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Tar Sands

Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent
Jan 04, 2011
Chosen as his Book of the Year by John Vaillant: "This dark and sticky Canadian story is about as unsavoury as a big blob of Alberta tar. Luckily for us, Andrew Nikiforuk makes it almost as hard to put down. All environmental implications (and damnations) aside, the history of Alberta’s tar sands is fascinating. Who knew that these “bituminous fountains” had been on the radar of commercial explorers since the 18th century? Or that Fort McMurray’s pivotal role in Canada’s future was envisioned more than a hundred years ago? And the vision: Tar is the new fur, and this award-winning book demonstrates how Canada is being colonized again. "Nikiforuk has a nose for enviro-political disasters, but Tar Sands is no screed. Rooted in painstaking research, enlivened by frank quotes from the oilmen themselves, Nikiforuk makes no bones about the fact that Alberta has been blessed (or is it cursed?) with a Saudi Arabia’s-worth of bitumen, and that American industrialists, anticipating political upheaval and dwindling global supplies, have been eyeing “Canada’s Great Reserve” since the Second World War. "But where Nikiforuk really shines is in his exposure of the devil in the details. This isn’t oil we’re dealing with, it’s tar-soaked sand, and it is not drilled but rendered by a process so toxic, so destructive and so energy- and water-intensive that it’s hard not to see it for what is: a colossal act of peak-oil desperation – the industrial equivalent of a nicotine addict rifling through a trash bin for cigarette butts."