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
Tar Sands and Water: Fort MacKay and Fort Chipewyan (Video)
Video footage shot by oilsandstruth.org with the Dominionpaper.ca & Msguided.org over the course of the summer, huddled together into amateur documentary form (click on the story to view all five parts):
Part one:
Part two:
Nobel Gore? A Prime Time Hypocrite
October 15, 2007
A Prime Time Hypocrite
Nobel Gore?
By JOSHUA FRANK
Al Gore has returned to the political spotlight in exalted fashion with a Nobel Peace Prize in hand, propping himself up for a potential presidential bid in 2008. Front and center in Gore's new rhetorical entourage is the state of nature, and in particular, global warming. And while Gore may be delivering an important message about the fate of our fragile ecosystems, one must be weary of the messenger's past. For Gore's own environmental record leaves much to be desired.
Oil Versus Water
Oil Versus Water
Toxic water poses threat to Alberta's Indigenous communities
by Kim Petersen
The Dominion
Alberta is replete with precious oil. Recovery of that oil from the tar sands, however, is putting another precious resource at risk: water. Dene and Cree First Nations people live close to and in the midst of the largest tar sand deposit in the Athabasca River region and oil extraction is harming their water supply.
An oil & gas Shangri-la in the Arctic?
Published on 10 Oct 2007 by ASPO-USA / Energy Bulletin. Archived on 10 Oct 2007.
An oil & gas Shangri-la in the Arctic?
by Dave Cohen
Scientists say the Arctic contains 25% of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. Why not 100%?
— Stephen Colbert, from the Colbert Report
Water needs for potential oil shale industry could complicate thing (Colorado)
Water needs for potential oil shale industry could complicate thing
BY DENNIS WEBB
garfield county correspondent
September 15, 2007
GRAND JUNCTION — America’s thirst for oil is threatening to add to the thirst for water in the West.
Meeting the nation’s energy needs also is threatening water quality in the region, speakers said Friday at a seminar in Grand Junction on energy development’s impacts on water. The seminar was organized by the Colorado River District, based in Glenwood Springs.
Reflecting on Marx and money gone mad-- Rabble
Reflecting on Marx and money gone mad
by Duncan Cameron
October 9, 2007
The Bank of Canada is busily handing out money to buoy the Canadian financial system, resorting to purchase, and re-purchase agreements which allow financial institutions time to find more funds to satisfy their need for liquidity aka cash. Note that public money is readily available to banks with shortfalls, but not for the homeless.
Australian government report: Peak oil is real, get ready
Australian government report: Peak oil is real, get ready
by The Honourable Andrew McNamara
Future Oil Supply Uncertainty Highlighted
Media Release from the Minister for Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation
A report tabled in State Parliament today highlights the need for Queensland industry, primary producers and communities to lessen their dependence on imported oil supplies.
Sex-trade workers charged after undercover police raids
Thu, October 11, 2007
Sex-trade workers charged after undercover police raids
UPDATED: 2007-10-11 03:18:22 MST
By NADIA MOHARIB
Undercover cops worked some of the city's prostitute strolls picking up working women now accused of sex-trade related offences.
The sweep by the vice and community-response units in the first week of October took them to four of five city strolls -- in the Beltine, East Village, Forest Lawn and near Eau Claire, where so-called high-end prostitutes work.
A Tale of Two Cities: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Fort McMurray
A Tale of Two Cities: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Fort McMurray
To the Tar Sands
The Bad
Fort Muck: place of sex, drugs, violence, homelessness, massive trucks, polluted air and contaminated water. This is what we were told we would find at the end of deadly Highway 63, or in our case Secondary Highway 881. The city of 70 000 has been growing at a most alarming rate. In response, city council has gone so far as to call for a moratorium on new developments. The municipality simply can not keep up with endless stream of new arrivals and the associated demand for services.
"Review" of CNRL's Temporary Foreign Worker Deaths
Alberta Justice officials review oil sands deaths
FORT MCMURRAY, ALTA.
An on-site investigation into the deaths of two temporary Chinese workers at a northern Alberta oil sands tank construction site has been completed but findings have not been released.
The two men died last April when a massive tank collapsed at the multibillion-dollar Horizon oil sands project, killing the two temporary Chinese workers and injuring four more.
It will be up to Alberta Justice officials to determine whether charges should be laid against the company.
Canadian Press
