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.

Medicine at the crossroads of energy and climate change

Medicine at the crossroads of energy and climate change
by Dan Bednarz, Ph.D. and Kristin Bradford, M.D., M.P.H.
[all citations listed can be found at the url posted at the end of the article]

"Still no interest in exploring high Arctic": official

Still no interest in exploring high Arctic: official
Last Updated: Friday, January 4, 2008 | 9:36 AM CT
CBC News

Companies have yet to take up the federal government's invitation to explore the high Arctic for oil and gas, even though that invitation has been extended for the sixth year in a row.

Richard Casey, an official with the federal Indian and Northern Affairs Department, told CBC News that there has been no interest from any company to explore for oil and gas around Axel Heiberg Island, located west of Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, or in any surrounding areas.

"Hear no peak"-- Letter to the Financial Times

Hear no peak
by David Strahan
Letter to the Financial Times

Sir:

Just as the Financial Times’ news coverage of oil was beginning to improve (“Oil watchdog reworks reserves forecasts”, 27.12.07), Lex goes and spoils it with a truly shoddy analysis: “Peak no evil” (03.01.08) rehearsed all the old myths that have been comprehensively debunked in recent years.

Utah: Tar Sands, Oil Shale best left in the ground

Price too high: Weigh all costs of energy from oil shale, tar sands
Salt Lake Tribune Editorial // 01/01/2008 02:13:04 PM MST

It's obvious the Bush administration wants to go on record with the energy industry as having done everything it could to encourage development of oil deposits in the West, even those embedded in tar sands and shale, no matter the cost to the region's wild lands.

Fuelling Disaster: Beyond Alberta’s Culture of Resource Dependence

by Gordon Laird, Parkland Institute Editorialist Alberta

$100 oil puts a new shine on Alberta

$100 oil puts a new shine on Alberta
Record prices will fuel the world's interest in the oil sands, even as extraction costs soar
DAVID PARKINSON // January 3, 2008

Deepening nervousness over long-term global energy supplies will put Canada's rich oil sands even more in the global energy spotlight, economists said yesterday as crude touched $100 (U.S.) a barrel for the first time.

Canada's forests aren't bailing us out, study says

Canada's forests aren't bailing us out, study says
Not getting better at absorbing gases. And longer growing seasons no help, after all
Thursday » January 3 » 2008
TOM SPEARS
CanWest News Service

Last year brought glum news that Canada's forests are only a so-so defence against global warming. Today, it gets a little worse: We thought our forests were getting better at soaking up greenhouse gases, but they're not.

Oil Hits $100 a Barrel for the First Time

January 2, 2008
Oil Hits $100 a Barrel for the First Time
By JAD MOUAWAD

Oil prices reached the symbolic level of $100 a barrel for the first
time on Wednesday, a long-awaited milestone in an era of rapidly
escalating energy demand.

Crude oil futures for February delivery hit $100 on the New York
Mercantile Exchange shortly after noon New York time, before falling
back slightly. Oil prices, which had fallen to a low of $50 a barrel
at the beginning of 2007, have quadrupled since 2003.

Futures settled at $99.62, up $3.64 on the day.