ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a critical criminological analysis of the environmental degradation being wrought by the Alberta tar sands project in Canada. There are opposing views in Canada (between corporate and governmental greenwashers, and their critics) over the use of the term ‘tar sands’, rather than the less-dirty-sounding term ‘oil sands’. The term ‘tar sands’ best describes the immense, multinational state–corporate project that is currently under way in the northern part of the province of Alberta, since the task is to extract and refine naturally created, tar-bearing sand into exportable and consumable oil. What is undeniable is that the tar sands project, as we have chosen to call it, is having profound effects on Canada’s economy and ecology, its diplomatic and trade relations with the USA, and its ability to create Canadian energy security. It is also, concomitantly, affecting Canada’s capacity as a sovereign nation to sign and follow up on international treaties and protocols aimed at reducing forms of global environmental degradation, including global warming, carbon dioxide emissions, environmental pollution, and water depletion. Among its recent critics, the Alberta tar sands project has been described as ‘the world’s biggest energy project’ and ‘one of the world’s most fantastic concentrations of toxic waste’ (Nikiforuk 2008: 78), as ‘Canada’s number one global warming machine’ (Clarke 2008: 149), and as a key cause of the ‘environmental Armageddon’ now confronting Canadians (Marsden 2008).
