Costly Fix: Power, Politics, and Nature in the Tar Sands

by Ian Urquhart

Costly Fix examines the post-1995 Alberta tar sands boom, detailing how the state inflated the profitability of the tar sands and turned a blind eye to environmental issues. It considers the position of First Nations, the character and strength of environmental critiques, and the difficulties that environmental groups and First Nations have had in establishing a countermovement to market fundamentalism. The final chapter discusses how Alberta's new NDP government, in its first couple of years, has addressed the legacies they have inherited from the previous Progressive Conservative government on climate change, royalties, and the blight of tailings ponds in the boreal forest. Throughout the book, Urquhart demonstrates that too many actors have done too little to prevent Alberta's boreal forest from becoming a landscape sacrificed for unsustainable economic growth.

368 pages, Paperback

Published January 29, 2018

Reviews

[Marco Calabretta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wouldn’t go so tar as to call this tarrific, but it was a solid foundation for my understanding of the politics of the tar sands, and it was very thorough. A tad dry.

[Mills College Library]

338.27282 U79 2018