The Huffington Post | By James Gerken
Photographer and pilot Alex MacLean wanted to learn more about the Keystone XL pipeline, which if approved will carry oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, so he decided to take pictures from above of the tar sands that will supply oil to the project. What he found shocked him. “The scale of the operation is staggering,” MacLean told The Huffington Post. It’s “mind-boggling,” he said, how expansive it is, and how much money is being poured into drilling and strip mining for the viscous petroleum product that will give the Keystone XL pipeline its oil.
Hot waste fills a tailing pond at the Suncor mining site in Alberta.
MacLean took photos from 1,000 feet above northern Alberta’s oil operations. The tar sands, more commonly referred to in Canada as the oil sands, are the world’s third-largest petroleum reserve and underlie an area roughly the size of Florida. While the Alberta government says only 3 percent of the area is suitable for strip mining, in which forest and bog “overburden” is stripped away, that still amounts to about 1,850 square miles — an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. Flying above wilderness beauty punctuated by slick oil sheens and puffs of smoke from a refinery, “you realize how wasteful we are,” MacLean said. As of early 2013, mining operations had disturbed about 276 square miles of boreal forest in the region, according to the Pembina Institute, a nonprofit Canadian think tank focused on energy. The area totals over half the size of the city of Los Angeles. The project “impressed on me, more than ever, just what the demand is for petroleum products downstream,” MacLean said, and it shows how that demand drives “vast destruction of natural systems.” According to MacLean, some Albertans supported the idea of the project, but felt the growth has been too rapid and poorly managed. But among scientists and researchers, he said, there’s a “real feeling that the environment is being poisoned, with both water and air pollution.”
Checkerboard clearing of the overburden at the Syncrude Aurora North Mine Site in Alberta.
Categories: Climate change, Economic policy, Economics, Energy policy, Environment, Environmental history, Environmental policy, Fossil fuels, Pollution, Public Health, Science, Social policy
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Oh no, even Canada the beautiful vast piece of land that is not densely populated is overthrown by human’s stupidity and greed?
Man used oil since few decades and it will be consumed in another couple of decades.
This must be insane, a one century of industry is enough to destroy a beautiful planet aging billions of years
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Fada, Thank you for your comment. I was really shocked that Canada allowed this to happen. They are refusing the pipeline but I do not understand why they are allowing this extraction process to continue with little or no over-sight. From what I have been reading, they are not being told all the facts. I hope my impression is wrong. Their citizens love their environment. They even know more about the US than most of our citizens.
My best friend was from Canada. She passed 8 years ago. I know how deeply she would feel. This is shameful and criminal.
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Hi genvana I am sure your friend would feel deeply sad if she’s still there and reading this frustrating news.
I am thousands of miles far from Canada but the ugly pics poked my heart. I was sad too to read about the diminishing forests in South America, it is the only Planet we know as home and it is more beautiful than to deserve it
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Hello fada1. I am surprised that Canada has allowed this type of corporate behavior. Apparently Canada has a huge supply of dirty tar sands at that location. I listened to several reporters on MSNBC say that Canada made a compromise. Canada gave an international corporation access to a large area of land. Canada has refused to pipe the extracted crude across their nation. Apparently, there is no way around that legal document. Here is a page that explain tar sands: http://ostseis.anl.gov/guide/tarsands/
In the USA, we have our own fracking problems which is rapidly growing. The media is not covering the impact of fracking. Our News media has NOT been doing its job. There has been a growing number of citizens fighting for their life in legal battles with the gas and oil companies. NC is one example but the list is long.. Citizens are finding that their state leaders and state laws no longer protect them from corporate abuse. State by state, citizens are finding that their leaders have changed laws and cut programs.. When the states fails to protect us from corporate abuse, people reach out to the federal government. Sadly, citizens are finding that our federal government has been systematically underfunded. All the organizations that we created to protect us are under funded and under staffed.
Powerful corporations have systematically changed state and federal laws. When corporations can not get rid of a large federal organization, they support leaders that refuse to fund that organization. All this talk about ‘state rights’ is not about America. The topic is about getting rid of any federal organization that threatens a powerful Corporate agenda (greed). It is that simple, ‘state rights’ is being used as a distraction.
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Genvana, I see the picture from outside a vicious circle and it is unbreakable circle.
They all work together in keeping the inviromental mess where it is, media, the influential money of corporateS and Wall Street , the whoever elected and from any party, Senators and the laws
This powerful mass in is one side protecting the big profits vs the voices of aware people in the other side
I read big lies and comic writing in corporate media ridiculing the logical fears over climate changes. They have the ability to turn the horrible true issues into ”conspirasies’ and trifle gags
I still have faith that the evil power of money will decline when climate changes lies on the front door of billionaires
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Those who stand to profit from the exploitation of the tar sands have worked very hard to buy influence on both sides of our border. In Alberta, the provincial government has put the developers of the tar sands in charge of regulatory oversight; here in the United States, the official State Department review of the environmental threats posed by the tar sands importation was largely written by the same interests developing the tar sands and contracted to build the keystone XL pipeline. Everywhere, on both sides of the border, the foxes are in charge of the hen house.
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Good comment, gen. I want you to know that I did not mean to disparage the people of Canada. I was merely reporting my vague impressions from almost 30 years ago, when I lived in Washington state and saw how different were the efforts to protect old growth forests in Washington and in neighboring British Columbia. But like I say, these are but old impressions based on little actual familiarity. I want to point out that my impression of Canadian attitudes were in reference to government regulation of logging in Canada as opposed to the U.S at that time. As to the attitudes of average Canadians, I can’t really speak to that. Your point is well taken. Indeed, when I think about it, I suspect that Canadians have a much healthier respect for their natural heritage than the average American does. Good point.
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I do not know the laws that Canada has enforced but they are clearly weak or non-existent. The lack of environmental laws is the important part of this discussion. This should upset or wake up the world. I read that the tarsands in Canada was huge and if they burn 1/3 of the crude, that has not been extracted yet, the planet would not be habitable. .I have been looking for that supportive material.
Looking at those pictures feels criminal, like murder or rape. The reporter and photographer did an amazing job.
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Hello, Fada. It is insane that the citizens of such a beautiful and unspoiled land would take what they have for granted. The development of these tar sands deposits will be devastating for all of the people of the Earth.
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Konigludwig, like you, I do not understand. I can not help but believe that the citizens of Canada are not being told all the facts. Did anyone notice the large piles of uncovered petroleum coke, a byproduct of upgrading tar sands oil to synthetic crude. These are extremely toxic and deadly.
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I’ve read an interesting view you wrote Paul. You compare the contemporary population in Canada wit the frontiers in America. This might explain the reckless vie for pumping oil in Canada but I am still thinking about fracking in America, did anyone learn his lesson? or the big companies expunge history lessons to keep the big profits ?
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We still have the “frontier mentality” in American attitudes toward the environment, but it is difficult to believe in unlimited resources when everything is running out. The oil companies, the American Petroleum Institute in particular, have spent hundreds of millions, perhaps even billions of dollars, telling stupid Americans what they want to hear: that there is no end to the availability of cheap energy, and that we can continue to believe that nothing must ever change.
When everything depends upon the price of energy and only the wealthy can afford it, then we will become a nation of poor peasants ruled by a wealthy few.
As for fracking, like gen says, the media isn’t doing their job, and the energy companies spend enormous fortunes telling stupid people that everything is wonderful. Liars.
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This reminds me of the propaganda of weapon companies
The greedy companies’ owners live their day
If they consider the near future (and not the enviroment) they will slow down production of oil considering that the reserve of oil that has taken 50-300 million years to form will be consumed in 50 -70 years as scientists say (not their scientists)
The world’s leading oil geologists believe that 95% of all recoverable oil has now been found
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