The “tar sands” of northern Canada are home to the world’s largest oil reserve. Extracting and exporting the oil—so far almost exclusively to the US—is bringing massive wealth to the region. But what about the social and environmental costs?
Fort McMurray, Alberta: the centre of Canada’s oil boom
The first things you notice when you reach Canada’s notorious tar sands are the mountains of fluorescent yellow: sulphur, sitting uncovered beneath the blazing sun. “The market for it collapsed,” says my guide, “so it just sits here.”
Then, next to belching plants, you spot black lakes of bitumen, sand, silt and water. Gunshots sound periodically, warning innocent birds away from their last bath. Prepared for the worst, you crest a hill and the panorama of the tar sands opens in front of you. It is a picture of ecological devastation on a colossal scale, the result of the world’s addiction to oil combined with the gargantuan force of some of the globe’s biggest energy companies brought to bear on a pristine landscape.
These are the “oil sands” of northern Alberta—rebranded from “tar sands,” which makes them sound too dirty—the world’s
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