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.

Alberta's oil and gas sector gets behind the Free Trade push

Crude Business in Colombia
Alberta's oil and gas sector gets behind the Free Trade push
February 25, 2009
by Dawn Paley

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA–When Minister of International Trade Stockwell Day
signed the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Peru on
November 21, it was a happy day for Canada’s oil and gas sector, but
the deal was celebrated by its signatories as a landmark for human
rights and democracy in Colombia.

“Deepening both economic and political engagement between our
countries is the best way Canadians can support the citizens of

This Op-Ed was refused publication by the New York Times.

by Charles Hall and Nate Gagnon

EROEI.com (March 23 2007)

Op-Ed Editor, New York Times:

The recent front page article "Oil innovations pump new life into old
wells" by Jad Mouawad (March 5 page 1) is dangerously misleading. The
author would have us believe that technological innovations will
increase the proportion of oil recoverable from known fields
sufficiently to compensate for the dearth of new discoveries. It gives
a false sense of security about our difficult oil situation based on a

"Tar sands producers stuck over a barrel"

The unspoken part of this "unpalatable" duality is that green-minded folks have just such an equally repulsive "choice". Either be "unreasonable" and "not a part of the solution" by pointing out that CCS and all other Climate Change in the tar sands "solutions" are nonsense, especially when one sees the forms of emissions yet to come from the In Situ developments. There is no solving the climate crisis, preventing deforestation, preserving the Mackenzie River Basin or using the remaining natural gas on Turtle Island in a sane manner-- unless we also prevent the tar sands from operating.

Rhetoric and Reality Clash on Obama's First Foreign Visit

POLITICS: Rhetoric and Reality Clash on Obama's First Foreign Visit
By Chris Arsenault

VANCOUVER, Feb 20 (IPS) - On his first foreign visit as U.S.
president, Barack Obama's rhetoric of "hope" and "change" came face to
face with the hard, divisive policy realities of climate change from
Canada's tar sands, a growing insurgency in Afghanistan and the
sputtering world economy.

Some 2,500 spectators lined the streets of Ottawa to watch the
president's motorcade make its way to Parliament Hill, a marked

Indigenous Environmental Network press release on Obama's visit to Canada

*Ottawa, Canada, February 19, 2009 –* United States President Barack Obama
is meeting today with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada for his first
foreign visit as a President. The main discussion will center on trade
between the two nations as well as topics of environment, climate and energy
security in North America. Obama's concerns about implementing an agenda for
a clean and green energy economy highlights' Canada's oil sands, a vast
potential oil source that comes at a big cost to the environment and the

Canada’s Tar-Sands Oil Can Be ‘Clean,’ Obama Says

Canada’s Tar-Sands Oil Can Be ‘Clean,’ Obama Says
By Jim Efstathiou Jr.

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Oil extracted from tar sands in Canada can be made a clean energy source, and the U.S. will work with its northern neighbor to develop the technology, President Barack Obama said.

Tar sands producers gird for Obama’s Canada visit

Oilsands producers gird for Obama’s Canada visit
By Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters
February 17, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Canada’s oilsands industry, battered by collapsing oil prices, also faces the prospect of ballooning costs as the United States and Canada prepare to discuss energy security and efforts to fight global warming.

When U.S. President Barack Obama visits Ottawa Thursday, energy will be a key topic in his talks with Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who often touts Canada as an emerging energy superpower due to its massive oilsands resources.

Dirty Tar Sands in Canada to Test Obama Green Goals

Dirty Tar Sands in Canada to Test Obama Green Goals
By Jim Efstathiou Jr.

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleum extracted from tar sands in Canada may provide the first foreign-policy test for President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda.

U.S. and Canadian conservationists have called on Obama to reject any bid to exempt the oil from proposed climate-protection rules when he visits Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week in Ottawa, his first meeting with a head of government.

Global warming 'underestimated'

Global warming 'underestimated'
Sunday, 15 February 2009
BBC News
Prof Field said the IPCC was running behind forecasts

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse
than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate
change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted.

Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
report had underestimated the rate of change.

The Role of the Environmentalist: A Bias for Life

The Role of the Environmentalist
A Bias for Life
Weekend Edition
August 30 / 31, 2008
By JOSH SCHLOSSBERG

After decades of speaking on Nature's behalf, the environmental movement continues to gain power and influence in the U.S. With media, government and even big business preaching the green gospel all of a sudden, modern day enviros might finally have an opportunity to start reversing the course of Earth-death, rather than just "slowing down the rate at which things have been getting worse."