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Tar Sands: Dirty Oil And The Future Of A Continent (2009)

by Andrew Nikiforuk(Favorite Author)
3.94 of 5 Votes: 3
ISBN
1553654072 (ISBN13: 9781553654070)
languge
English
genre
publisher
Greystone Books
review 1: These are just some highlights from the book. This isn't really a review.This book brought up some issues I wasn't even paying attention to. In addition to the environmental side of the tar sands there is the economic side. Royalties from the tar sands are very low. The author also makes a point about how lowering taxes can make people in different to politics. There is a correlation between voter turn out and taxation made. Also, economic loss due to NAFTA. The export of bitumen to refinement facilities in the U.S. equates to loss of jobs in Canada. And due to the price of bitumen being lower than the price of refined product there is a loss of Canadian profit due to not upgrading in Canada before export. pg 113Canada's Declaration of Opportunity spurs tar sands developme... morent through low taxes for development projects. pg 282002 Canada became U.S. largest oil supplier. pg 302001 Dick Cheney's National Energy Policy developed a framework for an interconnected North American energy network. Look into North American Energy Working Group. pg 31Wendell Berry quote, "there are such things as economic weapons of massive destruction" pg 35Kazoom Brookes Postulate pg. 121"industry and government have championed reductions on carbon production. The emphasis on intensity as opposed to firm caps on carbon production. The emphasis on intensity is a bit of a magic act. While Shell and Imperial marginally decrease the amount of carbon produced per barrel of oil, they wipe out those savings by ramping up oil production....The postulate dates back to the coal era, when natural resource watchers noted that efficiencies gained by the coal-fired steam engine only momentarily lowered the demand for coal before consumption shot up tenfold. Economists generally agree that increased efficiency in the exploitation of a resource will lead over time to greater consumption, not less. This explains why reductions in energy intensity have yet to translate into reductions in energy demand in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States , or anywhere else. The paradox can be found in everyone's driveways, where improved fuel efficiency has added extra cars to the garage and increased the miles driven annually by the average American commuter, from 9,500 to 12,000 in the last 40 years.(The number of vehicles in Canada has doubled since 1970 to eighteen million and now grows faster than the country's population) Since 1975, airplanes have worked hard to burn 40% less fuel, but the industry has grown by 150 percent..." Makes connection between local food and oil. pg 183"Relocalize food production. Cheap oil has created a fantasy food production system that delivers Ugandan peas to Europe and Chinese shrimp to the United States. Canada's agricultural policies, designed during an era of cheap fossil fuels, have largely supported the export of cheap grain and meat. Our nation needs a national food quality and security program that protects fertile farmland; rewards farmers for ecological services such as water conservation; properly labels each product with it origin and its carbon energy intensity; emphasizes quality, not quantity; favours small operations over big ones, and encourages Canadians to buy locally grown food."
review 2: Alberta would be a different place if everyone read this book and became part of the provincial discourse. I knew the Tar Sands had a high environmental cost but what this book shows really well is the other costs. First interesting thing I learned is that the Alberta government and the oil industry intentionally call the tar sands, oil sands, even though the substance coming out of the ground is like asphalt and not oil at all. I'll be trying to call it by its real name from now on... For the sake of this review I'm going to highlight the sections that really stood out to me but I have to emphasize that every Albertan should read this, it really is eye opening. Chapter 1 talks about the impact the oil sands development is having on the people who work there and the town of Ft. McMurray. It made me think of when we were in Newfoundland, everyone wanted to talk to us about Fort McMurray and how everyone was coming back addicted to drugs. That is a part of the tole the tar sands development is having on people. Chapter 6 is about the tailing ponds which I know about because of the dead ducks a few years back. Nikiforuk talks about how big these "ponds" really are and how toxic they are. They will cover an area of 85 sq miles sometime in the next 10 years and they are not shallow. Some of them have damn walls up to 275 feet tall. The amount of waste is insane and the companies have not come up with a way to deal with it. The "ponds" have no lining so the waste is leaking into the groundwater and the nearby Athabasca river. If one of those ponds were to break and pour into the Athabasca river it would be a disaster of which Canada has never seen the likes. Fort Chipewyan, which is downstream of Ft. Mac on the Athabasca river, has already shown much higher rates of cancer. The doctor who tried to bring it to the government and public attention was attacked and defamed by the Alberta government(more on this kind of thing in a sec.) Every Edmontonian should read chapter 8 because it talks about how bad the air pollution is in upgrader alley to the east of Edmonton. Chapter 9 talks about how carbon capture has almost no science to support it, is not cost effective and will not ultimately keep carbon trapped permanently in the ground. Chapter 11 talks about all the corruption in Alberta and how connected the government and industry are. Talks about how little money we really make from the tar sands and how much we are throwing away. Former premier Peter Lougheed's advice is the path I wish we were on: "slow down; behave like a resource owner, as opposed to a free-market anarchist; charge higher royalties; save for the future, and develop only one project at a time, so that environmental liabilities can be addressed in a proactive manner." READ THIS BOOK! less
Reviews (see all)
Nae
Dry reading. Subject matter is important and interesting. Author doesn't elevate it much.
gbrid
Excellent little book that is a great overview of the topic.
Naz
I wish every Canadian would read this book.
Cait
All Canadians should read this book.
zully_9201
UGH.
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