Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

International oil & gas

Stock markets and global oil interests (including war) would be included here, as would attempts to get oil out of high risk, low return areas from oil shale in Colorado, to natural gas and heavy oil in the high eastern Arctic. The tar sands are part of this trend and should be seen as such. What happens with the tar sands will have a tremendous impact on what kind of choices are made elsewhere, environmentally and socially.

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International Oil & Gas is a category for stories relating to tar sand production or climate change but not in any of the projects already listed geographically. This includes other regions of the planet with horrible environmental and high energy costs that, like the tar sands, are only a "choice" because of high prices and the global depletion of easily recoverable oil reserves. Such issues as the threat of war on Iran, "instability" in Iraq and Venezuela or disasters like Katrina will all drive up oil prices, which in turn doubly encourages tar sand production-- by price demand and energy demand. Stock markets and global oil interests (including war) would be included here, as would attempts to get oil out of high risk, low return areas from oil shale in Colorado, to natural gas and heavy oil in the high eastern Arctic. The tar sands are part of this trend and should be seen as such. What happens with the tar sands will have a tremendous impact on what kind of choices are made elsewhere, environmentally and socially.

Cap-and-trade does more harm than good

Cap-and-trade does more harm than good
Bill offers incentives for businesses that pollute.
Jun. 24, 2009 // Philadelphia Inquirer.
By Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel

We would support legislation in Congress to address climate change if it were capable of accomplishing that goal. Unfortunately, despite the best intentions of its proponents, the bill known as Waxman-Markey would disable our ability to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions for at least a decade, hugely increasing the risk of irreversible climate calamity.

BP shuts alternative energy HQ

• 'Beyond Petroleum' boast in doubt as clean energy boss quits
• Renewables budget will be reduced by up to £550m this year
Terry Macalister
Guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 28 June 2009

BP has shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed budget cuts in moves likely to be seen by environmental critics as further signs of the oil group moving "back to petroleum".

Separating truth from greenwashing in the West's energy export boom

Separating truth from greenwashing in the West's energy export boom
By Andrea Harden-Donahue
| June 24, 2009

Reading the Saskatchewan government's news release announcing the Energy Council conference, I couldn't help but reflect on the connections with the news of a proposed Western Energy Corridor, recently reported in the Star Phoenix following the Western Governors Association (WGA) Annual Conference. While both are riddled with words like 'sustainability' and 'clean energy,' red flags are going up in seeing emerging themes that raise some serious questions.

China's unquenchable thirst for oil

China's unquenchable thirst for oil
Despite recession, the Chinese are aggressively pursuing energy assets

Shawn McCarthy and Eric Reguly

Ottawa, Rome — Globe and Mail
Jun. 27, 2009

A refinery in Singapore. Oil and gas fields in Central Asia. A pipeline in Russia. Ultradeep crude deposits off Brazil. Production wells in Libya.

And now Toronto-listed Addax Petroleum Corp., (AXC-T49.930.180.36%) with its oil fields in western Africa and Iraq's Kurdistan.

OPTI sticks to plan to raise cash

Opti's parent corporation is Ormat, the Israeli corporation that developed "orcrude"-- otherwise known in Alberta as "co-generation"-- burning the waste gunk from the bottom of a barrel of tar sands bitumen to provide energy. This would eventually be used in much of historical Palestine to develop oil shale and has been using the Long Lake plant as a laboratory to make this production happen. Long Lake officially went commercial in October of last year.

--M

OPTI sticks to plan to raise cash

DAVID EBNER // VANCOUVER
Globe and Mail
Jun. 27, 2009

Which Matters Most? The Size of the Tap or the Tank?

Which Matters Most? The Size of the Tap or the Tank?
Scitizen // Kurt Cobb
22 Jun, 2009

Energy optimists are fond of citing very large numbers for worldwide fossil fuel resources such as oil and natural gas. But they conveniently leave out the critical variable. How fast can we actually produce these resources?

The Politics of Bait and Switch

he Politics of Bait and Switch

by Jeffrey St Clair and Joshua Frank

CounterPunch (May 21 2009)

After little more than 100 days in office, the Democrats, under the leadership of Barack Obama, have unleashed a slew of anti-environmental policies that would have enraged any reasonable conservationist during the Bush years.

Defenders of the Land, Private Property Abolitionists

Defenders of the Land, Private Property Abolitionists-- By Shiri Pasternak

Indigenous peoples in Canada have marked the geographical limits of
capitalist expansion through more than five centuries of permanent
resistance. Due to the geography of residual Aboriginal lands, they form a
final frontier of capitalist penetration for natural resource extraction,
agribusiness, and urban/suburban development. While much of the focus of
the economic crisis has centred on foreclosures and job losses in the
manufacturing and service sectors, a renewed push for resources – e.g. tar

Consultation means nothing without consent

Consultation means nothing without consent
June 16, 2009

Three First Nation Band Councils released a joint statement last month in response to the newly proposed Ontario Mining Act, once again raising a critical issue that the Government of Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly failed to recognize: The right to Say NO.

In effect, the absence of this right (the right of consent) in the Ontario Mining Act or any other piece of legislation in Canada is an allowance by the government to molest Indigenous People.

New Climate Report: From Bad to Worse

New Climate Report: From Bad to Worse
By Bryan Walsh
Wednesday, Jun. 17, 2009
Time

Even as Congress belatedly tackles legislation that would cut U.S. carbon emissions and international negotiators have bickered over a global climate deal in Bonn, a new report by several federal agencies underscores the truths that too often risk getting lost in politics: global warming is real, it's happening now and if we don't act soon, the consequences are likely to be catastrophic.