Summary: Mordor is the realm of the evil Sauron in “The Lord of the Rings.” Tolkiendescribes it as “a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust,the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume." If you look at Canada’sAlberta tar sands you might imagine it’s something like Mordor. Thegigantic effort to extract oil has turned the province into a hydrocarbonkingdom. And it may be one of the most environmentally destructiveprojects on earth. Tar sands burn more carbon than conventional oil;destroy forests; kill wildlife; poison the water supply and communitiesdownstream; drain the Athabasca, the river that feeds Canada’s largestwatershed, and contribute to climate change. The Keystone XL pipeline fromAlberta to refineries in the U.S. has been put on hold because of protestsbut it is likely to resurface. Interview by David Barsamian.
