oil

Athabasca Break Down

Alli S 1 Comment

I became very interested in “An Athabasca Story” mainly because I was confused on how Cariou wanted the last few paragraphs to be portrayed to the reader. I did a lot of research which I used for my close reading but I broke down almost every aspect of “An Athabasca Story” to be able to picture it better.

Cariou grew up in Saskatchewan and when he heard that his community and northern Alberta were under the threat of oil sands, he traveled to Alberta to create a documentary on the natives who have been dealing with these fears. While he was there, he spoke with an elder who told him some stores. Cariou said that his stories started to blend in with what he saw there(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmZ-ej_Sx5Q). I viewed Elder Brother as a Native American who lived off the land in the forest. There was some discussion in class on whether he was human or not but it stated that he wore moccasins, had fingers and toes, and spoke English.

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The Pits of Despair?

zbigley@uoregon.edu 2 Comments

In class, we talked about the tar pits in Canada. They are obviously terrible for the environment and they help Canada’s GDP immensely, but we didn’t talk about why they are so awful for the environment.

The tar pits excrete oil sands and create a barren wasteland of ugly earth that can be seen from space. The miners not only clear the areas of all life and green, but they destroy the water supply in the surrounding areas. A report about water usage in the mines said, “To produce one cubic metre (m3) of synthetic crude oil (SCO) (upgraded bitumen) in a mining operation requires about 2–4.5 m3 of water (net figures).” The oil sands mining company is currently allowed to divert 359 million m3 of water, more than two times the amount needed for the local city. This is a problem that changes not only the environment in a negative way, but it is hurting the locals in many ways.

The locals are not only unable to fish and hunt, as was mentioned in lecture, but their lively hoods are completely changed by the oil sand pits as well. They are forced to assimilate into the culture that the sands bring with it. That means that they get jobs mining the sand and in production. My question is; is it worth it? Is it worth the jobs? Their lives are completely changed by this monster that comes charging in and seems to destroy everything in its path.

While I might not agree with the politics necessarily, I thought that this was a very interesting video on the tar pits.

It made me think about all the things that they go through up there and how the big companies get away with a lot. It is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

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A Moral Obligation to Act(?)

jhammond 7 Comments

If someone were to ask me what the Tar Sands were prior to the class readings, I would have told them that I have no idea what they were. Unbeknownst to me, the Canadian Tar Sands are a 54,000 square mile area of what used to be lush Alberta Forrest, but is now the home of some of the dirtiest oil mining operations in the world. These lo mines are largely contributing to greenhouse gas emissions as well as the world’s climate change. Reading the articles and viewing the pictures on the Tar Sands were shocking to say the least. What was more shocking, however, was the fact that I, nor anyone I asked, knew anything about the Tar Sands or even knew what they were. 

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