Through the blur of the Cessna’s
propeller I can see a vast forest stretching to the horizon – two
million square miles at the top of the northern hemisphere that’s home
to 140, 000 species of plants, wildlife, insects and micro-organisms.
The Canadian forest in Alberta is second only to the Amazon in size. It’s critical in absorbing the Earth’s mounting deposits of carbon dioxide and carbon. Over 500 Indian tribes have lived and hunted here for thousands of years.
Suddenly a smell of sulphur begins to infuse the cockpit. Abruptly, the trees stop – where once stood towering spruce and conifer are now lifeless sand dunes. Then the landscape turns a sickly black, like a giant, dark bruise spreading over the planet.
This is ‘Tarmageddon’ – the devastation wreaked by the search for tar sand – and here, deep below the forest floor, is the third-largest oil field in the world: 173 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
‘I’m always blown away by how immense this place is,’ says the pilot.
Giant trucks, as tall as three-storey buildings, labour across the blackened landscape below, plundering sand full of bitumen from strip mines.
A line of trees stands near the mines, waiting to be culled as the mine spreads. Tall chimneys bleed waste-burning gases into the atmosphere.
The Canadian forest in Alberta is second only to the Amazon in size. It’s critical in absorbing the Earth’s mounting deposits of carbon dioxide and carbon. Over 500 Indian tribes have lived and hunted here for thousands of years.
Suddenly a smell of sulphur begins to infuse the cockpit. Abruptly, the trees stop – where once stood towering spruce and conifer are now lifeless sand dunes. Then the landscape turns a sickly black, like a giant, dark bruise spreading over the planet.
This is ‘Tarmageddon’ – the devastation wreaked by the search for tar sand – and here, deep below the forest floor, is the third-largest oil field in the world: 173 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
‘I’m always blown away by how immense this place is,’ says the pilot.
Giant trucks, as tall as three-storey buildings, labour across the blackened landscape below, plundering sand full of bitumen from strip mines.
A line of trees stands near the mines, waiting to be culled as the mine spreads. Tall chimneys bleed waste-burning gases into the atmosphere.
1 comment:
The idea that you can simply replace forests that have stood for millennia when you are finished is beyond absurd. There is no "putting back" the rich, complex and diverse ecosystems with the help of cash advances, that are destroyed when the land is dug-up and the earth boiled to extract the bitumen. There is no clean-up of the toxic materials that are released into the air, earth and water during the process. Most laughable are claims that the restored land is somehow better than before. The so-called restoration is merely a cosmetic exercise and the worse kind of greenwashing.
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