The capitalist pressure to extract: the ecological and political economy of extreme oil in Canada

Abstract

Abstract Canada’s political economy has been reshaped by extractivist forces based in the western tar sands. The objective of this article is to propose a model of these socioeconomic forces identifying the structures and dynamics that characterize the hydrocarbon extractive sector in an “age of extreme oil” through the development of a theory of the capitalist pressure to extract “unburnable carbon.” This aspect of our model has wider significance for an ecological and political economics given the emerging policy consensus around the need to transition from carbon-based economies because the capitalist pressure to extract acts as a powerful counterforce to this ecological imperative.