SHARP FIXES CANADA EXTENDED CUT: JOSEPH BOYDEN ON THE ENVIRONMENT, APATHY, AND DINOSAURS
The Giller-Prize winning author isn’t a huge a fan of the Alberta Oil Sands.
In our September issue (on newsstands now) we asked some of Canada’s brightest minds two questions: What is the biggest problem Canada is facing, and what should we do to fix it right now? Some of their responses were more elequent than we had space for (isn’t that always the way). So, we’re giving them more room to speak:
Our citizens are suffering from serious malaise when it comes to what should be most important to us: our physical world. The vast majority of scientists agree that our planet is in grave danger, and that humans are responsible for greatly speeding up its—and our own—destruction. Yet incredibly shortsighted corporate greed, combined with equally shortsighted and opportunistic government policy, allow boondoggles like the development of the environmentally suicidal Alberta tar sands to not just take economic precedence but become the cornerstone of Canada’s economic future. In other words, we, the citizens of this country, sit back, shrug our shoulders, and watch faceless greedheads speed up our demise while making hefty profits from it, and us.
And please hear this: tar is far too thick to make for good trickle down economics. The average Canadian sees no benefit from the insanity that is the Alberta tar sands project: gas prices are higher than they’ve ever been; water, which is this country’s most fragile and irreplaceable resource, is being wasted in criminal amounts for every liter of oil steamed out of sand; and more and more multinationals are making the fantastic profits that don’t stay in this country.
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