Description
Book SynopsisThanks to increasingly extreme forms of oil extraction, Canada's largest oil-producing provinces underwent exceptional economic growth from 2005 to 2015. Yet oil's economic miracle obscured its ecological costs. Fossilized traces this development trajectory, assessing how the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador offered extensive support for oil-industry development, and exploring the often downplayed environmental effects of extraction.
Angela Carter investigates overarching institutional trends, such as the restructuring of departments that prioritized extraction over environmental protection, and identifies regulatory inadequacies related to environmental assessment, land-use planning, and emissions controls. Her detailed analysis situates these policy dynamics within the historical and global context of late-stage petro-capitalism and deepening neoliberalization of environmental policy.
Fossilized reveals a country out
Trade Review
[Fossilized] cast[s] a new and hopeful light on what political scientists sometimes call a super-wicked problem.
-- Donald Wright, University of New Brunswick * Literary Review of Canada *
Carter... is optimistic. Instead of offering investments to the oil and gas industry, why not look to support a new, low-carbon economy? -- Mary Shortall, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour * Our Times Magazine *
Table of ContentsForeword: Talking about a House on Fire / Graeme Wynn
Introduction: Situating Canada’s Petro-Provinces
1 Alberta: Provincial Life Blood and Anemic Environmental Regulation
2 Saskatchewan: Saskaboom and Environmental Policy Bust
3 Newfoundland and Labrador: Economic Miracle and Environmental Debacle
4 From Boom to Bust: Doubling Down on Oil
Notes, Index
