![]() ![]() (Image: From Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, copyright Kate Beaton. In 2008, around 1,600 ducks died after landing on a Syncrude tailings pond in Alberta. Welcome to Living on Earth, Kate!ĭOERING: So can you tell our listeners the story behind the title and explain why you chose it?ĭucks in flight. Kate Beaton joins me now from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Please be advised that we will discuss sexual assault in this segment. That’s a painful reality captured in the 2022 graphic memoir “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands” by cartoonist Kate Beaton. And for the women who have sought employment in the male-dominated oil sands, the job can bring unwanted comments and sexual violence. They typically live in austere work camps and rotate through 12-hour shifts both day and night, in temperatures frequently below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Eighty thousand people had to flee their homes, and the fire caused nearly $9 billion Canadian dollars in damages.ĭOERING: And Aynsley, in addition to this environmental and climate toll, the extraction of these fossil fuels has also taken an emotional toll on some of the people who work in the industry. And the effects of climate change were tragically felt right in the epicenter of the Athabasca oil sands when a 2016 wildfire in Fort McMurray burned twenty-four hundred structures. And in May, a study from the government of Canada found that those emissions may be at least 65 percent higher than those reported by industry, adding even more warming to the atmosphere. It all makes the use of tar sands oil a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The process is exceedingly resource intensive and, as a result, it’s one of the most costly ways of producing oil. And often, natural gas is burned to heat steam to force the oil out. Extracting the thick bitumen involves razing the boreal forest and then strip mining the oil-rich sands underneath. The Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada have been called the world’s most destructive oil operation, and for good reason. ![]() ![]() DOERING: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Jenni Doering. ![]()
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