larson's land was once vast northern forest it is now become the biggest industrial project in the world the extraction of oil sands in canada. trees have been replaced with giant chimneys. oversized machines and scraped this browned land overflowing with beecham and an extremely polluting oil derivative. it's the last giant rush for black gold on a global scale. and the oil companies have come together here in the state of. the sandman's eldorado. us and is a very interesting story because it has been there for ages that resource is so large today it represents the amount that can be recovered both economically as well as technically so with the right technology one hundred seventy three one hundred sixty nine just counting the oil sands a billion barrels so that hundred sixty nine billion barrels makes it the third largest resource of oil anywhere in the world third only after saudi arabia and

venezuela that's just over one hundred years worth of reserve and so therefore it is a very large very attractive and now very globally recognized source of oil for the world into the future. oil doesn't mean the end of oil oil is essentially referring to the fact that the world's cheapest and best petroleum deposits have been mined out and now we're on to unconventional resources so now we are mining stuff that costs more we are mining stuff that has a higher environmental footprint we have to use more energy to get this energy and that's what peak oil is really all about it's simply saying well we've run out of the cheap stuff now we're hitting the dirty stuff. the cost of doing so is going to cannibalize the global economy at the same time it undermines the world's.

secure. fort mcmurray north of the state's capital the site of the biggest oil sand mines two million barrels are extracted every day by twenty thirty that will increase to five million barrels a day. a blessing for petroleum engineers faced with depleting traditional reserves . but ecologists called the project an aberration not least because one barrel of oil has to be used just to produce three or four. that's ten times less efficient than saudi crude the gas growth in these factories could provide power to three thousand households every day bitterman is an unconventional source of energy like shale gas the latest technologies are required to to extract dirty oil. to be a little bit scary senator if you're interested in seed only did you notice her standing if you go to the third section and.

so what i'm going to do now is how extraction so this is after mining trucks and shovels have done all their work all of the deposits gone through the crusher to bring it down to that size then they have hot water and start mixing because they need to add air to make sure that all of that bits of it starts to float away that's going to do right now if he just importance because bichon it actually is very thick and heavy as i mentioned so this is fiction in that room temperature. so what they have to do though is they have to dilute it this is done with what's called not so so once the fishermen's been diluted it's very thin very runny it's kind of like this and that's a little bit human will then go through a series of centrifuges and settling plates let's just say you know this heavy water. great to get one barrel of fiction in they need about eight to ten barrels of water in this extraction method so collectively they left. over clay and sad and

water and a little bit of fiction and all this together is called tailings sell the tailings pines this is essentially what it tailings on books like. the plan is supposed to include reclamation and so reclamation is the rebuilding of any of the environment they've disturbed or destroyed in their process so that doesn't just mean refilling in my head doesn't just mean cleaning up a tanning spy this isn't an experiment and trying to make industry more accountable the only area that's been reclaimed to that level of government certification used to belong to syncrude is about one square kilometer and it was certified in two thousand and eight but that's after they started replacing it in the early one nine hundred eighty s. . for twenty five years one square kilometer has been restored hundreds more still await. arid lands covered with slabs of bittermann.

but the oil companies guaranteed that the forest will grow back to its natural state one day. given to mony doubts such a miracle is possible. he's been studying ecosystems in the north of berger for three decades. when the industry says that it's reclaiming the land what they're actually saying is that fear fear fear revenge. but what they're not telling you is that they're not reestablishing the native plants they may have some trees growing there but if you were to look at that far as you find that it's. a lot of the plants and animals that should be there we're losing the natural biodiversity and what we're getting in return is impaired ecosystems that have a higher number of exotic species that don't belong there and a few are. species that are native to the community are present. here.

but nothing can stop the expansion of the industry. nasa has been aiming its satellites at fort mcmurray for twenty years the increase in the number of mines artificial legs and tailing pones is clearly visible. the spread of bitterman has made almost one billion cubic meters of water highly toxic. it stays there for fifty to one hundred years before it can be treated. jennifer gratz is worried about this environmental time bomb. she's an oil sands expert at the pen being a institute an organization that advises canada's government on how to adapt as the oil runs out. the rules of the game have changed over the past fifteen years. and the industry has become all mighty. not a single company in the last year was actually able to meet directive seventy four those at the tellings rules that are designed to help reduce the proportion of

future tailings waste to any of the companies actually challenge that analysis what was the government's response pretty quiet so there was a lot of interest in the story from the media but i didn't actually see any responses from companies i mean i think there's this is a case of being guilty on not meeting the regulations and i think they're trying to . keep that story as under wraps possible right now. there are huge growing problem we have not resolved challenges with talons and there's a number of challenges there's risks of waterfowl in wildlife encounters which has happened before we had six hundred ducks just die on one incident alone in two thousand and eight there's risks of seepage so we know that tailings lakes see around eleven million liters of waste per day and of course one of the biggest challenges is how we how we're actually going to reclaim and deal with this at the end of my life so can we actually reclaim this magnitude. of toxic waste and i

started it working at the pentagon institute nearly seven years ago at the area of tailings ponds was about fifty square kilometers that area has now grown to one hundred seventy six. some of the tailings ponds like this one at suncor run parallel to the athabaskan river. pollution from the petrochemical industry weakens the speaker system in which the northern peoples live. where the river ends deep in the northern forest the land of the first nations the native americans. there are no roads there you have to fly over the mines and discover what this land looked like before the oil sands extraction began. last stop for chip away in the middle of nowhere.

one thousand two hundred souls live here on the banks of the athabaskan lake formerly a significant site for fishing. today these indian tribes can see the oil industry swooping down on them between fatalism and resistance. huge. huge ship is where it's just ten kilometers where and this whole area is slated to be mined. which is under that's where i think it's four thousand square kilometers less than ten percent is being mined but our government wants to mine the whole thing in fifty or seventy years the indian reserves its biggest spots are the places that have the best chance of preservation but look at them they're surrounded by oil sands so.

nothing has a chance here anymore but really my wife's family is afraid will become environmental refugees that will have to leave this part of the world just to find a healthy place to live. and i seen no sign of alberta taking any responsible attitude towards the potential damage that could happen. that's for chips is. because we're down the river from all of this. great tools which are drinking water. that's our wildlife that's everything that's our fishery. larson the old native canadian is taking us to his land hunting and fishing here since he was a child he's one of four chip away in living memories he has seen his people and nature itself change. lanes will be here they're coming close here maybe

a matter of miles from here they've got plants now. and then the lid is going down every year but it's not ok you see the level of the rocks. and there will be a question before here's where you see the live in. all because. the plants would take so much water and the big dams they have. we got to stop it. might be a work or whatever it does to feed your family now. big money big money. you might have a good fit for a while not to riches here we've got a billion dollars to dig a lot of my app you know i still buy the government outfield million dollar stake right well no i don't think quite a few are given up. and may have hurt on

a dollar did. grab. there. but the native canadians patience is slowly wearing thin and for cheaper wayne is living on welfare. please. please. please please. please. please.

crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. on a maronite in the financial world. to talk to cease to goldman cannot stop it is a very lonely take no demand to spread it is not going to get any better in life there are and there are books. with the economic ups and downs in the final months. and the rest. will be a prickly thing. to

help poor people who are women. and nobody's trying to make money out of those who want to make money out of them by. the time the whole thing. and. the first nations dismay is taken very seriously their anger could challenge the expansion of the industry so while companies pay them the school here are you sent to their new road to create a few jobs and make them forget about the pollution scandals. such as the scandal of a commercial fishing the main livelihood of the people of four chip away and it's been declining for years fishermen condemned the impact of oil sands on the fish i never seen any fish years back and we had the best water which greeted the new

rivers and. last twenty years i would share a little more. normal fish like me to be born with. some kind of chemical. regularly sends his catch to researchers who are putting together a scientific report the objective to launch a large scale toxicology study in the area. your thirty's have consistently refused to conduct the fishermen in four chippewa and have been seeing more of these malformations over the years and not only more fish is showing these deformities but also different kinds of deformities that they haven't seen as much in the past he can see here in this in this burbage or link see here some sort of lesion

below one of its fins increased temperatures of water and can lead to malformations we know that stress is related to spawning and lead to malformation but we also know that ph is and high levels of selenium and other contaminants in the water can lead to to all sorts of abnormalities so you know something like this where there's missing vertebrae is quite commonly the result of water pollution i mean once we have contaminant plumes leading away from telling spawns it's too late they can't be remediated so now we have a situation where mildred lake settling basin and other major tailings ponds have contaminant plumes that are in contact with ground water and heading towards the at the best the river we can't do anything about that what effect that will have on on the downstream over the centuries to come nobody knows but it's a sort of thing that needs to be studied. the first nations feel betrayed by the

government. destruction of oil sands calls into question treaties signed almost a century ago. at the time being state of canada had finalized treaties with each tribe. an old arrangement that's almost disappeared even if the text is doing graved in the country's constitution. morning. i have my. files placed trees one two level thank you will will your is the lawyer for his people it's a family affair his grandfather signed a treaty that sanctified the native tribes rights in alberta with his own hand there is many people that took a canoe along the at the basque river and as they're going along they seen oil seeping out from the side of the hills and they asked the first nations people the digitas people what. they said all that soil and they said we have to make

a treaty with these indians to access that. resource rich area treat allowed the first nations people to hunt trap fish. for their subsistence that is the basis for the relationship between canada and the first nations and what it's done is the promise of for ever as long as the grass grows as lawns and sun shines as long as the river flows all of those don't mean much because the rivers are flowing but they're full of pollutants and so is the air you know. it's not the same as it was thirty years ago it's polluted it's dangerous. it has or it contains carcinogenic samosa the air in the water. we hear of cancer cases everywhere from this pollution beatriz it in tells us about the loss of a loved one dozens of them and all come to the same conclusion. nothing

has changed here except for the oil development. cecilia lost her son a young boy taken away in only a few weeks by a cancer a very rare type of cancer. i was in the hospital and. the doctor said. that it was cancer. so he started out across town to connect. all. that were all we gain

this nightmare. one of my son's friends that are he has. and. there is a few other diagnosed here around his age have cancer it's not normal. it's just water and this pollution. like what they're burning out there at these sites is not safe for even the work people that work there. it's just i mean real like oh today money rules you know the people that are killing these people. they should be traveling every other murder everybody's. great.

a few years ago the law of silence was broken we went to fort mckay another native canadian reserve to meet dr john o'connor the man who sparked this scandal. are you. so what's going on. right if you had to pay for. this irishman was the only doctor at four chip away in for forty years. and it's not appear trace of her own a rural district doctor and he was alarmed by the increase of cancer in such a small community. it's i discovered a margin of pathology counselors and old immune diseases that. it really surprised me cancer board came up to the community got the information he needed went back to

edmonton and they took a year and two thousand and nine they announced there's actually a thirty percent higher rate of cancer and for chip and among them rare cancers is it environmental is it bad luck is it lifestyle is it genetics we know the people poor chip eighty percent of the community is traditional they subsist off the land on fish gather and trap. genetic cancers you can see the mite off you know and there's no there's no real suggestion that there's a genetic issue bad look at how many were. the environmental changes that have been seen are increasing independent science has proven that we've never had and by the way a public health official said one word or other one word of concern that the tar sands may be causing an impact and it is bizarre even based on the precautionary principle you know which is a sort of a fundamental of public health if there's a risk here move the risk of you move the people people are hardly concerned about

these native canadians and cancer in fort mcmurray the region's resources keep attracting gold diggers black gold that is. this city has become one of the most prosperous in the country the most expensive two entire districts are hastily built to welcome poil workers and their families a new house a fabulous salary people from around the world come here to make a fortune canadian petrodollars can withstand all crises when the recession hit like you never really get married ever really felt or say right it was a little now like everywhere else like a lot of places they felt they hit really hard but here everything just kind of kept on going as it was. right everything just kept going up. realistically like you need or it's not going to stop a lot of people going negative attitude if you have a positive attitude and you're going there's lots to do and you can keep yourself entertained and there's the really good opportunities for oil sands should earn

canada two trillion dollars in twenty years so criticisms are warnings are often brushed aside the government drums its official line in terms of oil exploration there is much worse elsewhere we are so transparent people sometimes try to use that transparency against us but i would encourage them to go to other countries where it isn't so transparent for example iran's or many of the other middle eastern countries they're having increasing difficulties mainly because of the result of political instability it would be great if there was another. a magic source of energy that had no consequences on the environment there is no such thing so as long as we're going to be using oil as part of the energy mix in the world the all sands in alberta are an important piece of that and we're determined to work hard to ensure that our environmental standards are amongst the very best in the world. the image of a responsible and ecological canada has been dented. on december twelfth two

thousand and eleven the country shut the door on the kyoto protocol reducing greenhouse gases is impossible with the oil sands boom. andrew nikifor of has done the math the country ran the risk of getting a fourteen billion dollar fine for exceeding its quotas many members of the canadian government do not believe climate change is a threat the prime minister of canada is a climate change skeptic so the canadian government is in a mad rush to exploit this resource as quickly as possible before the rest of the world shames us into controlling production and says look. joe million barrels that's enough we don't the world will not need five million barrels of this stuff is too dirty you know this resource is telling you now you must get off oil this is the end game when you have to dig up the forests the size of rhode island or delaware when it takes two tons of sand to make one barrel of oil you know you're

at the bottom of the ninth inning and that's where we're at. a fork in the road between fossil energy and renewable energy also a fork in the history of canada's north. in fort mcmurray oil workers take their children to see the bison. the animals are housed in a former mine of the same crude oil company. proof that the environment is in good health. and for chip away and in other native canadian reserves the elderly are withdrawing even further into their communities they watch the factories advance on this land that they consider a sacred. i cry. if you had to were trouble. will be not. going to be. my people in a minority on the mound and. i

cannot be counted might or might. trip web people that creep would or down here i pulled a man. that were mitchell that many think should go in. with you ron to begin with you were the omega. no no memorable a bad lab bad record that they dish droid and they go would never. well. join us this month in fossil loan as we follow the international teams

fighting for racing glory al smith. on holmes hotly delve into the mysterious cost of a coach plus a under sponsorship pulls away from the hot clearing the road for a space probe i. had known each on chief we've done the future cover. you know where you. were.

in the news you see good lumbered sure to mccurdy was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which on field. doesn't give a darn about anything mission to teach me the creation and why it should care about humans in the world this is why you should care only.

one of your whole life should be. the face you know. her. pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm. looking. right on the scene. of the first strike. and i think the church. on our reporters twitter. and instagram. should be in the most subtle.

an entire family has been killed in the eastern ukrainian city of they were among civilian lives lost in heavy shelling some graphic images have emerged from the city aren't we showing residential areas coming under fire. from the combat in the region forces international teams to scrap their plans to travel to the malaysian plane crash site. which is on the fence of a nearby town. also this week defense ministry. data suggesting there was a second plane near the malaysian airliner possibly a ukrainian military fighter while the u.s. is being pressured.