Tar sands a toxic nightmare http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44471

The tar sands mining project in Alberta, Canada, is possibly the largest industrial project in human history and critics claim it could also be the most destructive.  The mining procedure for extracting oil from a region referred to as the "tar sands," located north of Edmonton,

releases at least three times the CO2 emissions of regular oil production procedures and will likely become North America's single largest industrial contributor to climate change. Most of the oil produced by the project will likely be consumed by the US — a country that, along with Canada, is already heavily invested in the project.