Oil Pollution

Toxic Fuels

Tarnished Earth

Tarnished Earth is a dramatic street gallery of photographs by Jiri Rezac telling the story of tar sands, one of the world's biggest ecological disasters.

A spectacular presentation of pristine wilderness, human folly, consequences and alternatives, Tarnished Earth is an exhibition of devastating power.

Tarnished Earth is free to all on the South Bank of the River Thames, London, from Tuesday 14 September to Thursday 14 October. It will then tour to a further 8 locations (TBC) across the UK.

The Tarnished Earth website will launch shortly.

Visit the Toxic Fuels campaign website

Toxic Fuels, our campaign with WWF-UK, aims to combat the shocking global trend of extracting oil from unconventional sources, such as tar sands and shale oil. Such exploitation threatens global efforts to avoid dangerous levels of climate change and risks local ecological disaster.

take action

• Contact your MP to pressure the UK Government to help stop tar sands expansion
• Donate to the Beaver Lake Cree and help them stop tar sands
• Spread the word – tell your friends, family and colleagues about this issue and help them join our fight via our pages on Twitter andFacebook as well as our campaign site.

tar sands film trilogy

As part of our Toxic Fuels campaign, in 2010, we've supported the UK cinema release of three tar sands films - Dirty Oil, Petropolis and H₂Oil. More information can be found on the film website.

reports

• Unconventional Oil: scraping the bottom of the barrel: published with WWF-UK, this report looks at the increasing exploitation of unconventional oils, such as tar sands and shale oil, and the global and local impacts this will have. The report concludes that exploiting North America's unconventional oil reserves would trigger runaway climate change and risks a local ecological disaster.
• Carbon Capture and Storage in the Alberta Oil Sands - A Dangerous Myth: published with WWF-UK, this report debunks the idea, lauded by oil companies and the Canadian government, that carbon capture and storage (CCS) will significantly counter the high levels of greenhouse gases emitted in the production of oil from tar sands deposits in Alberta, Canada.
• The Opportunity Cost of the Tar Sands Report (PDF 562 KB), written by The Co-operative and WWF-UK , this report shows how the planned investment in tar sands between now and 2025 (£256 bn) could be better spent, including paying for a vast solar array in North Africa connected to Europe by a new supergrid or funding a Europe wide shift to electric vehicles. It could also fund some of the Millenium Development Goals including providing universal primary education and giving 1.6 billion people access to improved water and sanitation.

For more information on our campaign, visit our campaign website.