"Photographer and pilot Alex MacLean wanted to learn more about the Keystone XL pipeline, which if approved will carry oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, so he decided to take pictures from above of the tar sands that will supply oil to the project. What he found shocked him.

"The scale of the operation is staggering," MacLean told The Huffington Post. It's "mind-boggling," he said, how expansive it is, and how much money is being poured into drilling and strip mining for the viscous petroleum product that will give the Keystone XL pipeline its oil."

James Gerken reports for the Huffington Post May 29, 2014. [2]