The Oil Junkie's Last Fix, indeed. That phrase pretty much says it all.

Superb article. I do think that the maps and photos help to understand the huge investment we have in continuing the status quo.

I question why we put so much into "developing the oil sands" rather than in examining our human relationship to energy and other resources and our habitat in general.

This relates back to questions regarding the Iron Triangle and also to the strange combinations of characteristics our species possesses at this time with regard to our inability to act in favor of our own survival.

Homo sapiens occupies a small niche in a large, complex shared habitat. Our self interest is best served by preserving the habitat of our planet for the great variety of species with which we share it. Our conventional strategies for survival actually kill off other species by destroying their habitat with increasing fury.

So the oil sands seem like another chapter in the biography which chronicles the self-destructive behaviour of a junky gone mad for another fix.

A bit of culture change is long overdue.