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
Walruses Die; Global Warming Blamed
Walruses Die; Global Warming Blamed
By DAN JOLING Associated Press Writer
Dec 14th, 2007 | ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- In what some scientists see as another
alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above
the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes earlier this year after the
disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in
extraordinary numbers.
The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of
the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia. "It was a pretty
Yikes! : "Prentice reviewing Mackenzie Valley pipeline financial plan"
Prentice reviewing Mackenzie Valley pipeline financial plan
Jon Harding, Financial Post Published: Sunday, December 16, 2007
The proposed pipeline would run through the Mackenzie Valley.HO/AFP/Getty ImagesThe proposed pipeline would run through the Mackenzie Valley.
CALGARY -- Canada's Industry Minister Jim Prentice is reviewing a financial plan submitted to him Friday by the backers of the $16.2-billion Mackenzie Gas Project.
Comments of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (Submission on the Alberta Clipper)
December 7, 2007 BY ELECTRONIC AND U.S. MAIL
Ms. Elizabeth Orlando
OES/ENV Room 2657
U.S. Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
Re: Enbridge Pipeline Projects; Alberta Clipper
Comments of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
Dear Ms. Orlando:
These comments are submitted on behalf of the Minnesota Center for
Environmental Advocacy (“MCEA”). MCEA is a Minnesota-based non-profit
environmental organization whose mission is to use law, science, and research to
preserve and protect Minnesota’s natural resources, wildlife, and the health of its
Vancouver Launch of Dominion Special Tar Sands Issue
- Alberta (& Saskatchewan) Tar Sands
- Enbridge Gateway Pipeline/ Offshore Tanker Traffic [BC]
- Mackenzie Gas Project / Alaska Highway pipelines [NWT/AK]
- Tarsands Infrastructure: South/ East [US & Can]
- International oil & gas
- Animals
- Climate Change / Emissions
- Corruption
- Economics
- Energy
- Forests
- Gender
- Health
- Indigenous
- Labour / Migration
- Land
- Nuclear
- Peak Oil
- Social Impacts
- War and Security
- Water
What do you know about the largest industrial project in human history?
EDUCATIONAL ON THE TAR SANDS
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18TH
6:30 PM ROOM 2270
SFU HARBOUR CENTRE
515 WEST HASTINGS
Come learn about the Alberta Tar Sands and its impact on indigenous rights, the environment, labour rights including migrant workers, as well as its global consequences in an era of oil-dependency, the War on Terror, and an expanding corporate regime through the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement.
Peak Phosphorus
by Bill Totten (December 11 2007)
In an article I posted here on December 9th entitled "What Will We Eat
as the Oil Runs Out?" Richard Heinberg refers to the peaking of another
valuable, but finite, resource:
"Phosphorus is set to become much more scarce and expensive, according to
a study by Patrick Dery, a Canadian agriculture and environment analyst
and consultant. Using data from the US Geological Survey, Dery performed
a peaking analysis on phosphate rock, similar to the techniques used by
petroleum geologists to forecast declines in production from oilfields.
Canada's tar sands are fueling U.S. cars - but at what cost?
Canada's oil sands are fueling U.S. cars - but at what cost?
McClatchy Newspapers
Published Sunday, December 16, 2007
FORT CHIPEWYAN, Alberta — Like a great silver snake, the Athabasca
River glides though a spongy-wet wilderness of spindly forests, lakes
and marshes 650 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border.
Breathe deeply, though, and you catch a whiff of fresh, hot tar. In
the river, fish are speckled with shiny, wart-like blisters. And in
the tiny Indian village of Fort Chipewyan, people are coming down
with leukemia, bile duct cancer and other diseases.
More Pew wishy washy cabbage talk about the tar sands: What is it about "STOP!" that they don't understand?
The Pew has apparently launched an all-out international media blitz about the tar sands, yet their actual position on the tar sands becomes murkier day by day. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the Pew family built the first tar sands project in 1967 and that the Pew family continues to refine large amounts of mock oil through its company Sunoco. And that Suncor is also a partner in the Canadian Boreal Initiative.
- Tarpit Pete
Green leaves, black gold
By Sheila McNulty
Financial Times London
Water becomes the new oil as world runs dry
"At a City briefing by an international bank last week, a senior
executive said: 'Today everyone is talking about global warming, but my
prediction is that in two years water will move to the top of the
geopolitical agenda.'"
Water becomes the new oil as world runs dry
Western companies have the know-how - and the financial incentive -
to supply water to poor nations. But, as Richard Wachman reports,
their involvement is already provoking unrest
* Richard Wachman
* The Observer,
* Sunday December 9 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/09/water.climatechange
Crude awakening: Why are environmentalists asleep at the tar sands wheel?
Crude awakening
Why are environmentalists asleep at the tar sands wheel?
BY Dru Oja Jay
Alberta’s tar sands are on pace to become the largest industrial project in human history. The development will arguably become the single most environmentally destructive undertaking in Canadian history. The response from environmental groups and progressives has been meek.
Stéphane Dion told The New York Times in 2005 that, “There is no environmental minister on Earth who can stop the oil from coming out of the sand, because the money is too big.”
Bruce Power looks at Alberta facility (for Nuclear Reactors)
Bruce Power looks at Alberta facility
By The Canadian Press
Published: 12/14/2007 - Vol. 3, No. 25
An Ontario-based company that operates Canada's first private nuclear electricity generating plant wants to build a similar facility in Alberta.
Bruce Power has announced plans to buy Energy Alberta Corp., which has already begun preliminary work on a proposal to build a nuclear plant in the Peace River area about 350 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
The company says any decisions it makes will rely heavily on having a willing community.
