Day3-Emily with windturbines

Day three of my journey to the tar sands I devoted to talking with eco-activists in Edmonton. Environmentalists who believe change can happen and happen for the better with the oil problem in Alberta. This was a different tune than yesterday where I heard a lot of pessimism, myths and downplaying of the tar sands.

I first spoke with Mike Hudema, Greenpeace’s Tar Sands Campaigner. Not your typical ‘granola eating tree-hugger,’ Mike enjoys his steak and went to law school. Just before he passed the bar, he left it all behind to be apart of ‘creating something different’ for his home province of Alberta.

Hudema says the end is near for oil.

“It’s not a matter of choosing to win this battle, we have to. Oil and other fossil fuels cannot continue in the 21st century, it’s as simple as that. Many people understand this; there are already 1.8 billion people apart of the climate movement around the world. Pressure is growing for change. Governments and corporations are feeling this as well, just look at them changing their tune on supposedly being ‘green.’ We’ve just got to keep up the pressure,” says Hudema.

Later in the afternoon, I spoke with Eriel Deranger in her cozy home, a Rainforest Action Network (RAN) Campaigner. For Eriel, the tar sands battle is deeply personal. As a First Nations person, her family has lost land to the development of Alberta’s oil sands. While other relatives and friends of hers have been affected by rare cancers and diseases who live near the project.

She says that we are at a precipice right now: we either keep on the same old road dominated by fossil fuels that is hurting people and the planet or choose a new and bumpy sustainability path.

According to Deranger, that path can happen and the beginning is here with activism, job creation in sustainable technologies and the public beginning to wake up to our climate peril.

But no battle can be won by a few nor with the use of a few strategies. Protestors and holding banners will not create the new sustainable path alone. We’ve had an over 150 year-long party on oil and fossil fuels. Shifting that to something less versatile, potable and cheaper than oil is going to require a battle in politics, policy, legislature, economics, commerce — even in our individual civic engagement, workplaces and homes.

As Andrew Nikiforuk wrote in Tar Sands:

“The real work of transforming Canada’s fossil fuel-dependent economy will not be big and glamorous. It will be humbling, yet rewarding. Our task will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich and famous. But we must begin today.”

Emily Hunter’s Journey to the Tar Sands airs this fall on MTV News Canada.

Emily Hunter

Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist and activist that resides in Toronto, Canada. At 25 years-old, she is the eco-correspondent for MTV News Canada and the chief eco-blogger for THIS Magazine....