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
Saskatchewan uranium expert brings warning to eastern Ontario, western Quebec
Saskatchewan uranium expert brings warning to eastern Ontario, western Quebec
Four city tour to reveal uranium's long-term ecological and health pain for short-term private economic gain
by Lynn Daniluk
OTTAWA - An expert on Saskatchewan's uranium mining industry will warn people against letting the industry establish itself in the Ottawa River watershed in a 5-day book tour Jan. 22-26, 2008.
"Looking for solutions to the carbon conundrum"
This article, while interesting, has a major flaw: There is no sequestration program nor technology, and instead of dealing with the issues of Climate Change RIGHT NOW, with the means available before the next washes into the sea and hurricane hits New Orleans or elsewhere, this "plan" is precisely being taken up to *avoid* planning.
It's interesting, but the logic is not merely flawed, it's criminal.
--M
Looking for solutions to the carbon conundrum
Capitalism and Peak Oil: The Perfect Storm
Capitalism and Peak Oil: The Perfect Storm
by Jim Lydecker
Napa Valley Register (January 18 2008)
Americans have recently become aware of converging crises that can end life as we know it, though experts have been warning us for many years.
For example, many economists have been warning for decades of the severe consequences resulting from runaway national debt and an imbalance of trade. And the current mortgage/liquidity crisis was first discussed in the early 1990s by a number of financial experts.
Profit and Power at the Expense of the Lubicon: Pipeline Pushes On
Profit and Power at the Expense of the Lubicon: Pipeline Pushes On
http://mostlywater.org/profit_and_power_expense_lubicon
Syndicated from Intercontinental Cry
Promoted by ron collins on Mon, 2008-02-04 07:50.
According to a recent communique from Friends of the Lubicon, TransCanada officials have decided to proceed with their application to build a new jumbo gas pipeline across unceded Lubicon Territory.
Eastern Canada Vulnerable to Oil Shortages
Eastern Canada Vulnerable to Oil Shortages
New Report Calls for Canada to Set Up Strategic Petroleum Reserves
EDMONTON
Canada is currently the most vulnerable country in the industrial world
to short-term oil supply crises, and we need to establish strategic petroleum
reserves to remedy the problem. This is the key finding of a report released
today by Alberta’s Parkland Institute in conjunction with the Polaris Institute.
Freezing in the Dark: Why Canada Needs Strategic Petroleum Reserves points out
Slavery and Fossil Fuels
Slavery and Fossil Fuels
Charles Justice
The nineteenth century global economy was a like a small scale version of
today's global economy. Trade in slaves, sugar, coffee, tobacco, and cotton were
the drivers of global economic growth. But the growing trade in the above
mentioned non-human commodities was first made possible by slave labour in
plantations in the tropics and the American South.
In our modern global economy, cheap fossil fuels have taken the place of slaves.
Industrial farming, convenient travel by automobile, and the transportation of
Life on the cold side of the country's hottest economy
Life on the cold side of the country's hottest economy
The oil sands dominate Alberta's wealth and growth, but not all parts of the province are taking part – including, surprisingly, the conventional oil industry
GORDON PITTS
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
January 30, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST
In the rolling farmland around Derwent, Alta., the fields are littered with what look like oversized pop cans. These stubby storage tanks contain heavy oil that has been pumped from the ground and is waiting to be trucked away – much of it to the big Husky Oil upgrader in Lloydminster.
Gnostic insights illuminate Alberta Tar Sands prosperity as an apparent Manipulative Extraterrestrial Virtual Reality illusion
Gnostic insights illuminate Alberta Tar Sands prosperity as an apparent Manipulative Extraterrestrial Virtual Reality illusion
by Peter Tremblay
Suncor announces $20.6 billion tar pit expansion
Suncor announces $20.6 billion oil sands expansion
Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, January 30, 2008
OTTAWA - Oilsands producer Suncor Energy has approved a $20.6-billion expansion to boost crude oil production by 200,000 barrels at its facility north of Fort McMurray, Alta.
The company said its board had approved the expenditure as part of its goal to increase output to 550,000 barrels per day in 2012.
"The kinder, gentler energy superpower"
While a few small nuggets of things are coming through in the Globe's series on the tar sands, the articles are not only omitting a lot of important facts, they are distorting others. When the articles talk about "Albertan" opinions on the tar sands, they omit/distort the fact that the province is really split into north and south-- and that a majority of those as far north as Edmonton, let alone south like in Medicine Hat, Calgary and Lethbridge, have never actually seen the tar sands mines (or in-situ operations).
