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
Activists Protest Natural Resources Defense Council for Collaborating With Polluters
Activists Protest Natural Resources Defense Council for Collaborating With Polluters
By Joseph Huff-Hannon , Huffington Post. Posted December 1, 2009.
The protestors say that the environmental advocacy group has aligned itself with corporate interests whose goals for reducing emissions are far too limited.
Wet’suwet’en layout opposition of Enbridge gateway
Wet’suwet’en layout opposition of Enbridge gateway
By Rikki Schierer - Houston Today
Published: November 25, 2009
Updated: November 27, 2009
The Wet’suwet’en are outright opposed for the proposed development of Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines.
That was the message from Dave deWit, the Wet’suwet’en’s Natural Resources Manager, who was on the panel of speakers at last Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting where representatives from Northern Gateway, Pembina Institute and the National Energy Board were on hand to discuss the proposed pipeline project.
Enbridge Holding Private Meetings along BC "Corridor".
Enbridge advisory meeting to be held
December 01, 2009
Terrace Standard
Enbridge Northern Gateway will be holding meetings in Kitimat and Smithers next week, some that will be open to the general public and some that won’t.
Enbridge’s multi-billion dollar proposed pipeline project would transport oil and condensate through twin pipelines between Alberta and Kitimat, with the oil being shipped overseas.
Oil exports to Asia drive expansion plans at B.C. ports in Vancouver and Kitimat
Oil exports to Asia drive expansion plans at B.C. ports in Vancouver and Kitimat
Dredging First and Second Narrows in Burrard Inlet to allow passage of larger ships is already on the agenda
By Don Whiteley, Special to The Sun
December 1, 2009
VANCOUVER — In the past six months, the concept of Canada shipping crude oil to Asian markets has warmed considerably, with major Chinese and Korean investments in Alberta’s oilsands developments and the impending announcement of serious backers (likely Asian) for a new crude-oil pipeline to Kitimat stoking the fires.
Peak Everything
Peak Everything
By Gunther Ostermann
28 November, 2009
http://www.countercurrents.org/ostermann281109.htm
Countercurrents.org
The former media mogul Ted Turner challenged us in 1992 with this statement:' If we don't make the right choices after we have all the information, then we don't deserve to live."
Well, we have more than enough information. Oil and gas, the stored sun's energy, which took hundreds of millions of years to incubate, gone forever within this century. We are, in fact, approaching PEAK EVERYTHING.
Group formed to oppose Enbridge pipeline plan
Group formed to oppose pipeline plan
Written by Gordon Hoekstra
Prince George Citizen staff
Thursday, 26 November 2009
A new environmental group based in Prince George has been formed to fight Enbridge's proposed $4.5-billion oil and condensate pipelines through northern B.C.
H2Oil examines the tar sands
H2Oil examines the tar sands
By John Griffin, Gazette Film CriticNovember 27, 2009
If Peter Mettler’s Petropolis sings the awful, awesome Alberta tar sands aesthetic, Shannon Walsh’s H2Oil maps its skin, muscle, bones and blood.
Mettler’s ravishing tone poem played last month’s Festival du nouveau cinéma.
EnCana sour gas leak under investigation in B.C.
EnCana sour gas leak under investigation in B.C.
November 27, 2009 |
CBC News
A safety investigation is being carried out by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission after a dangerous sour gas leak from an EnCana pipeline forced about 15 northeastern B.C. residents to flee their homes on Sunday.
EnCana has yet to say what caused the leak at a well located about 10 kilometres south of Pouce Coupe, but officials have confirmed it was not caused by sabotage.
1 man's campaign to end B.C.'s offshore drilling ban
The 10-billion-barrel battle
By Dave Simms
CBC News
Friday, November 20, 2009
1 man's campaign to end B.C.'s offshore drilling ban
Henry Lyatsky is a man on a mission.
The Calgary-based oil industry consultant is on a one-man campaign to lift
the moratorium on offshore oil drilling on Canada's West Coast.
While his message gets a sympathetic ear in in his home town, the centre of
Canada's oil industry, his mission is more of an uphill battle in British
Columbia.
At stake are 9.8 billion barrels of oil - enough to supply all of Canada's
IEN Statement prior to Copenhagen talks
Dear Indigenous Environmental Network Ally,
With just two weeks to go before world leaders meet in Copenhagen to deal
with climate change, we’ve run out of time for compromise. Indigenous
Environmental Network will be supporting a delegation of grassroots
community leaders from tar sands affected First Nations to attend and speak
out in Copenhagen. They will call out the Government of Canada and big oil
for their continuing failure to address the concerns of First Nations
Peoples whose Aboriginal and Treaty rights are being violated by the tar
sands and by runaway climate change.
