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 Globe and Mail does Tar Sands for a week
The Globe and Mail does Tar Sands for a week
Dru Oja Jay-- The Dominion http://dominionpaper.ca/weblogs/dru/1641 (blog)
Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
The first of the Globe and Mail's week-long series on the tar, I mean, oil sands has at least one interesting insight, though it'll be interesting to keep track of all the things that they don't mention.
Climate Neros fiddle while Rome burns
Climate Neros fiddle while Rome burns
Jan 28, 2008 04:30 AM
Tyler Hamilton
Energy Reporter
Governments and industry love to talk about the things they plan to do, perhaps to detract attention away from what they haven't done or aren't doing.
How many radio or television debates have shown an environmentalist pointing out the devastating effects of oil sands and power production in Alberta, only to have industry officials tout concepts like "clean coal" or "carbon capture and sequestration" – as if the solution is here and the problem is being overcome as they speak?
Green groups rally against tar sands development
Green groups rally against oil sands development
ROBERT MATAS
From Monday's Globe and Mail
January 28, 2008 at 5:09 AM EST
VANCOUVER — An environmental group that successfully shifted the buying power of Victoria's Secret, Home Depot and Staples in a campaign to protect British Columbia's old-growth forests has now turned its attention to Alberta's northern oil industry.
Energy hogs rule
Energy hogs rule
Elites love to pig out on energy.
Dateline: Monday, January 21, 2008
"We use 30 percent of all the energy... That isn't bad; that is good.
That means we are the richest, strongest people in the world and that we
have the highest standard of living in the world. That is why we need so
much energy, and may it always be that way."
— US president Richard Nixon,
November 1973
Things have changed since Nixon proudly proclaimed America the world's
biggest energy guzzler. Or have they?
"Re-learning" what we've forgotten
by Chris Maser
Culture Change (January 06 2008)
Editor's note: This is Chris Maser's Part Three of his series for
Culture Change. I ate this one up, because ever since I read a 1987
article in Discover magazine by Jared Diamond, about hunter-gatherers'
working only a few hours a day a few days a week, I've been aware that
our modern way of life is not what it's cracked up to be. In Maser's
article there is solid anthropological insight applicable to our current
challenge as a dysfunctional society facing extinction. In his eighteen
Oil Exec Explains the Hunt for Unconventional Oil in Lower 48
Five questions with George Stapleton
Looking for oil where others don't
Jan. 24, 2008, 10:50PM
Moneymakers
Brett Clanton
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
It's not Saudi Arabia. But there is oil in Kansas. In Montana and Missouri, too.
In fact, the lower 48 U.S. states contain enough heavy crude oil deposits to power the nation's economy for several years. But they've been largely overlooked in favor of much bigger heavy oil deposits in Canada's oil sands and elsewhere.
Time has come to defend environment
Time has come to defend environment
Posted 1 day ago
Sir: Are Canadians going to stand idly by while the American czars of the Alberta Oil Sands and our politicians play Russian Roulette with their health and their future? Will Vice-President Dick Cheney and the Americans continue to buy Canada's super dirty oil in desperation? Will the horrendous environmental destruction wreaked by the Alberta Tar Sands Projects and their colossal impact on climate change qualify as Canada's "Crime Against Humanity?"
A licence to pollute dressed up in rhetorical petticoats
Commentary
A licence to pollute dressed up in rhetorical petticoats
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
January 26, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST
Canada's conventional oil supplies are running down. They are being replaced with oil from Alberta's tar sands.
Each barrel of tar-sands oil produces two to three times more greenhouse-gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil. The result is obvious: Greenhouse-gas emissions from Alberta oil have been rising.
Prince Rupert Harbour development threatens 10,000 years of Coast Tsimshian history and thousands of human remains
Prince Rupert Harbour development threatens 10,000 years of Coast Tsimshian
history and thousands of human remains
PRINCE RUPERT (January 24, 2008) - The Allied Tribes of the Coast Tsimshian
struggle to protect the 10,000 years of history and thousands of human
remains that are threatened by development around the Prince Rupert Harbour,
says the Honourable Iona Campagnolo.
Campagnolo, the former Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia, who
moderated a three-day seminar on Prince Rupert Harbour Archaeological
Feds expand temporary foreign worker pilot project
January 16, 2008
Feds expand temporary foreign worker pilot project
21 occupations added to expedited labour market opinion program
PAID ADVERTISEMENT
Custom Handbook
The federal government has added 21 occupations to the expedited labour market opinion (E-LMO) pilot project, which makes it faster for employers in British Columbia and Alberta to hire foreign workers.
