Marsden, William. Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn't Seem to Care). Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada. 2007

With the rapid developments in the energy economy in the world these days, a book like Marsden's—published in 2007—seems almost . . . old. No mention here of the great pipeline discussions—Keystone, Northern Gateway, Kinder-Morgan—currently in the daily news.

The developments that brought us to this point, however, are summarized here, from Manley Natland's 1950s dream of extracting oil sands oil by detonating nuclear explosions underground to the current (at least to 2007) reality that is the great Alberta oil sands project. We're a country in a schizophrenic bind; addicted to fossil fuel energy and demanding the privileges of driving, flying, effortless home heating and cooling, we are nevertheless fearful of what our appetites are doing to the future of our world. Marsden gives us plenty of reasons for apprehension.

 

The history of the Athabasca oil sands doesn't begin with Natland's bizarre proposal. In 1788, Alexander MacKenzie wrote in his log: "At about 24 miles (39 km) from the fork (of the Athabasca and Clearwater Rivers) are some bituminous fountains into which a pole of 20 feet (6.1 m) long may be inserted without the least resistance. The bitumen is in a fluid state and when mixed with gum, the resinous substance collected from the spruce fir, it serves to gum the Indians' canoes."ⁱ Although probably not as an energy source, the knowledge of and the utilization of the unique "tar" under the boreal forest of northeastern Alberta goes back thousands of years.

 

The era of fossil fuel energy use began only recently as geological historians measure time. Marsden traces the birth of the petroleum industry back to Black Creek—later Oil Springs, today the town of Petrolia—Ontario in 1858 where James Miller Williams discovered oil while digging a well. Since whale oil supplies were dwindling and Abraham Gesner had already developed a way of distilling oil to make kerosene, Williams saw an opportunity and the rush to harvest underground oil was on. The industry boomed, land was stripped, the first oil spill contaminated Lake St. Clair and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

 

But Marsden focuses on Alberta, whose reserves of conventional plus unconventional oil stocks rival and surpass those of Saudi Arabia. It's in Alberta that the drama of fossil fuels' final hiccup will likely be played out in Canada. The ability to extract oil economically worldwide has peaked and the oil sands of Alberta are becoming ever more attractive (along with the momentary benefits of fracking) to that part of the world economy that is founded on the profitability of petroleum:

Each year will bring a greater chance of chaos as oil and gas prices rise and nations begin to fight over what's left. Economies will slow and the collapse; refineries will become fortresses; armies will march, nation against nation, neighbour against neighbour, as we fight over every last puddle of fossil fuel. As we enter the downward curve on the oil reserve chart, the conflict will intensify (48).

This scenario accounts for the "Armageddon" in Marsden's title, I suppose. The possibility of an end- of-fossil-fuels apocalypse, however, should at least give us pause enough to move us toward rigorously developing alternative scenarios. (I'm reminded of Mark Twain's defense of bad habits involving alcohol and tobacco, etc. by cautioning that to come to approaching death with nothing to give up would be like a sinking ship with no freight to throw overboard.)ⁱⁱ

 

But if Marsden is our guide on this subject, the future for Albertans is bleak. Syncrude, Suncor, Shell Canada continue to apply for permission to expand and license to do so is almost automatic; the Alberta government throughout has been in the pockets of big oil, Marsden contends, and despite the massive profits taken by oil companies, Albertans share of the harvest of their own resource has been pitifully small. And it doesn't end there. 

There are two ways to harvest oil sands oil: open pit and in situ, the latter involving separating the oil below ground and pumping it up. The surface mining of the oil creates an environmental mess that can be seen from the moon, apparently, and for which no certain reclamation method has been proven. Marsden takes us on a journey down the river from Fort McMurray to Lake Athabasca and chronicles some of the (unproven) health-related effects of the chemicals finding their way into the Athabasca River, Lake Athabasca and potentially, the MacKenzie River system. Both in the fracturing of formations to release remnant pockets of oil not previously accessible and in the oil sands separation processes, chemicals known to be dangerous to health are required and this represents one of the 'unknown unknowns' that is worrisome to anyone concerned about the future of the province's population. 

 

I remember a news story about a woman near Rosebud, Alberta lighting the gases that came out of her faucet. Marsden visits families affected (apparently) by the material released in the fracking of coal beds in order to mine methane gas found in abundance in all such deposits. Thousands of such wells are projected to be developed in Alberta and evidence is that this cannot happen without the accidental or incidental release of amounts of methane gas. Oil companies have had to haul water supplies to residents in areas affected, in fact acknowledging that such mining of methane can contaminate wells as well as surface water. For ranchers like Francis Gardener in Happy Valley, the effects of oil industry encroachment looks a lot like the end of a way of life. With contamination of scarce water supplies, physical infrastructure for oil and gas extraction all over the formerly-pristine expanses of native fescue, the bell seems to be tolling for traditional rural life in southern Alberta.

All this may sound alarmist, but is it alarmist beyond reason? In Canada today, the debate about pipelines, oil sands and climate change is indication, surely, that we're beginning to see that the future can't be a facsimile of the past. The Harper government continues to pave the way for the oil extraction industry while watering down environmental regulation and we're quickly dividing ourselves into two antagonistic camps. Objections by aboriginal people whose life-ways are directly affected by the governments' disregard of treaty obligations starkly outline the parameters of the differences. Harper's comments routinely reflect a body of opinion that says that climate change mitigation must never cost the economy:

Recently prime minister Stephen Harper publicly criticized a polluter pay solution to growing emissions, saying no country would undertake climate action that might harm the economy. Onlookers were quick to critique Harper's economy versus environment framing, an outmoded way of viewing the transition to clean energy, a rapidly growing sector of the global economy.ⁱⁱⁱ

There's a great deal of denial going on; the oil sands being just another example of shitting on the dining room table and claiming that its really good for all of us.

Marsden is an investigative reporter for the Montreal Gazette and his credentials for the writing of Stupid to the Last Drop are impeccable. What I found most compelling was his on-the-ground research for the book; he introduces us to an assortment of Albertans directly affected by the subject matter. Augmenting this first-person approach is his extensive research into the nitty-gritty of oil-field politics: the takeovers, the manipulation of government and regulatory agencies, the denial of responsibility when things go wrong and, above all, the details of the enormous profit taking that has characterized the Alberta oil scene from Leduc to the present, and which likely means any fight by the Canadian public to seriously begin kicking the destructive fossil fuel habit will meet with massive resistance. 

 

i "Oil Sands History". Unlocking the Potential of the Oil Sands. Syncrude. 2006. Retrieved by Wikipedia in 2008-02-17; Retrieved from Wikipedia 2014-11-20

ii http://riverroadrambler.blogspot.ca/2012/11/mark-twain-on-bad-habits.html. Retrieved 2014-11-29

iii http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/carol-linnitt/harper-climate-pr_b_5883740.html. Retrieved 2014-11-29