Book Review

Title: Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (and Doesn’t Seem to Care)

Author: William Marsden

Publisher: Vintage Canada (Random House of Canada Limited)

Year: 2008

ISBN: 978-0-676-97914-5

Reviewed by: Tessa Perkins (Vancouver Correspondent)

In a world on the brink of catastrophe, in a country desperately trying to prevent the careless destruction of the natural world, one province ploughs ahead with their devastation at an alarming rate and without any regard for their horrendous environmental impacts. Alberta and its money hungry government continue to flatten forests, dry up rivers, poison water supplies, and destroy unique ecosystems while they extract as much as they can from the oil sands. With no plan to improve their carbon emissions, or ensure that the Athabasca River will still exist in the future, there is little hope on the endless horizon of the oil sands.

Marsden outlines the history behind our obsession with oil, explains the many plans proposed to extract the oil from the ground (including nuking Alberta), and exposes just how destructive and corrupt these huge oil companies are. For example, Suncor and Syncrude (the two largest companies) make billions in profit each year, but Albertans receive only three percent of that back as royalties to the government. This is due to the government’s tax policies exempting the oil companies from paying their full share in taxes. Their “land reclaiming” projects on which they spend very little of their profit, amount to not much more than a few buffalo in a grassy enclosure in front of their head office building. Once the wetlands and boreal forests have been destroyed, there is no way to replace them. The companies want visitors to see that the buffalo can still live on the land, but they might as well be in a zoo.

Aside from the corporations at the heart of this destruction are all the people who have suffered from poisoned water wells, fish tasting like gasoline, and abnormal cancers. Trying to claim that the oil company has caused you harm is almost pointless as they are likely to say that it is your fault or that it is nothing more than an isolated incident or statistical anomaly. Marsden meets with these people and tells us their horrific stories bringing the problems to a more personal level. In his chapter titled “The Last Cowboys and Cowgirls,” Marsden meets with farmers and ranchers of Happy Valley, which is one of the last areas of the province somewhat untouched by the oil companies. Their way of life and the beautiful rolling hills of rough fescue grass is a rarity in a land dotted with gas wells.

As oil supplies run out, Marsden predicts that we will soon be fighting over the last drops and extracting every last bit out of the land. This reckless destruction of the land cannot go on forever, but if it is not controlled soon, the consequences will be devastating. This book is a wonderful and highly informative exposé of the oil industry in Alberta, and I would love to see it turned into a documentary film that would reach even more people and spread awareness about this horrible business that is ruining Canada’s chance at a sustainable future.