Until recently, it was too expensive and complicated to extract the tar sands to produce oil, but over the past few years increases in oil prices and technological changes have made it possible, and profitable.

Companies are now producing over a million barrels of oil per day from the tar sands, and this number is constantly increasing.

But the explosive growth of these projects has huge environmental costs, damaging land, air, water, forests, and the climate.  Greenpeace is calling on oil companies and the government to stop the tar sands, for the sake of people and the planet.