Canada's climate wars
Chris Turner's new book is a thorough account of how Alberta's oil sands became one of the energy world's hottest properties—and its most controversial
Preston McEachern, a water scientist for Alberta's government, had a startling metaphor. The oil sands had become "the harp seal of the environmental movement", he told me in 2011, at the height of their notoriety—the easiest, softest target to kill. Anyone who's seen them would know why the projects divide opinion. They make for a huge, ugly fume-belching scar on the landscape—a monumental example of humanity's exploitation of the earth's resources. Or, to the petroleum engineer, a true feat of development and progress, drawing the world's economic lifeblood from a remote landscape. Either way, McEarchern was right—they're easy to pick on. You can visit the oil sands: rent a car and drive a
Also in this section
21 August 2025
The administration has once more reduced its short-term gas price forecasts, but the expectation remains the market will tighten over the coming year, on the back of
19 August 2025
ExxonMobil’s MOU with SOCAR, unveiled in Washington alongside the peace agreement with Armenia, highlights how the Karabakh net-zero zone is part of a wider strategic realignment
19 August 2025
OPEC and the IEA have very different views on where the oil market is headed, leaving analysts wondering which way to jump
15 August 2025
US secondary sanctions are forcing a rapid reassessment of crude buying patterns in Asia, and the implications could reshape pricing, freight and supply balances worldwide. With India holding the key to two-thirds of Russian seaborne exports, the stakes could not be higher
