Health

Thursday, August 21, 2008
Indian Uprising Radio: Price of tar sands oil
KFAI's Indian Uprising, August 24, 2008 from 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. CDT #279
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/08/indian-uprising-radio-price-of-tar...

Daryl Sager (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), Energy Justice Program
Associate, Fresh Energy, Inc. Fresh Energy of St. Paul, Minnesota is
an organization leading the transition to a clean, efficient and fair
energy system. Its goals are: Healthy Economies, Healthy People,
Healthy Environment and Energy Independence. Fresh Energy focus areas

Rare cancer strikes
Small community near Alberta oilsands has disproportionate number of bile duct disease
By VIVIAN SONG

A mutated, two-mouthed fish caught downstream from the Alberta oilsands caught the attention of the Canadian public last week. Beneath its first mouth is a confusing aberration, a second, baby, jagged-toothed lower jaw that seems to grow timidly out of the fish-face.

Two boys fishing in Lake Athabasca caught the 2.5-kilo goldeye two weeks ago and handed it over to the Mikisew First Nation.

Two-Mouthed Fish Discovered Near Alberta Oil Sands, CBC Reports
By Jeremy van Loon

Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- A mutant fish with two mouths was caught in northern Alberta, near the Canadian province's Athabasca oil sands, stoking residents' concerns about pollution, Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

The fish was hooked from a dock at Lake Athabasca and handed over to park wardens, CBC said on its Web site today. Locals are fighting expansion of heavy oil production because of its impact on the environment, the Web site said.

Will Canada's oil boom be an environmental bust?
By ROB GILLIES – Aug 23, 2008

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta (AP) — The largest dump truck in the world is parked under a massive mechanical shovel waiting to transport 400 tons of oily sand at an open pit mine in the northern reaches of Alberta.

Each Caterpillar 797B heavy hauler — three-stories high, with tires twice as tall as the average man — carries the equivalent of 200 barrels of heavy oil worth $23,000 per haul at today's prices.

Boiling Point!
Polaris report finds water in First Nations communities a “violation of fundamental human rights”
by Kim Petersen
July 30, 2008

Neskantaga First Nation is one of the communities profiled in the Polaris report. It has been under a boil water advisory since 1995. “What other community do you know of in Canada that has been on boil water advisory for 13 years?"

In May, the Polaris Institute, a citizen-focused think tank, released Boiling Point!, a report about the “violation of fundamental human rights” occurring in First Nation communities across Canada.

Increase of Migrant Workers in Canada Opens Door to Abuses
By Am Johal, IPS News. Posted July 31, 2008.

Canada's construction boom has brought in thousands of foreign workers. They're being horribly exploited.
Tools

VANCOUVER, Jul 15 (IPS) -- Western Canada's construction boom, spurred on by the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and oil sands development in Alberta, has led to a massive increase in foreign temporary workers coming to the region.

N.B. inmates training to be oil rig workers
Last Updated: Monday, July 7, 2008
CBC News

Inmates at the Westmoreland Institution in New Brunswick are being provided with the chance to train to be oil workers.

The Dorchester-based minimum-security penitentiary is offering a 20-day course to teach inmates the basics of becoming a roughneck on an oil rig.

A similar program has also been offered to inmates who are on parole and has had a high success rate, said Isabelle Leblanc-Gallant, who is setting up the job training at the institution.

LABOUR: AFL denounces “out of control” import of “disposable” foreign workers in Alberta

(AlbertaIndex, July 29, Tuesday) --- The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) has hit out at the provincial and federal governments as well as employers for letting the number of “disposable” foreign workers flooding into Alberta to reach “out of control” proportions.

Lessons in simplicity on warming
Jul 29, 2008 04:30 AM
Albert Koehl

The most useful lessons to be learned in the fight against global warming can probably be gleaned from grade-school problem-solving exercises – for example, that letting air out of the tires of a truck that doesn't quite fit under a bridge is easier than raising the bridge. In other words, difficult problems don't always call for complicated solutions.

Naomi Klein: Bush Sees Crises in Fuel, Food, Housing and Banking as Chance to Exploit Us More
By Amy Goodman
Jul 20, 2008, 06:04

People are desperate for solutions but instead they're handed policies that don't solve the crises, and are highly profitable for corporations.