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
Booms Housing Crisis Leading Women into Survival Sex Trade
Housing woes lead to sex trade: advocate
June 18, 2007
http://www.sextradeworkersofcanada.com/sex%20trade/News/detail.asp?iData...
By CARTER HAYDU , SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA
Mary Jane St. Savard checks Marvin Ross's hair at their tent behind the Bissell Centre on 96st and 105 ave. A large group of people have set up tents on the empty field after police and park rangers moved them off various other locations.
Skyrocketing rents are forcing some women into the "survival sex trade," warns one advocate for prostitutes.
Tar Sand Workers Cruising down to Edmonton?
Ft. Mac workers cruising in city?
CP - 5/31/2006
By FRANK LANDRY, CITY HALL BUREAU
http://www.sextradeworkersofcanada.com/sex%20trade/News/detail.asp?iData...
The head of a city group that targets johns says oilsands workers making big bucks "working in the bush" are regularly cruising down to Edmonton and buying sex.
Kate Quinn, executive director of the Prostitution Awareness and Action Foundation of Edmonton (PAAFE), said her group will approach oil companies about going into Fort McMurray to talk to employees about the harms of prostitution.
Ricardo Acuna on Non-Consensus in the Tar Sands Multi-Stakeholder Committee
- 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
- Corruption
- Economics
- Energy
- Forests
- Gender
- Health
- Indigenous
- Labour / Migration
- Land
- Social Impacts
- Water
http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewFeature7.cfm?REF=410
Oil Sands Committee reports back
It is time for the Stelmach government to pick a side: public or industry.
Dateline: Tuesday, August 07, 2007
by Ricardo Acuna
Last week, the Alberta Government released the much anticipated final report and recommendations of the Oil Sands Multi-Stakeholder Committee — the committee charged with carrying out a broad-based consultation with Albertans and making recommendations on the future of the Alberta tar sands.
Dehcho Unimpressed by Feds; WWF, CBI Quite So
If you see a contradiction between these articles, you are one with good observation skills.
--M
Natives doubt federal will to expand northern wilderness preserve
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/politics/story.html?id=12b160e6-ac48-4...
Mike De Souza, CanWest News Service // Tuesday, August 07, 2007
OTTAWA — Aboriginal leaders are skeptical about a federal government promise to expand the portions of the Northwest Territories that are protected from new mining, oil and gas development.
Terrace Standard Hacking up Dogwood Initiative, NDP-- Promoting oil and gas in Douglas Channel
As always, the good news is that when such hate comes at you, it is part of a larger concern that the politics being brought forth by critics are harming "business as usual". As such, people concerned about traditional lands from Edmonton to Kitamaat Village and up and down the Inside Pasage of BC should take note, and perhaps a pat on the back. Fear them only when they ignore you.
--M
This MP should stay far away
By ROGER HARRIS
http://www.terracestandard.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=33&cat=48&id=...
Aug 08 2007
Announcing Californian Tar Sands Drilling
What you read here is a press release put out by the Tri-Valley corp. It is obviously full of self-promoting, you should-buy-our-stocks stuff-- where it announces the beginning of tar sands "extraction" experimentation with Californian "SagD" or in-situ "drilling" of massive energy and high cost tar sands bitumen. AS this is what most of the Orinoco Basin is made up of, it would be likely that there is ex-pat Venezuelan Gusano help in trying to undercut the Bolivarians with this technology.
In a sentence: Welcome California into the world of producing death from sand to get oil.
New Greenpeace office to fight tar sands
New Greenpeace office to fight oilsands
edmontonjournal.com
Published: Wednesday, August 01
EDMONTON - The environmental activist organization Greenpeace Canada is setting up shop in Edmonton to fight Alberta's oilsands development.
The organization has hired two full-time staff to campaign against devlopment of northern Alberta's oilsands, which it calls Canada's glob al warming disaster.
Northern Saskatchewan Nation Blockades Tar Sands, Talking to Oilsands Quest
First Nation talking to province about oilsands
Last Updated: Thursday, August 2, 2007 | 10:40 AM CT
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/08/02/oilsands.html
The chief of a western Saskatchewan First Nation that blocked a road used by an oil exploration company said he's not concerned the company has moved some of its operations to Alberta.
In June, the Clearwater First Nation blocked Highway 955 north of La Loche, a route used by the Calgary-based Oilsands Quest in its search for oilsands.
Oil: BC's Hydra-headed Headache
Oil: BC's Hydra-headed Headache
A grim exception. To prevent and respond to spills, our policies are a mess.
By Arthur Caldicott // August 2, 2007
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/08/02/Hydra/
For an industry that likes to keep its business underground, pipeline companies create a hell of mess when they allow it to surface. And the shipping industry, which prefers to stay on the surface, creates a hell of a mess when it tanks.
Homelessness in Fort McMurray
Image being addressed
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/Local%20News/328436.html
By MATTHEW HEINDL
Today staff
Friday August 03, 2007
The need for a homeless shelter for youth was broached at a homeless strategy session in Fort McMurray Thursday, but it wasn’t adopted as one of the areas identified as immediate priorities.
