Lynn's Jaw Dropped Again and Again At the Revelations in This Book

Tar Sands

Canada has one third of the world’s oil source; it comes from the bitumen in the oil sands of Alberta. Advancements in technology and frenzied development have created the world’s largest energy project in Fort McMurray where, rather than shooting up like a fountain in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, the sticky bitumen is extracted from the earth. Providing almost 20 percent of America’s fuel, much of this dirty oil is being processed in refineries in the Midwest. This out-of-control megaproject is polluting the air, poisoning the water, and destroying boreal forest at a rate almost too rapid to be imagined. In this hard-hitting book, journalist Andrew Nikiforuk exposes the disastrous environmental, social, and political costs of the tar sands and argues forcefully for change.





Lynn says:
"Tar Sands is a historical and technical analysis of the development of Alberta's tar sands to maintain the current momentum of fossil-fueled energy production and consumption.  While reading this book I had to pause and put the book down repeatedly just to absorb the ramifications of the jaw-dropping scale of what contortions otherwise intelligent minds had gone and continue to go through to push through what amounts to a fabulously expensive boondoggle at best, and a genuine environmental catastrophe at worst.  Dissecting the highly secretive decisions that have favored short term profits and disregarded public safety and ecological and societal health, Canadian author Nikiforuk is an engaging tour guide through a multifaceted landscape that reveals a desperate empire in dangerous denial of the reality of limits, even as those limits stubbornly persist and are exacerbated by largely unregulated and unaccountable extraction efforts.

Bitumen, the tarry substance our oil-addiction now turns to to fuel our cars, requires vast energy and water inputs and pollutes extravagantly to eke out its preciously rare elixirs that so command our markets, but with the stubborn refusal to acknowledge the pressing need to rapidly develop renewable energy, it appears the last best solution for those determined to keep up appearances and stay the course with business-as-usual in the now much murkier territory of the tar sands.   After blazing through the lion's share of the 'low-hanging fruit' (i.e. easily obtained oil reserves) over the past century, bitumen has certainly gotten the attention of First Nation residents of the Athabasca River watershed and of the citizens of Ft.McMurray, a boom-town going through exponential leaps of dubious benefit in a mining operation that even some industry insiders term a "freakshow" and which actually dwarfs the operation fictionally depicted in James Cameron's film, "Avatar".  Now Nikiforuk adds his to a growing chorus of voices hoping to even break through to grab the attention of those of us who up to now may have thought we were doing our part for the environment by buying compact fluorescent lightbulbs or driving a Prius.

To read this book is timely, given the demonstration earlier this fall in Washington, DC where James Hansen (author of Storms of MyGrandchildren) and Naomi Klein (No Logo and Shock Doctrine) were arrested with dozens of others to oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline as well as the spreading Occupy Wallstreet demonstrations calling for corporate accountability/transparency and grassroots representation.  Nikiforuk's very bright light on the 'externatlities' involved in our material comforts may make us squirm with a new awareness of our personal collusion in the culture spawned by the more easily obtainable fossil fuels that heat our homes, cook our food, fuel our cars and generate seemingly limitless growth itself as an assumed iron-clad 'good'.  Yes, it can be a tad overwhelming to look this issue straight in the eye.  But the book is rounded out at its end with a chapter based on Alcoholics Anonymous' 12 Steps, which provides a road map of sorts to carbon sobriety, from the resolve to 'Admit the magnitude and complexity of the energy crisis' (step 1) to 'Don't Wait for Government. (step 11) and "Renegotiate NAFTA" (step 12).  For this reader, Nikiforuk's book is essential accompaniment through step 1, and a big help in confronting the other 11 steps as well."