Indigenous nations have protected the earth on their territories for thousands of years. With the government of Canada ignoring their sovereignty, nations not only see massive theft of resources that could help alleviate social problems, but their exacerbation through their further alienation from their own lands, often accompanying being overrun by development and southern workers, while having no self-determination during this process. In the south of Canada industrial farming displaced many nations with often genocidal results. In the north, a modern equivalent of that fate is only just beginning, wrought on by industrial oil and gas drilling schemes (among many industrial plans) that are condemning entire societies, languages and cultures to a precarious future, becoming minorities in their lands for the first time.
New rules govern cleanup of tailings ponds
KATHERINE O'NEILL
February 4, 2009
EDMONTON -- A controversial byproduct of oil-sands operations at the centre of an environmental scandal last spring involving 500 dead ducks will be subjected to tougher rules by Alberta's energy regulator.
Tailings ponds - the toxic, watery waste left over from bitumen processing - must be cleaned up and better managed under new targets and timelines for oil-sands producers.
Analyst: market dims hope for Alaska gas pipeline
(Published January 24, 2009)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Energy market analysts addressed an Anchorage audience hoping for a multibillion dollar Alaska natural gas pipeline and the news was not good.
The global economic crisis has slashed demand for natural gas and dimmed chances for an Alaska pipeline, they said. The line also faces expanded competition.
"It's certainly going to be taken off the urgent list," said Ed Kelly, a Houston-based vice president with the global energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
2009 January 25 - The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands
A Pastoral Letter on The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands to The Faithful of the diocese of St. Paul on The Occasion of the Jubilee Year in Honour of St. Paul by
†Luc Bouchard Bishop of St. Paul in Alberta, Canada
January 25th, 2009
The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands
“Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment people
everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to
use the goods of the earth as we have in the past. . . a new ecological
Greenwashing the Games: The Olympics will leave a gigantic footprint on
the city
By John Nevim
Photo by Janis Brass
More than two-and-a-half years have passed since the “Battle of the
Bluffs”, when 23 protesters were arrested by West Vancouver police for
blockading the expansion of the Sea-to-Sky highway through the Eagleridge
Bluffs.
The protest was especially notable for the jailing of two elderly
protesters, Betty Krawczyk and Harriet Nahanee, who refused to apologize
because they believed it was senseless environmental degradation for the
This past summer, myself and friends were able to "tour" many of the projects in the Athabasca mining region and south of Fort McMurray (one of many places) where SagD/In Situ operations rule the day. These are albums belatedly created from that trip. This does not comprise anything remotely coming towards an exhaustive set of the multiple projects.
(you do not need to have a Facebook identity to see these albums).
Photos are from the land and the air.
Opti-Nexen's Long Lake (North) Project & CP's Surmont Project.
Environment Canada says tar sands pollution will get worse: Toronto Star
Chris Gardner
1/21/2009
The Toronto Star has obtained documents from Environment Canada that say pollution will continue to plague Alberta's oil sands despite plans to pipe harmful greenhouse gases deep underground.
British Columbia:
Forest Ethics induced forest die off & species extinction
Your article about Minister of Forests and Range Pat Bell (NDN, Jan.
13) stated that the Valhalla Wilderness Society has criticized the BC
government’s plan to protect the mountain caribou. Indeed it has! Most
of the so-called habitat protection was to be placed largely outside
of the areas where the habitat is being destroyed by logging. But that
was fifteen months ago. Today very little of the protection promised
has materialized, an approved plan doesn’t even exist and the
Federal government commits to Mackenzie Gas Project
JENNIFER HILLIKER, METRO CALGARY
January 19, 2009 05:49
The $16.2-billion Mackenzie Gas Project may finally go forward.
The project includes construction of a natural-gas pipeline from the Mackenzie River Delta, north of the Arctic Circle, to Alberta. It has been subject to years of delays but Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced Monday in Calgary that the federal government has made a financial offer to the backers of the project.
Definitely the largest of all the SagD plants in operation within Alberta, this plant has now officially begun operations involving "Or Crude"-- a process developed and patented within 1948 conquered Palestine ["Israel"] to reduce energy costs in development of the large oil shale deposits within those borders.
Lawsuit Filed To Stop Tar Sands Development in Utah
01/20/2009
SustainableBusiness.com News
The Sierra Club and the Indigenous Environmental Network are fighting an unprecedented project that would bring one of the dirtiest forms of energy extraction in the world to eastern Utah. The proposed Antelope Creek tar sands oil project threatens to disrupt wildlife, poison and dry up rivers, and imperil human health with hazardous air pollutants, the groups claim. The project would also produce an exorbitant amount of the greenhouse gases.
