ABSTRACT
We describe and analyze the rhetorical practices and speculate about the effects of the public discussion surrounding the Alberta oil sands that takes place among pundits, politicians, and celebrities. We chose forty-four articles from newspapers, all published between September 27, 2011 and September 23, 2014. While we mainly have chosen artefacts that are pro-oil sands, we have chosen some anti-oil sands discourse as a counterpoint. We focus on Canadian musician and activist Neil Young’s identification of oil-sands development with Hiroshima and with genocide against First Nations, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s description of the oil sands as “filth,” the extraction of which reflected the “negligence and greed” of the industry. This testimony is representative of the broader opposition embraced by celebrity activists.
