Photo: Stop the Tar Sands
What could beat Amazonian deforestation, massive coal plants next to elementary schools, factory farming, mountaintop removal, and giant trash heaps in the middle of the ocean for the title of “the most destructive project on Earth“? [PDF]
Cue the tar sands, a vast expanse of the Albertan province opened up to rampant drilling, surface mining, and pipelines through what was once a strikingly beautiful section of the Canadian boreal forest. Canada’s Environmental Defense deemed it “the most destructive project on Earth” last February.
While this region holds immense ecological and aesthetic value on the planetary exterior (it is the largest remaining unspoiled forest and wetland ecosystem and one of the most biodiverse carbon sinks on Earth), its subterranean layers are rich with oil that is deeply embedded in an earth and sand mixture called bitumen. Starting to imagine what this project might look like?
Some have likened it to Mordor, the fictional land ravaged by the Dark Lord in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Huge swathes of forest — t... Read more
