Over millions and millions of years, layers of plant, animal, and – yes – dinosaur matter have been decomposing. The result? A black sludge that sits beneath the Earth’s surface, decomposing further and further into the land. It was sustainably used by First Nations before colonialism and the sludge underneath the surface was largely undisturbed – until settlers came along.
Bitumen has been the source of immense wealth for the oil and gas industry in Alberta at the destruction of the land and waters of Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s territory. Settlers travel from all over the world to get rich from the Alberta oil sands, giving life to one of the most terrifying Monsters of Injustice we know – The Creature of the Oil Sands.
The Creature of the Oil Sands is a dark mass of bitumen that infiltrates every part of our lives. The creature doesn’t sleep. It tricks governments into thinking that we need oil and gas to survive while it tears up the land with open-pit mining and the planet’s atmosphere from emissions. It is one of the deadliest monsters of our time, and although there are strong, decades-long movements to destroy the Creature of the Oil Sands, it is still growing stronger.
And let’s get real here. The Creature of the Oil Sands has been haunting us for a long time. With the rise of the automobile and technological advancements brought on by two World Wars, wealthy colonial states sought out large deposits of oil and gas to fuel their economies. They allowed multinational corporations to strip lands completely bare and contaminate clean drinking water in order to access it. Transportation became entirely dependent on fossil fuels. Now, it is standard for people all around the world to travel by a form of fossil fuels every single day, 24/7.
Yet, we all are paying a much higher price than the prices we see at the pump. The disgusting Creature of the Oil Sands is born out of one of the largest industrial projects on the planet – the Alberta oil sands. It is easily seen from space as its refineries, tailings ponds, and black wastelands cover an area the size of England. Those giant tailings ponds contain petroleum coke, a hazardous by-product that can contaminate rivers, lakes, and groundwater. Open pit mining for bitumen near the surface strips the land completely bare, leaving black scars of the Earth behind.
The Creature of the Oil Sands, of course, has particularly targeted Indigenous folks in its extremely harmful and wicked ways. It is disrupting inherent rights to hunt, fish, harvest, and trap as they have since time immemorial, such as Beaver Lake Cree Nation, who has seen over 19,000 oil and gas permits on their territory without their consent. The Creature is entering rivers and groundwater, making those who live nearby sick with rare and pervasive cancers. It has completely altered the landscape that Beaver Lake Cree Nation still calls home today.
This pervasive and destructive Creature doesn’t just stop there though. Fossil fuels are transported all over the world in pipelines and ships, such as the Nathan E. Stewart, which spilled 110,000 litres of diesel in Heiltsuk’s ocean territory. The spill caused irreparable harm to one of Heiltsuk’s key harvesting areas. Oil spills in other parts of the world have devastated entire marine ecosystems. Companies are also drilling for oil in the ocean and risking devastating spills like we saw in the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010.
Back in northern Alberta, the Creature of the Oil Sands employs destructive methods to refine bitumen into oil, such as underground fracking, producing three times more emissions than conventional crude oil. The production of oil and gas emitted an estimated 80 megatonnes of emissions in 2021, which is a quarter of all emissions produced by Canada. That’s before recent studies stating the industry and government are underreporting emissions in the Alberta oil sands by up to 6,300 percent.
This affects us all. The climate crisis can be seen every day. Rivers are drying up, forests are burning, and we are seeing record-level heat waves across the world. We are heading down a dark path of climate destruction because of our dependency on fossil fuels, brought on in large part by the Creature of the Oil Sands.
Climate change is disproportionately affecting northern climates and Indigenous Peoples. The Wet’suwet’en Nation sees the effects of climate change in a wide variety of ways, but mostly through the harm of their physical, cultural, and mental well-being. Moose, a vital food source for the Wet’suwet’en people, are less abundant on the land. They haven’t fished for their preferred salmon species in around 20 years because of climate change and other colonial settler effects, such as overfishing and logging. As said in their Statement of Claim for their legal case seeking to hold Canada to the commitments made in the Paris Accord, climate change is affecting their mental health as it’s more difficult to address when the harms of colonialism make it more difficult to heal the land, waters, and people of the Wet’suwet’en Nation.
Neskantaga First Nation in northern Ontario say their youth are even noticing that ice roads, one of the only ways to transport large goods over the winter in the far north, are not lasting nearly as long as they were in the recent past. Climate change is accelerating in so many negative ways. The Creature of the Oil Sands is to thank for such atrocities we are seeing now and to come if we can’t stop them.
That’s the big question – how do you stop the Creature of the Oil Sands? Scientists around the world have long warned us about climate change. Politicians have signed international agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, to address the looming and present effects of temperature increases caused by climate change, which largely includes our dependency on fossil fuel extraction. We have a clear solution with a just transition to renewable energy in the works.
But the Creature of the Oil Sands doesn’t just rip the land up, contaminate the water, and destroy the atmosphere – it infiltrates the minds of corporations and government. It slithers into the belief systems of politicians through heavy-hitting lobbyists, continuing humanity’s dependence on the black sludge and taking us further and further into climate destruction.
One of the worst parts? Oil and gas companies knew about climate change long ago. ExxonMobil knew that fossil fuel emissions caused climate change in the 1970s. Their own private scientists and researchers made complicated climate models predicting their entire existence as a company was at risk because of climate change. So, what did they do? They spread doubt about climate science. They bunked other scientific efforts about climate change, all to keep making immense profits.
Today, corporations want to live in a world where fossil fuel extraction can continue increasing in production, despite the clear notion that we need to stop fossil fuel extraction in order to address climate change. This is why we see pipelines cut across the entirety of British Columbia next to sacred rivers, ramping up production and overseas export of oil from Canada. Greenwashing led by the industry has tricked governments into thinking LNG is a safe, climate-friendly resource for people and the planet when really it produces methane from underground fracking, which is 80 times more harmful for our atmosphere than carbon dioxide over time. It’s also harmful to human health when cooking and heating with natural gas in homes.
These are only a few of the ways that the Creature of the Oil Sands has taken over the minds of corporations and government. It’s scary, and it’s okay to feel scared when the Creature is pumped into your gas tank and heating your home. Change is happening to stop the Creature of the Oil Sands all over the world, and you can take part.
Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s Treaty rights case specifically targets the expansion of the fossil fuel industry in the Alberta oil sands. Wet’suwet’en’s climate case would force Canada to adhere to the Paris Peace Agreement of keeping temperature increases below two degrees Celsius, changing specific regulations that provide tax breaks for oil and gas companies. Heiltsuk Nation is litigating to advance compensation for oil spills to include cultural losses and holding shipping companies accountable to the damages they cause.
What do all of the First Nations above have in common? They’re partnered with RAVEN. That’s because the legal system, created by Canada and its provinces, is a significant financial barrier for First Nations to tackle systemic problems they encounter today. It’s how the Monsters of Injustice, like the Creature of the Oil Sands, continue to haunt us all. Donate to RAVEN now to make sure that Nations can access environmental justice for the long run!
