Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Social Impacts

Social Impacts. Overnight injections of migrant workers will not build healthy communities and can have severely adverse impacts on existing communities, especially those of indigenous nations on their traditional lands. Such development brings vices and long term displacement too often. Drugs, alcohol and associated violence spreads. Hunting becomes difficult when the land is threatened, leading to a further loss of culture and tradition. In towns like Fort McMurray there is no planning for the future, but merely consumption in the present. However transient the individuals may be, the populations will not leave, as “development” takes on a logic all its own. All levels of run away development are subordinate to that development, not social need.

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Let's Hold Canada to the Same Standards as China

Let's Hold Canada to the Same Standards as China
By Yves Engler; September 01, 2008 - Znet

The mainstream media's hypocrisy during the Olympics would have been funny
if it weren't so ignorance-producing.

So many words written or spoken about human rights violations,
lip-synching, suppression of Tibet, taped fireworks, Communist
dictatorship, evil Chinese nationalism and yet what about context? Or what
about how Canada might seem to them?

Has any media discussed Canada's decades-long support of British
imperialism in China? Opium War anyone? Dividing the country up among

Canada's Tar Sands Lobbyists Focus on Democrats

POLITICS-US: Canada's Tar Sands Lobbyists Focus on Democrats
By Chris Arsenault

VANCOUVER, Sep 2 (IPS) - As the U.S. election campaign kicks into overdrive, Canadian politicians and oil executives are stepping up lobbying efforts to make sure whoever controls the White House keeps purchasing notoriously dirty oil from the Alberta tar sands.

Airport closure could hurt access to health care: northern Alta. leaders

Airport closure could hurt access to health care: northern Alta. leaders
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 3, 2008
CBC News

Mayors and chiefs from northern Alberta communities said they will fight any plan to shut down Edmonton City Centre Airport, a public hearing in the provincial capital heard Tuesday.

About 60 people are making presentations at the two-day public hearings on the future of the airport, beginning Tuesday at Edmonton city hall.

Treaty One First Nations Look To Halt Keystone Pipeline Project

First Nations look to halt pipeline project
Chiefs want Ottawa to consult with them over project
By PAUL TURENNE, SUN MEDIA //
Tue, September 2, 2008

A potentially historic court hearing that may ultimately cause pipeline construction in Manitoba to be delayed and could possibly see local First Nations get a piece of oil revenues began in Winnipeg today.

U.S. foundations use money to pursue co-optation against Canadian environmental group

U.S. foundations use money to pursue co-optation against Canadian environmental group
Tue 2. Sep 2008
by Dru Oja Jay, Dominion writer

Since major foundations in the US began funding environmental groups in the late 1980s, many grassroots environmental activists have sounded the alarm about the rise of the “Big Greens.” Featuring six-figure salaries and foundation funding, critics say the large environmental NGOs co-opt grassroots movements and exercise control over what issues are brought up.

Canada pushing to exploit Alberta's tar sands

Canada pushing to exploit Alberta's oil sand
Rob Gillies, Associated Press
Sunday, August 31, 2008
(08-31) 04:00 PDT Fort McMurray, Alberta

The largest dump truck in the world is parked under a huge 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 nearly $23,000 per haul at today's prices.

Post-Peak Politics

Post-Peak Politics
by John Michael Greer

The Archdruid Report (July 23 2008)

Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society

The recent downward lurch in the price of oil, among its other effects,
has provided a good look at the downward arc of a cycle of public
discourse about energy that will likely become all too familiar during
the months and years ahead of us. As oil prices rose to new records a
few weeks back, the media bristled with pundits warning about an
imminent energy crisis in language ranging from sober to apocalyptic.

Enbridge, BP to expand tar sands pipeline network

Enbridge, BP to expand pipeline network
August 29, 2008 at 12:44 PM EDT

CALGARY — Enbridge Inc. and BP Plc plan to spend up to $2-billion (U.S.) expanding their pipeline systems to ship growing volumes of Canadian crude oil to the U.S. Gulf Coast, they said Friday.

Enbridge, best known as operator of the main artery for Canadian oil exports, and BP, the British oil major, said they aim to develop a system to ship 250,000 barrels of oil a day to Texas City, Texas, from Flanagan, Illinois, by 2012.

Toll road may aid pipeline costs to Mackenzie Gas Project

Toll road may aid pipeline costs
SHAWN MCCARTHY // GLOBAL ENERGY REPORTER
August 29, 2008

OTTAWA -- The federal and territorial governments are looking at inviting private-sector partners to build a toll highway up the Mackenzie Valley as a way of opening the North for development and lowering costs for a long-delayed natural gas pipeline.

Why oil won't fall below $100

Why oil won't fall below $100
With a surge in the price of global commodities, it's costing more to produce a barrel of oil than ever before.
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: August 22, 2008: 3:47 AM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Last week, falling oil prices looked unstoppable. The last few days have seen a halt in that slide. Still with prices well below the record set in July and a shaky world economy threatening demand, the question remains: How low can oil go?