"The system of slavery is like holding a wolf by its ears: you don't like
it, but you don't dare let go."
- Thomas Jefferson
The oil sands and slavery
By Frederick Douglass*
It was once the case that slaves were the most valuable asset in America. As the horrors of slavery began to be documented and a concern that this was a horrible practice spread, the justifications for continued slavery sound eerily familiar to the justifications for the continuation and massive expansion of the oil sands.
“Sure it might not be the nicest thing, but what alternative does the South really have? How would we support our economy and our lifestyles without the institution of slavery?”
This excuse and many others were used to argue for the continuation of a practice that was inherently evil.
When one looks at what the oil sands have done – deforestation and ripping apart of the land of an area the size of Florida, up to eleven barrels of water used up for each barrel of oil, endless muck ponds that are now the worlds largest dam stretching out forever full of a plethora of toxins, huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, cancers being found at alarming rates among the nearby native communities and you find an activity of the same evil proportion that slavery had. The above list of environmental horrors does not even count the climate change impact once the end product – oil itself is burned. To enact upon the environment such a laundry list of catastrophes just to lead to more climate change all in the quest for profit is the pinnacle of a crime against the environment.
The response of some is that the best good people can hope for is a moratorium on the expansion of the oil sands. This is no more an acceptable outcome than would have been limiting slavery to only current slave owners.
Just as a rising concern for human rights meant slavery could not last, a rising concern that we must live in an environmentally sustainable way and the same human rights concerns will mean in the end the oil sands could not last either.
It should be remembered that in the mid 1850’s slave run plantations were a fairly safe business. It was only a short number of years later the practice of slavery was completely abolished.
Just as rich southern slave owners resisted fiercely to protect their “assets”, so to can it be expected that the oil sands companies and their supporters shall pull out all the stops to resist the calls to shut them down and to greenwash over their horrible practices with nice full page colour ads proclaiming how green they really are and how they really are becoming environmentally sustainable.
But the truth of the matter is that oil sands extraction cannot be made green any more than slavery can be made humane.
The only option and the one which will eventually win out is a full shutdown of the oil sands.
The name Frederick Douglass is a pseudonym.
