1. Athabasca, Alberta
The town of Athabasca is located
in central Alberta just two hours
north of Edmonton. It is found
on the Athabascan River which
runs north into the Arctic Ocean.
Approximately 2750 people
populate Athabasca but several
more are coming to visit to profit
off of Athabasca's main resource;
oil sands.

2. Athabasca's Oil Sands
Corporations worldwide are traveling to
Athabasca in search of it's abundance of oil.
Being that oil is a great canadian commodity
it has created tremendous provincial and
national economic gains however, the
exploitation of this resource has been
detrimental to the environment.
Through protests, studies and demonstrations,
Athabasca's environmentalists prove that the
capitalization of their oil sands goes beyond
the removal of oil; mining the oil sands is
destroying Athabasca's rivers and ecosystems,
accumulating mass amounts of dust, and
negatively affecting social programs.
Does the ecological cost outweigh the
economic benefit?

3. Unavoidably Unbalanced
●
“The relationship between the economic expansion
and environmental preservation remain
fundamentally contradictory” (Novek & Kampen,
1992, p.250).

4. Economic Benefits

5. Economic Benefits
●
Employment opportunities
●
Profitable Export
●
Increasing value of Canadian Dollar
●
Indigenous peoples living on/near oil sands experience increased
business
– Owners of trucking & construction companies

6. Environmental Costs

7. Environmental Costs
●
Increase in housing costs in resource towns
●
Large & wasteful consumption of water used to produce oil
●
Increased greenhouse gas emissions
●
Exploitation of Indigenous land
●
Aeolian dust accumulation
●
Damaging ecosystems
– Deformed fish in Athabasca river
●
Increase taxes – less focus on social programs
– ie. health care, education, crime prevention etc.
●
Oil being exploited is 'dirty'
– Wasted because no one wants it.

8. Dirty Oil
●
Described as nature's deathbed
●
Unwanted oil because it is deemed 'dirty'
●
“Greenhouse-gas emissions from the production
of synthetic tar sands oil are three times as
large, barrel for barrel, as those from
conventional oil” (Cosh, 2010)

9. Exploited & Polluted River
●
High levels of Poly aromatic compounds found in river which act
as toxins in
– The cardiovascular and blood systems
– Reproductive systems
– gastrointestinal/liver systems
– Respiratory systems
– Also carcinogens
●
Deformed the aquatic population

10. Who's Involved?

11. Parallels to The Golden Spruce
●
Grant Waldin's
expertise at his job =
corporations love for
money
– Both destroy the
environment

12. What's Being Done?
Protests, studies, demonstrations