Tar Sands 101
The Tar Sands "Gigaproject" is the largest industrial project in human history and likely also the most destructive. The tar sands mining procedure releases at least three times the CO2 emissions as regular oil production and is slated to become the single largest industrial contributor in North America to Climate Change.
The tar sands are already slated to be the cause of up to the second fastest rate of deforestation on the planet behind the Amazon Rainforest Basin. Currently approved projects will see 3 million barrels of tar sands mock crude produced daily by 2018; for each barrel of oil up to as high as five barrels of water are used.
Human health in many communities has seriously taken a turn for the worse with many causes alleged to be from tar sands production. Tar sands production has led to many serious social issues throughout Alberta, from housing crises to the vast expansion of temporary foreign worker programs that racialize and exploit so-called non-citizens. Infrastructure from pipelines to refineries to super tanker oil traffic on the seas crosses the continent in all directions to allthree major oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.
The mock oil produced primarily is consumed in the United States and helps to subsidize continued wars of aggression against other oil producing nations such as Iraq, Venezuela and Iran.
To understand the tar sands in more depth, continue to our Tar Sands 101 reading list
The Tar Sands, Downstream: Cancer, and the BC connection.
The Tar Sands, Downstream
Cancer, and the BC connection.
By Blair Redlin and Caelie Frampton
Published: May 20, 2008
When 500 ducks died earlier this month after landing on a tar sands tailings pond, Canadians got a glimpse into how unfettered tar sands development is taking its toll.
Members of the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations living downstream from the massive industrial projects have been feeling the effects for a lot longer.
Shell 'selling suicide' by preferring tar sands to wind
Shell 'selling suicide' by preferring tar sands to wind
Terry Macalister // The Guardian // Wednesday May 21 2008
Shell was accused yesterday of "selling suicide on the forecourt" by pressing ahead with tar sands operations in Canada and continuing to flare off excess gas in Nigeria while pulling out of renewable schemes such as the London Array - the world's largest offshore wind scheme.
Time to draw a line in the tar sands
Time to draw a line in the oil sands
May 01, 2008 04:30 AM
Gillian McEachern
Matt Price
Ontario is on the cusp of helping oil-sands emissions explode. Shell Canada wants permits to be granted by the end of this year for a new refinery in Sarnia to process oil from its oil-sands mines in Alberta for use in gas tanks across the GTA.
The company will be submitting its environmental assessment in June, but the governments of Canada and Ontario are already being pressed to make crucial decisions about the refinery.
Environmental groups blacken reputation of Alberta tar sands
Making mention of the Pew Foundation/Charitable Trusts here is ridiculously over-simplified. The groups that the Pew fund, through the money from Sunoco (who continue to refine tar sands oil and make multiple billions), are overwhelmingly among the most tame and market driven ones-- deflecting actual campaigning against the tar sands. The story below, while it contains valuable nuggets of information, must be making those who misdirect resistance to the tar sands smile.
--M
Environmental groups blacken reputation of Alberta oilsands
Sask. to go nuclear?
Sask. to go nuclear?
By NEIL WAUGH, EDMONTON SUN
Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason went off the Richter Scale in the legislature last week. What else is new.
This time it was over Premier Ed Stelmach's nuclear energy policy.
Basically, the policy says let's study it now and come up with a position later after the premier promises to "ask Albertans for their opinions.
"We can't put our heads in the sand," Stelmach told Mason.
(I suspect, though, he was thinking of another place to shove the pesky socialist's noggin.)
Ottawa fast tracks Kearl mine permit
Ottawa fast tracks Kearl mine permit
Decision to green-light Imperial oil sands project for a second time now sits with cabinet
DAVID EBNER AND BRIAN LAGHI
Globe and Mail
May 19, 2008
CALGARY, OTTAWA — — Work on an $8-billion oil sands mine that was delayed by the loss of a key federal water permit is now likely to get under way within weeks because Ottawa sees the file as "important" and is putting it on a fast track.
Alberta tar sands affecting drug habits in Newfoundland
Alberta oil sands affecting drug habits in Newfoundland
BY PAUL HERRIDGE
The Southern Gazette (Nfld)
Sergeant Wayne Edgecombe, of the Burin Peninsula District RCMP Detachment, acknowledged cocaine use in rural Newfoundland was a rarity two decades ago.
Not anymore.
Since the oil boom in Alberta exploded a couple of years ago, and people from this province began regularly travelling back and forth on shift rotations, the situation has changed dramatically.
Cocaine has joined marijuana as the drug of choice in Newfoundland and Labrador, some might say even overtaken.
Big Oil on the Water
Big Oil on the Water
Skating Around the Tanker Issue
By CHRIS GENOVALI
A well known Victoria, British Columbia radio talk show host once told local Conservative MP (Member of Parliament) Gary Lunn on air that he was such a good skater (as in skating around the issues) that he should be competing in the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics.
Jailed Algonquin Leader Begins Hunger Strike
May 15, 2008 - For Immediate Release
Jailed Algonquin Leader Begins Hunger Strike
Second Algonquin Chief Going to Jail - McGuinty Government Does Nothing
On February 15, 2008 Ardoch Algonquin First Nation
(AAFN) Spokesperson Robert Lovelace was sentenced in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Kingston to 6 months in maximum security, plus crippling fines, for peacefully protesting uranium mining in the Ardoch homeland. Chief Paula Sherman was fined $15,000 and given until today to pay the fine, failing which she will be jailed.
Tar Sands to be Developed in Africa
Eni finds oil sands deposits in Congo
By Ed Crooks in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo
Published: May 20 2008 03:00 | Last updated: May 20 2008 03:00
Eni, the Italian oil group, has discovered a large oil sands deposit in the Republic of Congo that is expected to become Africa's first large unconventional oil development and could hold several billion barrels.
Paolo Scaroni, Eni's chief executive, said the project, due to begin production in 2011, opened "a new front" in the development of unconventional oil.
