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Tar Sands Showdown: Canada and the New Politics of Oil in an Age of Climate Change
Canada's oil patch is booming. The Alberta tar sands have become the next big oil source for the United States, replacing Saudi Arabia. Within the next 15 years, Canada will be pumping four times more crude than today from the tar pits of northern Alberta into the US market. The tar sands are key to the claim that Canada is the new "energy superpower." As the new backbone of Canada's economy, the tar sands are bound to define and shape Canada's role and destiny as a nation in the 21st century.
What is lacking is independent, reliable information and thoughtful analysis on the host of questions raised by the tar sands. What is the real cost to Albertans and to Canadians? How far are we willing to go to fuel America's oil addiction? What will the ecological and social impacts be? What can be done to build an alternative energy future in an age of global warming? Tar Sands Showdown provides a tool for stimulating public discussion and debate about these important issues.
What is lacking is independent, reliable information and thoughtful analysis on the host of questions raised by the tar sands. What is the real cost to Albertans and to Canadians? How far are we willing to go to fuel America's oil addiction? What will the ecological and social impacts be? What can be done to build an alternative energy future in an age of global warming? Tar Sands Showdown provides a tool for stimulating public discussion and debate about these important issues.
312 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2008
35 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 5, 2013
Seated in a plane on my way from Montreal, PQ to Edmonton, Ab., as I read my last few chapters of this book, I came to the realization I was seated adjacent to two people who hailed from the tar sands. A young man, leaving his wife and family in Labrador, was going to work in northern Alberta for six week stretches. As cheap labour, he had been hired again. Firstly, he had to attend some counselling in Edmonton for substance abuse.
The young lady who sat next to me was eagerly chatting about how she was the best employee her company had ever hired and how she loved her job. Her husband, who worked there, too, did not believe in taking time off, but she was going to take 3 months off and fly down to Phoenix before she changed jobs. She would become a flight attendant on the quick jaunts to Fort McMurray.
To attempt to try to convert these two people would have been a waste of time. They were blindfolded. I DID TELL THEM TO PICK UP A COPY OF THIS EXCELLENT BOOK, HOWEVER.
Tony Clarke enforced the social conflicts Alberta is facing in FORT McMURRAY, UPGRADER ALLEY and Fort Chipewyan. Fort Saskatchewan, Ab.(Upgrader Alley)just north east of Edmonton, has very few birds.... perhaps the odd robin who returns year after year. LOTS OF SPIDERS, BUT NO BIRDS! You may recall the news about 500 ducks who died in a tailings pond in the tar sands when they landed there. Or the farmer lost about 40 head of cattle in one year due to the poisoning of the environment?
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BOREAL FOREST AND THE HUGE ABUSE OF NATURAL WATER AND OF THE ATMOSPHERE IS CRIMINAL. Yet the giant oil companies of the USA, supported by both provincial and federal government, continue to rape our country.
It is especially interesting to discover how hoodwinked our Canadian government has been and still is. Through Nafta we have handed over our natural resources and water. We are simply an oil satellite for the USA who is addicted to oil!
This book is indeed a call for help and action.
The young lady who sat next to me was eagerly chatting about how she was the best employee her company had ever hired and how she loved her job. Her husband, who worked there, too, did not believe in taking time off, but she was going to take 3 months off and fly down to Phoenix before she changed jobs. She would become a flight attendant on the quick jaunts to Fort McMurray.
To attempt to try to convert these two people would have been a waste of time. They were blindfolded. I DID TELL THEM TO PICK UP A COPY OF THIS EXCELLENT BOOK, HOWEVER.
Tony Clarke enforced the social conflicts Alberta is facing in FORT McMURRAY, UPGRADER ALLEY and Fort Chipewyan. Fort Saskatchewan, Ab.(Upgrader Alley)just north east of Edmonton, has very few birds.... perhaps the odd robin who returns year after year. LOTS OF SPIDERS, BUT NO BIRDS! You may recall the news about 500 ducks who died in a tailings pond in the tar sands when they landed there. Or the farmer lost about 40 head of cattle in one year due to the poisoning of the environment?
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BOREAL FOREST AND THE HUGE ABUSE OF NATURAL WATER AND OF THE ATMOSPHERE IS CRIMINAL. Yet the giant oil companies of the USA, supported by both provincial and federal government, continue to rape our country.
It is especially interesting to discover how hoodwinked our Canadian government has been and still is. Through Nafta we have handed over our natural resources and water. We are simply an oil satellite for the USA who is addicted to oil!
This book is indeed a call for help and action.
March 17, 2017
Hope y'all like warmer temperatures. We're fcuked
Read
July 28, 2011VERY few parts of this book dragged, though some of the message seemed a little repetitive to me.
With this repitition comes emphasis which is why I am guessing Clarke does it. But even with the plethora of re-inforcment of the same message, this book also incorporated LOADS of good ideas: strategies, ways of thinking, importance of understanding the issues...
also, ever chapter was unique in itself and offered lots of great information, from the history and politics, to ecological effects, social considerations, and a thorough look of where we are now and where we MUST go from here.
really, a very, very good read!!
With this repitition comes emphasis which is why I am guessing Clarke does it. But even with the plethora of re-inforcment of the same message, this book also incorporated LOADS of good ideas: strategies, ways of thinking, importance of understanding the issues...
also, ever chapter was unique in itself and offered lots of great information, from the history and politics, to ecological effects, social considerations, and a thorough look of where we are now and where we MUST go from here.
really, a very, very good read!!
July 25, 2012
a brilliant examination of the destructive effect the tar sands industry in northeastern alberta is having on people, wildlife and the environment, and how the provincial and federal governments are bought and sold by big oil.
from the poisoning of the air to the toxic tailings "ponds"; from the devastating impacts on indigenous communities to fueling america's oil addiction; read this book to learn everything you need to know about the largest and most ecologically damaging project on the planet.
from the poisoning of the air to the toxic tailings "ponds"; from the devastating impacts on indigenous communities to fueling america's oil addiction; read this book to learn everything you need to know about the largest and most ecologically damaging project on the planet.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews