Climate Change / Emissions

Double talk on tar sands
Mar 01, 2009 04:30 AM
Toronto Star

Alberta's tar sands have always been a political hot potato. Now they are being tarred by no less an authority than National Geographic as a blight on the boreal forests and a pox on the planet.

There is something about being featured in foreign publications that captures the attention of Canadians unlike anything else. Now, federal politicians are weighing in with alacrity, if not quite clarity, about the place of the tar sands in Canada's future.

Tarsands are an addiction
By SILVER DONALD CAMERON
Sun. Mar 15 - 6:22 AM

THE ALBERTA tarsands, says Andrew Nikiforuk, represent "a nation-changing event" which has made the rest of Canada into "a suburb of Fort McMurray." A distinguished Calgary-based journalist, Nikiforuk was in Nova Scotia in early March to discuss his new book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Greystone, $20).

Trinidad and Tobago to study tar sands viability
Curtis Williams
OGJ Correspondent

PORT OF SPAIN, Mar. 10 -- Trinidad and Tobago has awarded a license to Petroleum Co. of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd. to explore tar sands at Parrylands-Guapo fields, which are thought to contain 2 billion bbl of oil. The fields are just south of the La Brea Pitch Lake.

Canada’s carbon sink has sprung a leak

Until recently, its vast forests vacuumed up carbon dioxide. Now that process has been thrown in reverse.

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor/ March 10, 2009 edition

Reporter Mark Clayton discusses the dilemma facing Canadian foresters and climate scientists: is it worse to cut trees threatened by beetle infestation, or to allow them to remain in a natural state?

‘Tar sands are killing us’
Cree, Metis, Dene tell Sen. John Kerry
By Kate Harries, Today correspondent

Story Published: Mar 11, 2009

TORONTO – Dene, Cree and Metis activists from First Nations affected
by Alberta tar sands development made themselves heard in Washington
as Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice was making the rounds of
Capitol Hill.

They hand-delivered a letter to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., head of the
powerful Foreign Relations Committee, and later about 50 young people

Climate Alarm: Scientists call emergency meeting
March 2nd, 2009

Last summer, for the first time in human history, boats could circumnavigate the North Pole. To the oblivious observer, this might seem like a good thing. Perhaps some green entrepreneur will build resorts on Finland’s Svalbard Islands. However, as we know, there’s a dark side.

Alberta urged to halt oilpatch water use
By Hanneke Brooymans,
Canwest News Service
February 9, 2009

A water-scarce future means Alberta should switch from coal-fired power to renewable energy, dismiss the idea of nuclear power, and dramatically reduce the oilpatch's water use by 2020, says a new Pembina Institute report.

One-third of all water allocated in the province in 2007 was for energy production, says the report, being released today.

The Canadian oil sands dilemma
March 1, 2009
by John Guerrerio,
Energy Examiner

Giant grinders loosen layers of dirt and sand to get to the oil below.

Take a lesson from ... Canada's Liberal leader?
By NEIL WAUGH, EDMONTON SUN
Feb 28, 2009

Iggy's Great Canadian Oilsands Tour hit Alberta again last week.

He said soothing things like: "here in the west is where the destiny of our country's economy will be played out."

Or better still, telling the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce: "the oilsands are an integral part of the future of Canada."

Harper rolls dice to play oil sands 'wild card'
Mar 02, 2009
Tyler Hamilton
ENERGY REPORTER

Canada's oil and gas sector is a crucial engine of our economy and isn't going away, so any technologies that help reduce or capture emissions are both welcome and necessary.

But can these technologies help us right now, particularly to justify rapid expansion of oil-sands projects? And, taken alone, are they enough?