Ultradeep: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Fort McMurray and the Fires of Climate Change

Abstract

In the spring of 2016, a wildfire consumed the boreal forest that encircles the municipality of Fort McMurray, Alberta. Notwithstanding the severity of the blaze, known as “The Beast,” attention turned to the community because of its link to Canada’s largest industrial project – the Athabasca tar/oil sands in northern Alberta. A moment of controversy erupted in May 2016 when commentary pinned the cause of the wildfire on climate change, a charge that was quickly judged insensitive. With this context in mind, Fort McMurray holds scholarly value in the investigation of discourse related to today’s dominant form of energy – fossil fuels. Using a dataset of opinion discourse (N=40) sourced from four Canadian newspapers (The Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Calgary Herald, and the Edmonton Journal), this thesis presents a critical discourse analysis of how commentators and editorial boards articulated the relationship between the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire and concerns about the tar/oil sands contribution to climate change. The opinion pages are free from the journalistic pressure of objectivity and thus offer a place for argumentative narratives to reside. As such, my analysis focuses on the use of storylines in the dataset to give meaning to the wildfire and the tar/oil sands industry. The analysis reveals that the storylines cast environmentalist groups as ideologically motivated radicals while the oil industry was positioned as Alberta’s economic champion, thereby fusing the petro-state with the common good.