on animal actors than environmental features, Demuth shows the ways that misinterpretations of the realities of the environment led to both catastrophes and unplanned successes. When American whalers began to create an industry out of the bowhead whales the whales quickly learned to avoid American ships. Repeated attempts to extend the ideals of capitalism to this region through hunting of walruses, foxes, and oil rigging were also ineffective. The environment simply isn't stable enough to sustain a constantly growing industry. On top of that, the work required to extract caloric and economic value from the region is so high as to be undesirable for governments long term. The Soviet Union's whaling industry led to significant losses in the whale population due to the incredibly effective hunting technology available by the time the industry picked up. Eventually, environmental advocates called for an end to whaling, including for Indigenous communities who relied on whale as a food source. These examples of foreign ideals misunderstanding the realities of the environment in Beringia are representative of Demuths thesis. The ideas that she is playing with in this book by giving agency to more-than-human actors are in line with the transveral posthumanities in that she critiques the idea of Beringia as a human controlled space. She is perhaps most in conflict with White in the level of power that the environment holds over human actors in comparison to White's Columbia river. The book ends with the emphasis that enacting true change in this region is difficult, and the standard of flux has been maintained past the staying power of the various forces that have attempted to mold the region to their ends.