The Patch: The People, Pipelines, and Politics of the Oil Sands, Turner Chris

Bestselling 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 question: 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 world of the Patch, showing just how deeply the oil sands continue to impact the lives of everyone around the world.

At its peak, 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 oil sands were reshaping the global energy, political, and financial landscapes. But in recent years, a new narrative has emerged. As the cold, hard, scientific reality of the Patchs effect on the environment has become clear, the region has turned into a boogeyman and a lightning rod for the global movement combatting climate change. Today, the streets of Fort McMurray remain the front line of a high-stakes collision between two conflicting worldviews--one of industrial triumph and another of environmental stewardship--each backed by major players on the world stage.