Little Black Lies

Book excerpt: Provocative, passionate and populist, RMB Manifestos are short and concise non-fiction books of literary, critical, and cultural studies. Beginning in 1967 and for just over 30 years, the oil industry toiled in the relative obscurity of Northern Alberta as machines peeled away earth and boreal forest to exhume what has now become one of humanity’s most precious and contentious resources: bitumen. As the years passed, the bitumen mines sprawled, poisonous tailings ponds spread, toxins polluted the environment, cancer reared its head downstream and the price of petroleum soared beyond all expectations. As plans continue to build the Keystone and Northern Gateway pipelines, a growing number of scientists, journalists, First Nations and environmentalists are fighting to raise the alarm about the implications and propaganda surrounding the world’s largest energy project. In his second RMB Manifesto, Jeff Gailus dissects the global war on truth that has come to define the battle for oil. It is a battle fought not with bullets and bombs but with a dark web of Little Black Lies that poses a threat not only to environmental and human health, but to our moral and social well-being.