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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Nuclear provider targets tar sands

Nuclear provider targets oilsands
Natural gas shortage looms by 2030: Areva
Shaun Polczer, Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Alberta's oilsands industry faces a natural gas shortage by 2030 without new energy sources to offset gas use in oilsands expansions, the head of nuclear power giant Areva Canada Inc. said Monday.

Speaking in Calgary, Areva CEO Armand Laferrere said continued oilsands development would consume virtually all of Canada's current natural gas supply -- some 92 per cent -- by 2030.

Oil-rich Alberta showing shades of Green

From the Globe and Mail Feb 21, 2008

DAWN WALTON

With a report from Katherine O'Neill in Fort McMurray, Alta.

February 21, 2008

LACOMBE, ALTA. -- Alberta Green Party candidate Joe Anglin could hardly believe his eyes when 50 people - mainly baby boomers, some seniors and, on the surface, not a single member of the granola set - took their seats in the Lacombe parish hall over the long weekend.

Speaker says nuclear power about economics

Speaker says nuclear power about economics
New and unexplored issues surrounding nuclear power were discussed by activist Jim Harding last Thursday evening with his presentation at the Blue Ridge Community Centre.
Whitecourt Star
Gina Racine // Wednesday March 05, 2008

With the numerous presentations made throughout the local area in the past few months, Whitecourt and area residents have had the opportunity to learn about a number of topics surrounding the nuclear debate, on both the pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear sides.

Tough new green plan targets tar sands

Tough new green plan targets oil sands
Regulations, which also apply to coal-fired power plants, would force future projects to store greenhouse-gas emissions underground

BRIAN LAGHI
OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF; Compiled by Rick Cash; Shawn McCarthy, Global Energy Reporter
March 10, 2008

Ottawa will unveil new climate-change regulations this week that would force new oil sands projects and coal-fired electricity plants to capture and store the bulk of their greenhouse gases rather than spew them into the air.

The crude fact

The crude fact
Peak oil is no academic debate: the $100 barrel is a harbinger of the energy shortage to come

Jeremy Leggett

This week, oil reached its highest price ever, exceeding the inflation-adjusted record of $103.76 set in April 1980, at the height of the second oil shock. Then, the world was worried that the high price would trigger a global depression. Now, the scope for the oil price to soar ruinously higher than $100 does not seem to worry many people. The landmark record did not reach the front pages.

NDP to try to topple government over climate change policies

NDP to try to topple government over climate change policies
Last Updated: Friday, March 7, 2008 | 7:28 AM ET
CBC News

The New Democrats will try to bring down the federal government with a confidence motion introduced on Friday criticizing the Conservatives' record on climate change.

Parliament won't vote on the motion until Monday, but the Liberals have already indicated they will not vote for the motion, meaning the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not fall.

Emissions for the poor, subsidies for the rich

Emissions for the poor, subsidies for the rich
Latest budget continues the Harperite pattern of tax breaks for large-scale Green House Gas emitters.
Dateline: Monday, March 03, 2008
by Albert Koehl

Environmentalists Win landmark Tar Sands Lawsuit

Environmentalists Win landmark Tar Sands Lawsuit
Court Finds Gaping Holes in Environmental Assessment

EDMUNTON - March 5 -The Federal Court of Canada today released a judgment finding fatal legal errors in the environmental assessment of the Kearl Tar Sands Project, north of Fort McMurray.

Ecojustice lawyer Sean Nixon was in court in January on behalf of the Pembina Institute, Sierra Club of Canada, the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta and the Prairie Acid Rain Coalition.

Sherritt's proposed coal gasification project, southeast of Edmonton

Sherritt International [in partnership with the Ontario Teachers Pension
Plan and Epcor] is proposing to develop a large $1.5B coal gasification
project 3/4 of an hour south east of Edmonton. The primary purpose of this
project will be to produce syngas and/or hydrogen which then can be sold to
bitumen upgraders, refineries and the heavy oil industry. Sherritt hopes to
cash in on further tar sands expansion.

The area of the project is approximately 312 sq kms [most of which is
productive agricultural land] and will be bordered by the town of Tofield,

Fort Chipewyan Takes Action in Edmonton

Note: Fort Chip is not a reserve, but a hamlet.
--M

Reserve holds cancer rally

By SHANNON MONTGOMERY The Canadian Press
Sun. Mar 2 - 4:46 AM

EDMONTON — Janelle Vermillion owns a house in the tiny northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan. Her family, including her brother, still lives there. She considers it home.

But the 27-year-old woman says she will never again feel safe living there.

"I just want to move back home," she said, fighting back tears as she gestured to the pink-clad six-month-old baby in the stroller in front of her.