Tar sands oil, Canada

Problems

• Tar sands

  Tar sands are a sludgy deposit of sand, clay, water, and sticky, black bitumen (used to make synthetic oil) that lies beneath northern Alberta’s boreal forest. Extracting and converting tar sands into usable fuel is a hugely expensive energy- and water-intensive endeavor that involves strip mining giant swaths of land and creating loads of toxic waste and air and water pollution.
  
  Perhaps surprisingly, the oil sands don’t have any oil per se. Instead, a vast area contains a tarry bitumen mixed with sand mined underneath the boreal forest. Especially north of Fort McMurray, where the boreal forest has been razed, and bitumen is mined from the ground in immense open pits, a blot on the landscape is incomparable.
  
  The 120-odd active oil sands projects are owned by major oil companies from Canada and worldwide, including the U.S. and China. Together, the companies pump out 2.6 million barrels daily, virtually all of which is shipped to U.S. refineries, helping make Canada the world’s fourth-largest oil producer and the top crude exporter to the United States.  

• The impact of the tar sands on climate change and the indigenous communities

  Companies’ energy-hungry extraction has made the oil and gas sector Canada’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the extreme environmental costs and the growing need for countries to shift away from fossil fuels, the mines continue to expand, digging up nearly 500 Olympic swimming pools worth of earth daily.
  
  Throughout the years, the tar sands have encroached on Indigenous Peoples’ traditional lands and contaminated the environment and wildlife these communities depend on for their culture and way of life. Tar sands chemicals have further been linked to higher rates of cancer in Indigenous communities and dangerous air pollution.
  
  Air pollution, including acid rain, also plagues the remote region. One study found that acid rain would eventually damage an area almost the size of Germany. 
  
  And the effects of the tar sands don’t stay in Canada. Globally, Indigenous communities and the Global South are becoming victims of climate impacts. In 2017, Indigenous leaders from the Pacific Islands came face-to-face with the tar sands, a culprit in the planetary warming driving rising sea levels, which in turn are having a devastating impact on their homes and families right now. 
  
  The tar sands are a controversial and complex issue involving trade-offs between energy security, economic development, environmental protection, and social justice. They challenge Canada’s climate leadership and its commitment to the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius. There is a need to stop any industry expansion to prevent further environmental damage and protect the First Nation communities from the impacts of air pollution and encroachment on their land.