num_pages: 368
description: Winner of the National Business Book AwardLonglisted for the 2018 BC National Nonfiction AwardBestselling author Chris Turner brings readers onto the streets of Fort McMurray showing the myriad ways the oil sands impact our lives and demanding that we ask the To both fuel the world and to save it what do we do about the Patch?The Patch is the story of Fort McMurray and the oil sands in northern Alberta the worlds second largest proven reserve of oil. But this is no conventional story about the oil business. Rather it is a portrait of the lifecycle of the Patch showing just how deeply it continues to impact the lives of everyone around the world.In its heyday the oil sands represented an industrial triumph and the culmination of a century of innovation experiment engineering policy and finance. Fort McMurray was a boomtown the centre of a new gold rush and the oilsands were reshaping the global energy political and financial landscapes. But in 2008 a new narrative emerged. As financial markets collapsed and the cold hard scientific reality of the Patchs effect on the environment became clear the region turned into a boogeyman and a lightning rod for the global movement combatting climate change. Suddenly the streets of Fort McMurray were the front line of a high-stakes collision between two conflicting worldviewsone of industrial triumph and another of environmental stewardshipeach backed by major players on the world stage.The Patch is a narrative-driven account of this ongoing conflict. It follows a select group of key characters whose experiences in and with the oil sands overlap in concentric narrative arcs. Through this insightful combination of global perspective and on-the-ground action The Patch will show how the reach of the oil sands extends to all of us. From Fort Mac to the Bakken shale country of North Dakota from Houston to London from Saudi Arabia to the shores of Brazil the whole world is connected in this enterprise. And it demands that we ask the In order to both fuel the world and to save it what do we do about the Patch?
language: English
title: The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands
publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada