The Environment in Canada Podcast Canadian Oil Pipelines: A History of Spills & Future of Spills
Jul 8, 2025
Sean Kheraj, an environmental historian and associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, dives into Canada’s oil pipeline history. He reveals the troubling frequency and impact of oil spills, emphasizing their inevitability despite technological advances. Discussing the Silent Rivers project, he highlights key pipeline incidents and their environmental ramifications. Kheraj critiques current energy practices, advocating for renewable solutions over further infrastructure investments, and illustrates the historical relationship between natural disruptions and environmental justice for Indigenous communities.
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Environmental History Reveals Interactions
- Environmental history explains how natural forces and human actions shape each other over time.
- It broadens understanding beyond human decisions to include impacts on nature, like climate change.
Forgotten Pandemic Changed History
- Alfred Crosby's book on the 1918 influenza epidemic revealed its massive but overlooked impact on American history.
- This story showed how natural events dramatically disrupt human societies and decisions.
Postwar Oil Transformed Canada
- Canadian oil consumption skyrocketed after 1947 due to discoveries near Leduc and new pipelines.
- By 1977, pipelines spanned coast to coast, enabling mass fossil fuel use and shaping modern Canada.