Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life: A Tar Sands Tale

by Matt Hern, Am Johal, Joe Sacco (Contributor)

Seeking new definitions of ecology in the tar sands of northern Alberta and searching for the sweetness of life in the face of planetary crises. Confounded by global warming and in search of an affirmative politics that links ecology with social change, Matt Hern and Am Johal set off on a series of road trips to the tar sands of northern Alberta—perhaps the world's largest industrial site, dedicated to the dirty work of extracting oil from Alberta's vast reserves. Traveling from culturally liberal, self-consciously “green” Vancouver, and aware that our well-meaning performances of recycling and climate-justice marching are accompanied by constant driving, flying, heating, and fossil-fuel consumption, Hern and Johal want to talk to people whose lives and fortunes depend on or are imperiled by extraction. They are seeking new definitions of ecology built on a renovated politics of land. Traveling with them is their friend Joe Sacco—infamous journalist and cartoonist, teller of complex stories from Gaza to Paris—who contributes illustrations and insights and a chapter-length comic about the contradictions of life in an oil town. The epic scale of the ecological horror is captured through an series of stunning color photos by award-winning aerial photographer Louis Helbig. Seamlessly combining travelogue, sophisticated political analysis, and ecological theory, speaking both to local residents and to leading scholars, the authors propose a new understanding of ecology that links the domination of the other-than-human world to the domination of humans by humans. They argue that any definition of ecology has to start with decolonization and that confronting global warming requires a politics that speaks to a different way of being in the world—a reconstituted understanding of the sweetness of life. Published with the help of funding from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan fund

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment, Canada, School

234 pages, Paperback

Published March 30, 2018

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the fact that they were able to offer a cohesive alternative to neoliberalism based on decolonization is mind-opening. I did not properly appreciate decolonization as a proper societal shift (I should have) until I read this book.

The mix between a travelogue and academic discourse is refreshing, but also highlights many of the points that they want to get across, empathy and a radical shift in how things are currently getting done.

I feel like this is a book that could only come out of Vancouver (or the West Coast), but is more nuanced than almost anything I see actually come out of here. It's really good.

[Haig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, an intelligent combination of critical theory, global and local perspectives told in a refreshing narrative style and graphic journalism by Joe Sacco. I must read for any Canadians that think that Canada isn't also responsible for global warming.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great introduction to the actual communities in Northern Alberta around the tar sands and the folks who live there. It tries to find a kind of empathetic through-line between that environment vs jobs dichotomy that creates real barriers to discussing our approach to climate change and environmental protection. Plus, I am never not going to love any book that features artwork and contributions by Joe Sacco.

[Maxwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

my favourite typo was on page 103 (2nd Para), which begins "later on that on that same night" making me read it in my head with the voice of foghorn leghorn. this was the most enjoyable part of the book for me :(

[Marta Veenhof · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book that talks about the sweetness of life which is defined a little bit initially as the difference between south and northern Europe in their approach to their work ethic and how much time the south spends enjoying life versus the utilitarian focus and work centered ethic of northern or north Eastern Europe, allowing for a higher sweetness of life in Southern Europe. Uses the oil sands setting in Alberta to explore this idea and how we would benefit from approaching the ongoing global warming battle. Lots of vibes around capitalism as well.

Some quotes (from microphone might not be exact):

“So that’s our project here to search for new definitions of ecology that can articulate relationships to end with land. When we are talking about land it is not just forest or the bush or rural areas we are talking about all land. Land is an urban phenomenon just as much as anywhere else the sidewalk the city block the backyard just as much as mountains jungles tundra and rivers. All land has been subject to Logix of domination, and that’s all relationships with land are mediately for us to confront colonialism.”

“Dale Jamison, professor of environmental studies, philosophy, and Law at New York university and author of 2014 reason in a dark time, cause global warming the largest collective action problem that humanity has ever faced; he claims that evolution has equipped humans and our political institutions poorly for the problem and that, sadly it is not entirely clear that democracy is up to the challenge of climate change.”

Indigenous people across Alberta and Canada and throughout the Americas anywhere and everywhere on the club are fighting tooth and nail for their land and existence. On every continent we hear a distinct but similar stories and they mention the Maori in New Zealand just to pick among the few that are battling for their land.

Page 165 “Essentially every country in the world is profoundly in debt, and most of us in the global north are deeply personally indebted as well. Debt is implicated – in a very material way – in almost everything about the modern world. Debt is only partially about the present: it always has a far more sophisticated relationship with the future. Taking on a debt speaks to what you think the future will hold, but it also sutures dreams of the future to the present, and emerges as an articulated expression of anxiety. Debt creates collective and individual regulating narratives that reference obligation, shame, morality, power, and ordering. Environmental degradation is debt materialized, justified with a faith that the future will make up the balance.”

Page 168
MH and AJ
“You were a very prominent member of the Correa government but are now in equally prominent critic. In this book we are interested in part in the relationship between state and non-state responses to global warming and ecological imperatives. Given your experience inside and outside government do you now have faith in the state to drive ecological change or does that momentum have to be generated from outside?

AA Ecuadorian experience in this area is very enlightening. Let’s look at the case of the Yasuni ITT initiative.

We must bear in mind that the Ecuadorian Amazon has been affected for decades by oil activity. As a result, indigenous peoples have removed themselves from the area of exploitation and currently find themselves in the last remaining forest areas. In an ever shrinking area, which has lost its true wealth – biodiversity – at an alarming rate there are now increasingly larger concentrations of indigenous people who oppose oil activity. They are supported by groups and movements in Ecuador and the rest of the world.

Coming from this complex reality, the Yasuni ITT initiative, born of civil society much earlier than the current Ecuadorian government of 2007, was based on four pillars: one protect the territory and with it the lives of indigenous peoples involuntary isolation; to conserve it biodiversity that is unequaled anywhere on the planet; three take care of the global climate by keeping a significant amount of oil underground, Thus Avoiding the omission of 410,000,000 tons of CO2; and four take a first step in Ecuador toward a post oil transition, which would have profound effects elsewhere.

...

Currently, this initiative has failed, because the rich countries did not take on the responsibilities, and above all because the Ecuadorian government was not up to the revolutionary challenge proposed by civil society. But this is where the great lesson can be learned: it was not enough for civil society, from whom this proposal emerged, to leave it to the state to continue with the initiative. Civil society should have continued driving this revolutionary proposal directly and actively, both in and out of the country.

The Montecristi constitution

The idea of development represents a global mandate.

“If land is at the center of any new definitions of ecology, then the impasses surrounding global warming begin to dissolve. Good relations with humans and the other than human world cannot be exploitive; they have to be built on other rationalities. If we redefine ecology this way, routes to real action, like the yes Yasuni ITT initiative, emerge easily. Instead of wringing our hands and imagining that global warming is a monstrous threat that surpasses our reaches, we can see the possibility and promise of every day actions materialize.”

Page 172
“Better relationships with land and with each other become available to all of us only when we renounce colonial domination.”

Page 174
“That’s why a sweetness of life cannot be reduced to an individual endeavor: it has to be understood as the social freedom of time and space.”

“Ultimately, we want to speak frankly of love: loving the land, not just the spectacular, but the humble spaces we spend our days on. Love is not a word that enters easily into most politics, but it is the right one here. We’re not talking about a sentimental love, but one expressed by actionable, every day Fidelities. love is not love without a willingness to defend it, and a resistance to those who do it violence.”

As Coulthard says: “Land is where anti-capitalism comes from. As indigenous people, we don’t just love this place: it’s an affirmation of who we are. It is part of love for self. But love can be used in a lot of ways. Love requires a critical affirmation of hatred, anger, resentment because anything that violates love is going to provoke a response: “I fucking hate the people who are destroying my family, this place, this neighborhood.“ Certain formsOf activism that are animated by hate or anger are often discredited, but we have to understand them as part and parcel of love. Anger and love are part of the same response to violation or exploitation or being subjected to unjust an arbitrary action.”

Page 175
“The constant anxiety and fearfulness infused in capitalist markets forces us to constantly re-order all our lives. Sometimes the response is stressing constantly, hustling every angle, working multiple jobs, and cutting every corner just to make exorbitant rent. Sometimes it means taking jobs you lows, or are ashamed of. Sometimes it means taking on tremendous indebtedness in an attempt to ward off insecurity, suturing yourself to creditor debtor relations that smother imaginative possibilities, including resistance. But that is far from all of it.

Every rendition of the sweetness of life is predicated on having both the time and place to articulate it. The sweetness of life invokes a particular tempo of living: and adaptability, flexibility, and a generosity with time. The suite life has to be unbound from the restless, anxious dissatisfaction that drives capitalism. As Leanne says: my ancestors didn’t bank capital as a way of maintaining security, as a way of mitigating fear and anxiety – the banked relationships.

Global warming demands that we cultivate new relationships, including a Fidelity to the land we live on. It is impossible to love the land while dominating and exploding it, just as it is impossible to treat others with respect while dominating and exploiting them. Loving the land is predicated on both anti-capitalism and decolonialization. Ecology cannot speak of humans, other than humans, (...) as a resource rich with materials to be extracted; instead it must articulate and ongoing set of relations where we can find with the sweetness of life might mean. This project cannot be seen as work – by necessity, it must be a love affair.”

[Andrea McDowell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh.

The concept--three west-coast treehuggers traveling to the tar sands to get a fuller understanding of climate change and the impacts of the economic transitions required--was very interesting. The end product was confused.

There was so much academic discourse based on the reading they'd done before they left or the conversations they had with academics that I don't fully understand what they gained from their travels; conversations with Fort Mac locals were few and far between, and observations of the town itself (it's just like any other place! Fort Mac workers need the money! Mostly they're just like us!) were banal. Their argument that calling climate change what it is--an emergency--would usher in authoritarianism was superficially interesting, but lacked evidence, and the experts they spoke to disagreed (not that this altered their conclusion). The benefit of downplaying its emergency aspect was never described or made clear (something like, if we pretend it's not an emergency that's already killing hundreds of thousands of people a year, we can give ourselves the space to solve this democratically--but of course we can't, because there's no fucking pause button on the global carbon cycle). There was a lot of academic language about the theoretical structure or basis of possible answers to dislocations resulting from the required economic transitions, but no discussion of what that might look like in any practical terms or how to effect such a radical political proposition within the timelines imposed by the science. Proposing that answers to the climate crisis must be positive and provide an attractive future are not as revolutionary as they seem to think; the challenge is in developing a vision of that alternative future in enough detail that people can picture it and aspire to it. That's not here.

I did appreciate learning about the concept of "the sweetness of life" as created/applied in Latin America, and I found it interesting to read this in 2019 while governments everywhere declare climate emergencies and talk about the Green New Deal (as a kind of counterpoint to their arguments), but mostly I finished this book thinking that these three guys know a lot less about climate change than they think they do, and I can't believe there wasn't a single reference to the IPCC or their reports or the scientific conclusions or *anything* in the entire book. A whole book about climate change stuffed to the brim with political theory and entirely absent of a single scientific fact. What on earth was the point?

[Kai · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an intensely readable book - I finished it in about a day. Hern and Johal aren't necessarily covering any totally new ground here, but as a travelogue, comic, and readable introduction to contemporary debates in ecological thought, Global Warming and the Sweetness of Life would make a really great book for an introductory undergraduate course. Hern and Johal attempt to place the book in relation to Indigenous critical theory as well, drawing especially on conversations with Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. I am not sure if the book quite succeeds in this regard given the breadth and complexity of the politics of anti-extractive and decolonial movements, but their effort is so much better than the 'multiculturalism plus environmentalism' approach which is hegemonic in the genre of more popular press & journalistic takes on problems of environmental justice. I admire that the book doesn't fall into the trap of "easy solutions" - in fact, Hern and Johal make it much more difficult to "simply" oppose oil by talking to oil workers and those who benefit from the tar sands in more ancillary ways. They suggest that both leftists and mainstream environmentalists ignore these folks at their own peril. These are all good lessons to chew on - the academic in me wishes the evidence they marshal was more systematic and less anecdotal...at times it reads like the book was written through a few happenstance conversations at the bar. Anyway, none of this is to say I didn't like the book - it cultivates its own audience and would have been much worse if it were the Badiouian track that I secretly hoped for. In avoiding that path and opting for a more popular and convincing "tale," this little book is quite effective!

[Luciana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read & presented in a variety of formats. I loved how it had explicit interviews with a variety of folks living/working in the area & how each group of people gave an insight of what they see. For example, for most folks, it was a quick answer to money woes while for others, it impacts them & their lands in a devastating manner. And indeed, what is this doing to our climate crisis?

[Pais · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon this book at Floating World Comics in Portland, OR. Knowing nothing about the authors, but being interested in environmental rhetoric and also having picked up Palestine by Joe Sacco, I took this book in. And what a spectacular, short book this is, traveling from the tar sands of Alberta to the indigenous communities around it, interviewing people both benefiting from and harmed by extractive fossil fuels.

But this isn't just an uncritical "fossil fuels bad" book. The authors are primarily interested in drawing connections between capitalism, colonialism, and fossil fuels, but also defining an alternate path forward that doesn't completely leave the tar sands workers in crushing poverty. Nuanced and thought-provoking, I recommend this to anyone with an interest in global warming and exploring ways of living outside of capitalism and extractivism.

This quote from the end sums it up beautifully:

Ecology cannot rest on shame and discipline; it has to offer an affirmative vision of change and a future that is material. A sweetness of life has to present itself as a living alternative to those who are being buffeted by incredible anxiety, volatility, and debt. Supporting Indigenous land struggles and land justice movements is not just a question of justice; it opens up space for all of us to imagine a different way of being in the world. All of us, maybe even especially resource workers, need a revived ecological politics. Capital views labor in exactly the way it views the other-than-human world: as one more extractive resource. New possibilities for life emerge only when the cloud of originary land-thefts lifts, and we can conceive of how to live an affirmatively ecological future beyond exploitation. Better relationships with land and with each other become available to all of us only when we renounce colonial domination.

[André Habet · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Ecology cannot speak of humans, other-than-humans, or land as a resource rich with materials to be extracted; instead, it must articulate an ongoing set of relations where we can find what the sweetness of life might mean. This project cannot be seen as work—by necessity, it must be a love affair."(175)

This book is easily the most affirming and hopeful book on global warming I've read in a long time, maybe ever. Without delving into sentiment, the authors provide a nuanced portrait through the Alberta tar sands of how ecology-centered society might be understood. Written by three settlers, they deftly navigate their positionality and illustrate how indigenous relationality to land may provide paths towards a being in the world that moves out of the anxiety of a debt economy into a sweeter life of inhabiting the land as an extension of self.

[Leif · Rating 2 out of 5]

A remarkably effervescent ride through the authors' theoretical fascinations that masquerades as an empathic interaction with First Nations peoples and Albertan workers. There is little that is fresh here; nothing that cannot be found elsewhere. Like a nest made of baubles, this book is perhaps better understood as a space for the authors to think with their favourite quotations than it attempts to deliver to an audience new material. For those readers new to questions of ecological and class consciousness, there may be useful concepts here. For myself, I was simply struck by the garrulous nature of theoreticians talking themselves out. But no matter - one can read this in a few hours. It may be worth mentioning that Joe Sacco's contributions seem to extend to a short comic and a few illustrations. Ultimately, the whole is rather forgettable.

[Samantha Skinner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very mixed feelings about this book. On one hand they try to take a reader friendly approach, and successfully use a variety of different writing methods to appeal to different reading and leaning styles, which is nice. I also like the emphasis Johal and Hern put on lived experiences and highlighting often marginalized voices. However, the inclusion of so much academic jargon does make the book a bit hard to read if you don't have a foundational knowledge of the content. I also hated the ending, it was left very open ended. If you have that knowledge I think you would really enjoy this book, but if you don't this might be tough to get through.

[Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than anticipated. Welcome focus on the lives of those working in Fort McMurray. Too many theorists come in too late, but appreciated the emphasis on "buen vivir," "sumak kawsay," or, as the title reads, "the sweetness of life."

[bunting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brought together lots of things I’ve been thinking a lot about. Recommend for sure.

[Luna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Accessible read for the most part, but all over the place in terms of analysis. The authors' conclusions, while fine, were abstract and not well supported by the rest of the work.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, so good. A bit of a casual writing style mixed with academic writing but this suits the work in progress theorizing of the tale.

[Birch · Rating 5 out of 5]

:D

[m bar · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting contradictions between two inevitable conclusions.