Economics drive tar sands operations. Record highs in oil prices, though still fluctuating, will make tar sand oil ‘economical’ (read: profitable) well into the future. Government subsidies to this environmentally disastrous process remain in place from a time when the federal government was sponsoring research into the possibility of recovering this oil. Stock prices of tar sands developers grow the more conventional oil is scarce.
West River Oil Pipeline Plans
In a few weeks, TransCanada will begin construction on its Keystone pipeline in eastern South Dakota.
But Monday the Candadian company was busy talking with South Dakotans on the western side of the state about a second proposed crude oil pipeline called the Keystone XL. TransCanada says the second line is in response to the high demand for oil in the United States.
Will Canada last?
by Murray Dobbin
June 30, 2008
What will it take persuade Canadians that if they do not act soon to reverse the course of their nation, there will be nothing left to save? I am talking, of course, about so-called "deep integration" and its official expression, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).
By Michael Klare
Truth and consequences in the last days of cheap oil
At the hastily convened global oil summit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on June 28, top officials of producing and consuming nations from around the world attempted to find a combination of solutions that would somehow extricate us from the current crisis over sky-high energy prices. These proposals ranged from increased output by major producers like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to restrictions on the activities of international oil speculators.
Tar-sands stocks will sink if oil price slides
Jun 27, 2008 04:30 AM
Bill Carrigan
Proponents prefer the cleaner "oil-sands" tag and opponents prefer the dirtier "tar-sands" tag. Of course, investors older than 50 tend to use the original term, tar sands.
Lately it's difficult not to notice the growing controversy over the runaway development of Canada's tar sands and its contribution to global warming. Migratory bird deaths at a Syncrude tailings pond in April delivered another public-relations blow to tar-sands companies.
Macdonald Stainsby gives http://h2opodcast.com/ an overview of the tar sands, their history in development, why now, the connection to the war on terror & Iraq, trade deals, expansion of the temporary foreign worker programs in such development, violation of indigenous nations' self-determination and environmental destruction unparalleled in the world. (Part I of II)
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Part II of II:
Macdonald Stainsby gives http://h2opodcast.com/ an overview of the tar sands, their history in development, why now, the connection to the war on terror & Iraq, trade deals, expansion of the temporary foreign worker programs in such development, violation of indigenous nations' self-determination and environmental destruction unparalleled in the world. Part II of II.
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Abuse of foreign workers unavoidable, Alta. Tories suggest
Elise Stolte , Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, June 18, 2008
EDMONTON - Some abuse of foreigners working temporarily in Alberta is unavoidable because of conditions in their home countries, Alberta's minister of Employment and Immigration suggested Wednesday.
Hector Goudreau was reacting to news that as many as 120 Chinese workers were paid a fraction of what they were owed for work building tanks at a northern Alberta oilsands site.
New warning from US climate change prophet
* Andrew Revkin, Washington
June 24, 2008
TWENTY years ago yesterday, James Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA, told the world that he was "99%" certain that humans were already warming the climate.
"The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now," Dr Hansen said then, referring to a string of warm years and the accumulating blanket of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and other gases emitted mainly by the burning of fossil fuels and forests.
No one wants to be on the outside looking in. When there is a great issue and movement underway, most people-- certainly most people who are political in one form or another-- will do whatever needed to be relevant, to have a comment, to be a part of what is going on, shall we say. This is always the case in presidential elections. The article below has some incredibly good information and is a piece that contains very important information about the whole process of NAFTA, et al.
Prentice says Mackenzie pipeline will advance Canada’s interests
THE CANADIAN PRESS // 23/05/08
CALGARY — The Mackenzie pipeline — long beset by regulatory snags and cost overruns — will “undoubtedly advance” Canada’s national interests once it is built, but control over the project must remain in private-sector hands, said Industry Minister Jim Prentice.
