Oil Sucks
I’m an addict. I use oil. We all do. That’s how we’ve wired our economy. But the fact that we’re hopelessly hooked doesn’t mean we shouldn’t confront the issue. The first step, after all, is [...]
Oil
Oil
The Redwater Decision
All across this province, from the banks of the Peace River to the barley fields of Lethbridge County, 155,000 holes have been drilled in the ground that share four characteristics: They were [...]
Retrospective: The Ponds
Every Albertan now knows that the tar sands, the world’s largest energy project, drinks an enormous amount of water. Separating tar from sand is a messy, water-intensive business: producing just [...]
A Captive State
The scientific advisory panel to US President Lyndon Johnson delivered a detailed paper in 1965 warning that fossil fuels were emitting so much carbon dioxide that global warming was a serious [...]
By Kevin Taft
Black Swans
A heartbeat off Highway 63 north of Fort McMurray, a boardwalk leads you through a quiet grove of aspen and jack pine, where songbirds fill the air with their tweets and twitters. It was too [...]
By Jeff Gailus
What Lies Beneath
Tony Bruder and Ron Schmidt get on either side of the six-foot boards as I crouch down to get a better look. The two Pincher Creek-area neighbours shuffle the weather-beaten wood aside, revealing [...]
By Doug Horner
Petrostate
For years the boast “City of Champions” has greeted drivers entering Edmonton. With the Oilers now more likely to compete for the first overall NHL draft pick than the Stanley Cup, perhaps that [...]
By Ian Urquhart
The Great Royalty Debate
We do get our pound of flesh,” quipped Premier Ralph Klein about Alberta’s oil royalty rate in 2006. Of his government’s in-house royalty review he said, “I don’t know if it was completed or not, [...]
By David Finch
The Ponds
EVERY ALBERTAN NOW KNOWS that the tar sands, the world’s largest energy project, drinks an enormous amount of water. Separating tar from sand is a messy, water intensive business: producing just [...]
Doing the Dirty Work
The idea of labouring in a lucrative industry, even one dominated by heavy, dirty work and long hours, drew me to the oil patch. It was the reality that made me happy to leave. After hearing the [...]
MOST READ
MOST READ
Listening to Stones
It is a brilliant way to learn. Students of Socrates used to gather around the great man and exchange heady ideas that arose out of provocative questions—what we know now as the Socratic dialogue method of education. You might think the Greek philosopher and his followers hung out in academic ...
The Plans to Strip-Mine Coal in the Mountains
It looks like spectacular wild country, but some see it more as a big money sandwich.
The top layer of that sandwich is comprised of alpine grasses, forget-me-nots and stonecrop, glacier lilies and ancient, brave pines whose branches have been gnarled and weathered by centuries of wind. In summer, solitaires and ...
Who’s Keeping Watch?
As a journalist, covering Alberta's United Conservative Party government is a bit like trying to jump aboard a speeding locomotive. So much weight is moving at such great velocity that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to keep up.
Once upon a time, Alberta governments weren’t so purposeful or so quick—or, if ...