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.
Selling out sovereignty in orbit and the North
Jan 22, 2008 04:30 AM
Michael Byers
Stephen Harper talks a fine game on Arctic sovereignty. He's told Canadians that we need to "use it or lose it." He's publicly berated U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins over the status of the Northwest Passage. He's even promised to build a deepwater dock on northern Baffin Island and ice-strengthened patrol vessels for the Canadian Navy.
Published on 10 Jan 2008 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 20 Jan 2008.
Peak oil: Why is it so difficult to explain/understand?
by Martin Payne
After several years of partial success in explaining the physics-based phenomenon sometimes known as “Peak Oil”, this author has come to one conclusion: Peak Oil is difficult to explain, and it is difficult for most people to understand.
Globalization is Fueling Global Warming
by Les Leopold
AlterNet (December 28 2007)
As global warming negotiations move from Bali towards a worldwide
treaty, it is important to address how global warming and global trade
work hand-in-hand.
Globalization is to global warming what warm water in the Gulf of Mexico
waters was to Hurricane Katrina. And, unless we wisely limit rapidly
accelerating global trade, we will see equally disastrous and deadly
results - worsening global warming and a continued chemical poisoning of
our world.
Greenland Opens to Oil Firms
Associated Press 01.14.08, 4:50 PM ET
HOUSTON -
Rising temperatures are giving Greenland the opportunity to tap into billions of barrels of oil and gas trapped under ice.
by Ralph Nader, Nader.org
AlterNet (January 08 2008)
While many impoverished American families are shivering in the winter
cold for lack of money to pay the oil baron their exorbitant price for
home heating oil, ex-oil man, George W Bush sleeps in a warm White House
and relishes his defeat of the Congressional attempt to get rid of $15
billion in unconscionable tax breaks given those same profit-glutted oil
companies like ExxonMobil when crude oil was half the price it is today.
This is the same George W Bush who, calling himself a "compassionate
First Nations vow to occupy eastern Ont. site to block uranium mining
Keith Leslie, THE CANADIAN PRESS Published Friday January 11th, 2008
TORONTO - Aboriginals in eastern Ontario warned Friday that they would ignore a court order and illegally occupy the site of a proposed uranium mine north of Kingston later this month unless the province calls a halt to the project.
The Peak Oil Crisis: Storm of the Century
by Tom Whipple
Falls Church News Press (December 27 2007)
A "Perfect storm" refers to the simultaneous occurrence of events which,
taken individually, would be far less powerful than the result of their
chance combination. Such occurrences are rare by their very nature. --
Wikipedia
In recent weeks we have been bombarded with reports of perturbations in
the mortgage/liquidity crisis that is creating havoc in the financial world.
The travails of the "financial industry", as it is called these days,
High oil prices? You ain’t seen nothing yet
Week of January 13, 2008 // Petroleum News
If you think $100 per barrel oil is costly, consider $180 per barrel oil.
The former is here, while the latter may be in our not-too-distant future, according to two well-known oil industry analysts.
While energy prices retreated during the second week of January amid continued signs of a slowing economy and forecasts for mild weather in the Northeast, crude oil prices are still hovering about 70 percent higher than year-ago levels.
Action must be taken now to deal with peak of oil
Jan 05, 2008 04:30 AM
Tyler Hamilton raises three crucial points in his article:
Gasoline prices, the Canadian-U.S. dollar exchange rate and crude oil have all passed a critical benchmark over a short period of time.
Not only is this a sign of fundamental changes within our economy, it is unfortunately very much beyond control of the Canadian consumer.
It is high time for the government to realize that the world oil peak is imminent and that necessary adjustments will require years to impact our energy economy.
January 7, 2008
Impacting Unimpaired
New agreements like the SPP and TILMA are aimed directly at unimpeded extraction in the tar sands
by Macdonald Stainsby
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
