Fort McMurray, Alberta—Standing on the edge of the immense and
spectacular pit of an oil sands mine for the first time, I was
surprised by a sense of exhilaration. Later, seven stories up,
equipped with earplugs and clad in bright blue overalls, I
marveled at the cascades of black bitumen froth bubbling over
the sides of a separation cell like a giant witch’s cauldron.
The scale of the enterprise and the sheer ingenuity involved in
wresting value and sustenance from the hands of a stingy Mother
Nature provoked in me a feeling close to glory. Yet as I stood
at the edge of the mine, I understood that lots of people
viewing the same sight would be horrified by it—and outraged by
my enthusiasm for it. They would, instead, see the pit as a deep
wound in the earth, amounting almost to a desecration. Can I
explain myself to those who see mining oil sands as a moral
offense? I plead humanism. Modern capitalism and the technology
it engenders has lifted a significant proportion of humanity out
of our natural state of