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
Kinder slows Canadian plans
Kinder slows Canadian plans
Calgary Herald
May 26, 2010
Pipelines - Kinder Morgan Energy Partners has slowed multibillion-dollar plans to add oil pipeline capacity to Canada's West Coast due to a lack of demand, but still believes its proposal is the oilsands industry's best option, its president said Tuesday.
Kinder Morgan and Enbridge Inc. have both floated projects to move crude from Alberta's oilsands to the Pacific Coast, where it could be shipped by tanker to Asia.
Southeast Texas Keystone XL Hearings
PIPELINE
Potential piping project opens debate
Jennifer Johnson
Orange County Editor
A proposed pipeline funneling what skeptics call "dirty oil" into Southeast Texas from the tar sand mines of Canada has drawn criticism from some Beaumont/Port Arthur residents, the local branch of the Sierra Club and the Texas office of Public Citizen, but officials working with the unconventional crude say the majority of what is being said is hyperbole at best.
ENGOs Do Not Speak for Carrier Sekani Tribal Council
ENGOs Do Not Speak for CSTC
May 20, 2010 07:01 ET
Attention: Assignment Editor, Business/Financial Editor, Environment Editor, News Editor, Government/Political Affairs Editor
Environmentalists join ranchers in opposing Keystone XL oil pipeline
Environmentalists join ranchers in opposing Keystone XL oil pipeline
Andrea J. Cook Journal staff | May 13, 2010
U.S. Department of State
Environmentalists did most of the talking at a public hearing on the Keystone XL Pipeline in Faith Thursday.
Muddy roads and calving season may have kept area landowners from attending, but a couple landowners stood to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Keystone XL, while others preferred to sit and watch.
TAR SANDS: The dilemma of the ponds
TAR SANDS: The dilemma of the ponds
Tar sands tailings ponds remain an environmental quagmire
Lewis Kelly / lewis@vueweekly.com
Last week a lawyer for Syncrude, Robert White, told provincial court Judge Ken Tjosvold that Syncrude can't be legally responsible for the birds that land in its tailings ponds as preventing all birds from touching the contaminated water is impossible. If Syncrude is guilty in the case of the 1600 ducks that died in its tailings pond in April 2008, White argued, so is every other company with a tailings pond.
BP process in Whiting called 'destructive'
New report slams oil sands
BP process in Whiting called 'destructive'
May 20, 2010
BY GITTE LAASBY,
When BP Whiting starts processing more Canadian oil sands, residents near the refinery will experience more pollution and health effects from it, according to a new report by a coalition of environmental groups.
Mainstream enviros, timber industry shut First Nations out of "historic" deal
Boreal Forest Conflicts Far From Over
Mainstream enviros, timber industry shut First Nations out of "historic" deal
by Dawn Paley
May 18, 2010
Vancouver.Mediacoop.ca
Timber companies and environmental organizations came together Tuesday to announce the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, which they say could protect a swath of boreal forest twice the size of Germany, and maintain forestry jobs across the country.
"This is an agreement between the two principle combatants over logging," said Steve Kallick, director of the Boreal Conservation campaign of the Pew Environment Group.
Tar sands oil extraction spreading rapidly [internationally], report warns
Tar sands oil extraction spreading rapidly, report warns
Friends of the Earth reports says extraction threatens environment as well as vulnerable communities
* Terry Macalister
* The Guardian, Monday 17 May 2010
The successful development of Canada's tar sands has triggered a rush by Shell and other oil companies to set up similar operations in Russia, Congo and even Madagascar, a new report reveals.
The Most Destructive Development on Earth: Coming to Trinidad and Tobago?
The Most Destructive Development on Earth: Coming to Trinidad and Tobago?
By Macdonald Stainsby
ZNet
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Greenpeace, ENGO's, Foundations cutting secret deals, greenwashing all forestry
The key quote in this article is here:
A spokesperson for Greenpeace said: "There is no agreement, but we will let you know when there is an agreement."
MS: Who gave them such authority? How on earth can they claim that the public-- or even their own sustainers-- gave them such a mandate? How can this possibly be a positive bent, when it essentially has the PR gain for industry of being "green" right when we should be ramping UP the fight against what is happening to our forests?
