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

This is an interesting and complex book. This book deals with the oil sands industry in Northern Alberta. It begins in 2008 during the economic collapse. This was also when we started to become more aware of the environmental damage being caused by this necessary industry. This raises the complexity about our need to protect the environment and our need for oil and how these need to coexist. I found this book especially interesting because it also gives a human element to the city of Fort McMurray. The city always gets a bad rap in the press and this book gives a lot more personal detail on the people and the community. There is also a lot of detail about the big oil companies that have their head offices in Calgary. I found this gave a more well rounded description of the oil industry. Overall I think this is an important book. The need to weigh the production of oil vs environmental concerns is very complicated but bottom line is that at this time in our lives we definitely still need to produce oil.