My first article in the Daily! Pretty exciting for me…
http://www.mcgilldaily.com/view.php?aid=6715
Alberta: Tar sand wasteland
By Marzieh Ghiasi
Monday, November 19th, 2007
Author decries rush to exploit Canada’s natural resources
In northern Alberta, an estimated 174-billion barrels of black gold lie trapped in grains of sand, and capitalizing on this dormant cash cow has become a national obsession.
In the recently published Stupid to the Last Drop, award-winning investigative journalist William Marsden critically examines the oil boom in the Alberta tar sands, a sprawling industry that has promised to make Canada the new Saudi Arabia. In his non-linear but fluid style, Marsden argues that, while Albertans may see some marginal gain from this relentless resource exploitation, Canadians stand to lose a lot.
The tar sands are thought to have been made by geological forces which pushed oil up into the limestone and sand landscape. Composed of bitumen – a viscous form of crude oil, silica sand, clay, and water – the tar sands present a unique challenge in resource extraction and are famously expensive to exploit. Just how much are people willing to sacrifice to extract this oil? Marsden contends: everything.
Stupid to the Last Drop begins in 1957 with an American paleontologist, Manley Natland, and his proposition for Alberta’s future: a nine kilo-ton nuclear bomb set 1,300 feet below ground in the Athabasca tar sands to create a giant underground cavern, with enough heat and pressure to force oil into it. In spite of the obvious environmental hazards, including radiation leakage and land collapse, Marsden details the quick acceptance of this proposition. In just two years, the inconspicuously-dubbed “Project Oil Sands” gained support from a major oil company, approval from the U.S. Senate, a nod from the Canadian federal government, and a nuclear-bomb-to-go.
Read the rest of this entry »
sometimes profound insights of an artist, a scientist, a historian, an environmentalist, an activist, a humanitarian, a technophile, and a lone autocrat. And yes, though I am a second year student living in urban Montréal... I am on the verge of figuring out the meaning of life.
Recent Comments