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
Suncor Posts Profit After Crude-Oil Prices Advance
Suncor Posts Profit After Crude-Oil Prices Advance
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
©2010 Bloomberg News
May 4 (Bloomberg) -- Suncor Energy Inc., Canada's largest oil company, posted first-quarter profit of C$716 million ($703 million) after crude prices jumped and last year's takeover of Petro-Canada lifted production.
Outgoing TransCanada CEO touts economic benefits of Alaska pipeline to Canada
Outgoing TransCanada CEO touts economic benefits of Alaska pipeline to Canada
By: Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press
30/04/2010
CALGARY - Economic benefits from TransCanada Corp.'s planned Alaska natural gas pipeline are Canada's to lose, the outgoing chief executive of North America's largest gas shipper said Friday.
Obama Sheltered BP's Deepwater Horizon Rig
Obama Sheltered BP's Deepwater Horizon Rig
From Regulatory Requirement
By Tom Eley
06 May, 2010
Last year the Obama administration granted oil giant BP a special exemption from a legal requirement that it produce a detailed environmental impact study on the possible effects of its Deepwater Horizon drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico, an article Wednesday in the Washington Post reveals.
"Gulf's pain oil sands' gain, experts agree" ---ick.
Leave it to the tar sands industry-- including CEO Rick George of Suncor (partners with the Canadian Boreal Initiative and the Pembina Institute) to find a way to spin the disaster in the Gulf as a good thing for the tar sands players. Yuck. These people simply do not have any morals or scruples and know no limits to their depths (so let's partner up with them!).
--M
Gulf's pain oil sands' gain, experts agree
'In face of real disaster...pretty benign operations'
Carrie Tait, National Post
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Li Ka-shing May Tap Israel for Tar-Sands Technology (For use in BP/Husky's Sunrise Project)
Li Ka-shing May Tap Israel for Oil-Sands Technology (For use in BP/Husky's Sunrise Project)
May 04, 2010
By Alisa Odenheimer and Mark Lee
May 4 (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing may invest in Israeli oil-sands companies to expand his interests in energy production.
Li’s Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. is keen to invest in oil-sands technology that limits environmental pollution, the billionaire told Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz in a meeting in Hong Kong today.
I will not dance to your beat (a poem by Nnimmo Bassey)
Nnimo Bassey, from Friends of the Earth Nigeria
I will not dance to your beat (a poem by Nnimmo Bassey)
I will not dance to your beat
If you call plantations forests
I will not sing with you
If you privatise my water
I will confront you with my fists
If climate change means death to me but business to you
I will expose your evil greed
If you don’t leave crude oil in the soil
Coal in the hole and tar sands in the land
I will confront and denounce you
If you insist on carbon offsetting and other do-nothing false solutions
I will make you see red
Evo Morales: Combating climate change-- lessons from the world’s indigenous peoples
Combating climate change: lessons from the world’s indigenous peoples
Bolivia’s president says developing nations must not be shut out of international negotiations for combating the greatest environmental issue of our time.
Evo Morales
LA Times. April 23, 2010
Cochabamba, the water wars and climate change
Cochabamba, the water wars and climate change
April 23, 2010
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia — Here in this small Andean nation of 10 million people, the glaciers are melting, threatening the water supply of the largest urban area in the country, El Alto and La Paz, with 3.5 million people living at altitudes over 10,000 feet. I flew from El Alto International, the world’s highest commercial airport, to the city of Cochabamba.
China’s move on tar sands is about more than money
China’s move on oil sands is about more than money
China's Sinopec is seeking to buy a 9-per-cent stake in the Syncrude oil sands facility near Fort McMurray, Alta.
Campbell Clark
Ottawa —Globe and Mail
Apr. 15, 2010
This is a test. Chinese oil company Sinopec’s move to buy a piece of Alberta oil sands producer Syncrude is the latest move in Beijing’s step-by-step gauging of the investment waters in Canada.
China is watching to see if the deal sets off alarm bells in Canada, particularly in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative caucus.
Tar sands will shrug off enviro castigation
Oil sands will shrug off enviro castigation
By: Matthew Hill
23rd April 2010
Make no mistake about it, the Alberta oil sands development will roar on.
While shareholder groups of oil multinationals Shell and BP have recently tried to force those companies to pull out of Alberta, politicians like Sarah Palin are shouting slogans such as: "Ramp up development."
And looking at the bigger political picture, it is clear to see why.
