Canadian activists in action against Syncrude’s toxic tar sands

What do you do when oil prices rocket?

1. Swap the car for public transport?
2. Burn more energy to extract oil from sand while leaving behind toxic wastelands?

Well, if you are Syncrude Canada Ltd operating near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, Canada, you choose option B. But since Greenpeace would rather go ahead with option A; we decided to show Syncrude how wrong their tar sands project really is.

Now its really not safe going near a tar sands wasteland because of the toxic fumes and the poisonous tailings waste that killed 500 ducks earlier this year. But our activists entered Syncrude's Aurora North tar sands operation early yesterday morning and blocked a pipe into the two-kilometre wide tailings pond. The activists also suspended a banner that read "World's Dirtiest Oil: Stop the Tar Sands" while erecting a banner that transformed the opening of a tailings pond pipe into the "mouth" of a giant skull.

Oil companies are to nearly triple production of oil from Canada's tar sands as a result of the region's large oil sands reserves and the rise in global oil prices. Extracting oil from sand is an energy-intensive process that deposits heavy metals and other toxics when bitumen is separated from the oil sands using large quantities of water. Toxic wastelands left behind as a result of the extraction process is a threat to Alberta's ecological systems.

Moreover, vast areas of forests are being cleared to make way for companies such as Syncrude to continue their tar sands operations. So not only does the extraction process consume more energy than the oil it digs out but also destroys local environment by clearing forests and leaving behind a toxic wasteland. Ingeniously, the companies planned on installing noisemaking devices that sound like shotguns to scare away birds from landing in the toxic wastelands. What Syncrude really need are alarm bells ringing in their ears on how they are trashing the environment.