In a world where money is large part of everyone's lives. It gets harder and harder to define what methods are right in order to make money and weather preserving the environment is more important than maintaining our country's economy. One controversial area that usually brought up in these conversations is the Alberta oil sands. The Alberta oil sands is an industry where it involves bringing up oil sands (mixture of sand, water, clay and bitumen) through drilling or mining and getting crude oil to us in a variety items/ products. It is one of the largest industries in Canada and large part of what maintains our economy. The 2009 movie Avatar is the highest grossing movie of all-time. The movie itself revolves around humans coming to a planet …show more content…
The mineral in the film that the human’s were after was called Unobtainium and this can draw a direct comparisons to the crude oil that is being produced in Alberta. In both film and reality they are valuable resources and are found in a few areas. The Alberta oil sands is one of the main things that sustains our economy. Similarly within the film Avatar, Unobtainium is an extremely rare metal that humans need to sustain the Earth and help ease the problems of the energy crisis. And both are worth a lot and can make companies substantial amounts of money. Just one kilogram of Unobtainium is worth about 20 million dollars! On the other hand, one barrel of oil worth around $50, and with that being said, over 1.98 million barrels are produced each day in Alberta itself! As you can see in terms of economic sustainability, the Alberta oil sands compares and contrasts very well with the movie …show more content…
And again, this situation is strikingly similar to the relationship RDA (Resources Development Administration) and the Na’vi. Both indigenous groups fight to protect their rights, the First Nations through treaties and the Na’vi through fighting. However in both scenarios. the opposing group does not really care about the indigenous people. This can be shown in multiple place. For example a the Beaver Lake Cree have documented over 200 000 treaty violations and on the other hand in Avatar, the RNA just completely ignore the well being of the Na’vi to achieve their goals. In both cases the indigenous groups do not have any say in what is going to happen to them. This results in the indigenous people having a very different worldview in comparison to the large companies. The social sustainability is dependant on maintaining good relations with the aboriginals and this can be shown in both today’s oil sands and the movie
The discussion on Alberta’s oil is gaining traction among certain groups in Canada. According to Andrew Nikiforuk’s “Tarmageddon: Dirty oil is turning Canada into a corrupt petro-state,” the continuous development of the Alberta tar sands is only serving to adversely impact Canada’s political, economical, and environmental capacities. The article argues that unless the subject of the Alberta tar sands is addressed as poisonous to the nation, Canada will become overwhelmed and unstable. In a similar regard “Ethical Oil: the Puppet Rap” by Caitlin Dodd, David Henderson-Hean, Kai Nagata, Spencer Powell and Emile Scott, is a satirical rap portraying the Ethical Oil group and spokespeople in a negative light. The video targets environmentally inclined individuals and groups, and brings to their attention some logical fallacies surrounding claims made by the Ethical Oil campaign. Although both pieces address the debate over oil happening in Canada and, they use different methods to satisfy their purpose.“Tarmageddon…” uses a persuasive and argumentative approach while “Ethical Oil…” relies on satire and amusement. Both pieces employ the use of pathos to persuade their audiences, the use of which is stronger in “Tarmageddon…” leading to its more effective use of rhetorical strategies.
The Alberta Oil Sands are large deposits of bitumen in north-eastern Alberta. Discovered in 1848, the first commercial operation was in 1967 with the Great Canadian Oil Sands plant opening, and today many companies have developments there. The Alberta Oil Sand development is very controversial, as there are severe environmental impacts and effects on the local Aboriginal peoples. This essay will discuss the need for changes that can be made for the maximum economic benefit for Canada, while reducing the impact on the environment and limiting expansion, as well as securing Alberta’s future. Changes need to be made to retain the maximum economic benefits of the Alberta Oil Sands while mitigating the environmental and geopolitical impact. This will be achieved by building pipelines that will increase the economic benefits, having stricter environmental regulation and expansion limitations, and improving the Alberta Heritage Fund or starting a new fund throu...
The Alberta tar sands have the second largest oil reserves in the entire world, only smaller than Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves. This vast supply of oil has created a large interest in the extraction and then production of different types of oil in Canada. The tar sands are believed to hold around 174.5 billion barrels of oil. The estimates are across the board but if it is true, the oil industry in Canada would become its largest export and substantially boost the economy. The tar sands were producing 53% of Canada’s oil output, but by the end of this year it will be around 83%. This number could increase to 99%, if the tar sands are fully taken advantage of. The extraction of oil has already begun and covers around 602 square kilometers of land. The problem is that ...
The opposition to this project is increasing because the people living in those areas are already feeling negative consequences. The large communities living in Boreal Forest and other Natives lands are being affected by the extraction and process of tar sands. Not only this people are being rushed away from their lands, but also, the rate of cancer, renal failure, lupus, hyperthyroidism and other decease, are higher than ever. This health conditions increased because of the air pollution and the high quantities of metals and chemicals in the drinking water. Yet, lots of precautions are being taken by the company, oil spills keep happening over and over. The external metal corrosion caused by extreme temperatures and the corrosive acid components of the bitumen are factors that contribute to accidents like explosions and oil
Almost every single nation in our world today, the United States included, is extremely reliant on oil and how much of it we can obtain. Wars have started between countries vying for control of this valuable natural resource. The United States as a whole has been trying to reduce its reliance on foreign oil and has had some success, especially with the discovery of the Bakken formation and projects like the Keystone Pipeline. Projects like the Keystone Pipeline are important as they will allow us to transport more oil than we would be able to in train cars, and grant larger access to oil reserves in the United States and Canada. The Keystone Pipeline itself is an oil pipeline which runs from the western Canadian sedimentary basin in Alberta, Canada to refineries in the United States.
The US Government, with the backing of the American people, should authorize the pipeline that would import tar sand oil from Canada. The pipeline would generate jobs while helping to diminish foreign oil dependency, is the cleanest and safest transportation option and finally it will not harm the environment. As Mark J. Perry, PhD, MSA, Professor of Finance and Economics at the University of Michigan states “There are few more important tasks than ensuring the Keystone pipeline gets built. Obama should approve its construction, for the good of the country” (“Should
Avatar was directed by James Cameron, and was released on December 18th, 2009. In short, humans from Earth travel to a far-off planet, Pandora, specifically to mine a mineral called unobtainium, which is a superconductor. Given how humanity treat the Na’vi as a lesser
These oil wells are great for the economic growth, inventing new jobs and fueling most of our vehicles. The Earth has literal oceans of oil stored in its soil waiting to be harvested. Meaning, crude oil isn’t renewable, and eventually it will run out. According to the British petroleum, the multinational gas and oil company headquarter, there is only enough to sustain the planet for roughly around 53.3 more years. The result of oil depletion will turn turbulent, and we will have to resort to renewable energy. The issue concerning this is that, renewable energies such as solar, water and wind have not been perfected and can be too expensive to use. In theory, renewable energy is still a stable and natural energy source that could potentially save the future. If the we invest in perfecting these energy sources instead of pipelines, oil companies could finally stop reaping the Earth of its oil and prevent a future crisis 50 years from now. We wouldn’t have the need to burn fossil fuels, and we could be one step closer to a cleaner Earth. Nonetheless, most people nowadays care only for shortcuts that will lead them to big money, even if it sacrifices our world’s interior, and the health of those that live upon
In 2005, an intergovernmental agreement between the Liberal government of Canada and the leaders of the national Aboriginal organizations was initiated. The treaty was known to be the Kelowna Accord. The ob...
... take a journey to other land. In the movie when the sky people set fire to hometree and made it fall to the ground, the Na'vi were forced to move toward the tree of souls. This was very similar to the trail of tears taken by the Cherokee into the Indian Territory, when the government wanted their land in order to mine for gold. However when the Cherokee took their journey they were escorted the entire way by our naval forces. This path included 25% of the Cherokee tribe dying from either starvation, hypothermia, or sickness. In Avatar when hometree came crashing down it killed many of the Na'vi people by crushing them with the branches, or getting stabbed by flying debris, and the survivors decided on their own that they should move away from the flaming tree. These trails made the Natives very angry in both situations, which in turn made them want to fight back.
In today’s world humans are consuming massive amounts of fossil fuels. The top five oil consuming countries in the world are the usual suspects. These include the United States, China, Japan, India and Russia. Canada comes in at number 10 with a daily consumption of 2,287 thousand barrels per day. There are three major types of fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. These resources were formed during the Carboniferous Period 360-286 million years ago. During this time earth was covered in swamps with large amounts of plants and waters filled with algae. When these plants and trees began to die they would form layers of peat. Hundreds and thousands of years would pass adding sand and other materials on top of the peat. This formed the sedimentary rocks we know today. As the thousands of years turned into millions of years the water of the peat layer was pushed out of the peat until the layer of diatoms turned into coal, oil or natural gas (CEC, 2013). Canada has oil industry throughout the country and currently 12 out of 13 provinces are active in the oil industry. Natural gas production is occurring in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and New Brunswick. Natural gas could also become large industry in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Oil production is currently taking place in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland & Labrador (CAPP, 2013).
The humans paid ex-marines and soldiers from America to mine the unobtainium that is on Pandora. Economically, the mother countries gained unobtanium, a valuable resource unavailable to the mother country (in this case the mother planet) from Pandora. It is a resource with $20 million per kilogram. With assimilation (a process by which a person or a group’s language and/or culture come to resemble those of another group) or destruction of culture, the purpose of “The Avatar Program” in Pandora was basically just something to justify the presence of the humans on Pandora obtaining unobtainium. They used their program as an excuse to be on the planet. Showing destruction of culture, the humans destroyed the Na’vi’s Home Tree.
The Athabasca oil sands are the second largest producer of crude oil in the world, with a surface area of approximately 100 000 square kilometres (Anderson, Giesy & Wiseman, 2010). The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimates that the oil sands contains approximately 1.7 trillion barrels of crude bitumen, however only 19% can be ultimately recovered (Raynolds, Severson-Baker & Woynillowicz, 2005; Humphries, 2008). The availability of recoverable bitumen makes Canada’s oil sands deposit larger even than that of Saudi Arabia (Czarnecki, Hamza, Masliyah, Xu & Zhou, 2004).The process of surface and in situ mining of the Athabasca oil sands is causing rapid and significant degradation of the regional environment surrounding Fort McMurray and the Athabasca River. Production is expected to increase to three million barrels per day by 2015 from approximately 2 million currently (Humphries, 2008). This increase will further exacerbate the existing environmental impacts of crude oil production. The Canadian oil and natural gas industry is extremely lucrative, but despite the short-term economic benefits of the mining of the Athabasca oil sands, the remediation of the negative environmental impacts of the extraction of oil on terrestrial and aquatic environments, biodiversity, and greenhouse gas emissions are a priority.
Set on the planet Pandora, Avatar is a science-fiction story of a money-hungry corporation’s attempt to conquer and excavate the land of humanoids known as Na’Vi. Jake Sully is a paraplegic, who is sent to space to complete his deceased brother’s mission because they share the same genome, which is necessary to navigate the expensive avatar that had already been cloned. We learn that the avatar is basically a mind-transporter used to be a part of and learn about the Na’Vi community. During his first expedition in the land of the Na’Vi, Jake gets lost and encounters one of the main female members of the tribe who ends up taking him under her wing and teaches him the ways of a Omaticaya. From here, the movie continues to tell the story of Jake’s dilemma between the mission he started with his people and the allegiance he slowly pledged to the Omaticaya clan. After watching Avatar the day it came out in theaters, I easily decided that it was one of the most extraordinary movies I had ever seen. My opinion may seem invalid coming from an uncultured fourteen-year-old, but even after having recently re-watched the film, I feel this movie and its social commentary are remarkable. There were many aspects to this movie, some controversial, that made the movie exceptional: its new-aged cinematography, disputable portrayal of the indigenous peoples, oddly familiar plotline, and mostly its critique on colonization and civilization. After having watched Avatar for the sixth time, I have come to the conclusion that this film much more intricate than its critics and supporters acknowledge. There are multiple parallels between imperialism and...
While watching the movie you feel for sad the Avatar people and anger towards the humans and corporations that are taking control, wanting to destroy the environment through mining to make money. It is a message of caution; look at how things could be in the 22nd century if we aren’t more careful with the resources the Earth provides now.