tar sands

QUICK NOW. What’s worse: a punch in the nose or a poke in the eye? An ugly divorce or a year in the slammer? Deep drilling in the Gulf of Mexico or tar-sands mining in Alberta?

Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice has an opinion on the latter. In a statement reported shortly after the Deepwater Horizon exploded, killing 11 people and gushing oil into the Gulf, he said that the environmental risks associated with Alberta’s tar-sands operations are “probably less than the kind of risks associated with offshore drilling.”

Doubtless, people are optimistic that sustainability is possible. Pessimism is enervating and deflating. However, both optimism and pessimism are merely states of mind that have little connection with reality. What we really need is a good dose of realism, and from this perspective much of what we take to be progress is delusional. It creates a false – or at least inflated – sense of achievement, and thus relieves the psychological and political pressure needed for real change. ...