Andrew Nikiforuk
Andrew Nikiforuk is a leading investigative journalist who has written about education, economics, and the environment for the past two decades. His work has appeared in a variety of Canadian publications including The Walrus, Maclean's, Canadian Business, Report on Business, Chatelaine, Georgia Straight, Equinox and Harrowsmith.
He is the author of the critically acclaimed Empire of the Beetle and the bestseller Tar Sands, which won the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award. His book Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig’s War against Oil was the winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. His other books include Pandemonium and The Fourth Horseman: A Short History of Plagues, Scourges and Emerging Viruses. His journalism has won seven National Magazine Awards and top honours for investigative writing from the Association of Canadian Journalists.
Nikiforuk lives with his family in Calgary, Alberta. Whether speaking or writing about melting glaciers, peak oil, the destruction of the boreal forest, or bark beetle outbreaks, Nikiforuk has earned a reputation as an honest and provocative voice in Canadian journalism.
“Probably no single event highlights the strength of Campbell’s argument (on peak oil) better than the rapid development of the Alberta tar sands. Bitumen, the world’s ugliest and most expensive hydrocarbon, can never be a reasonable substitute for light oil due to its extreme capital, energy, and carbon intensity. Bitumen looks, smells, and behaves like asphalt; running an economy on it is akin to digging up our existing road infrastructure, melting it down, and enriching the goop with hydrogen until it becomes a sulfur-rich but marketable oil.”