Social Impacts

Pipeline holdouts unlikely to buckle
By CP

FORT SIMPSON, N.W.T. -- The new leader of the last aboriginal group to hold out against a northern natural gas pipeline says he isn't likely to bring the Dehcho First Nation on board the $16-billion project any time soon.

Gerald Antoine, chosen last week as interim chief, said yesterday he's not convinced joining a consortium of northern aboriginals that would own a one-third share in the Mackenzie Valley project would serve his people's best interests.

Stelmach denies governments ignoring oilsands health woes
PC leader listens to concerns from native spokesman
Darcy Henton, with files from Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service, Edmonton Journal
Published: Saturday, February 16, 2008

Just after Tory Leader Ed Stelmach derided a new report that calls Alberta's oilsands "the most destructive development on earth," he was confronted by a Mikisew Cree who's worried the megaprojects are poisoning his people.

Saying Goodbye To The Oil Age
by Peter Goodchild
Countercurrents.org (January 29 2008)

The first practical oil drill was developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania,
in 1859, by Edwin L Drake. Now, only a short while later, the planet
Earth is running out of oil, without which almost nothing in modern
civilization can function. A number of scientists and engineers have
pointed out that the world's oil production will peak early in the
twenty-first century; it has probably already done so. At the beginning
of the century, the human race was using about thirty billion barrels of

Mankind can't afford more oil drilling-ex-BP exec
By Gerard Wynn

LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Known oil, gas and coal reserves may already contain a quarter more carbon than mankind can emit and still avoid dangerous climate change, putting the value of new oil exploration in doubt, said a former oil major executive.
The oil industry may be wasting $50 billion annually searching for new fields, said Jan-Peter Onstwedder, formerly BP's most senior risk manager. He left BP in December.

Oilsands future looks rosy
Production from unconventional source expected to gain supremacy
John Morrissy, Canwest News Service
Published: 1:31 am

OTTAWA - Canada's oilsands are taking over where conventional oil production left off, with profits in the oil-extraction industry rising 18 per cent to a record $23 billion in 2008 on rapidly rising output from the huge oil reserves, according to the Conference Board of Canada.

Former chief won't give up uranium mine battle
Posted By Sue Yanagisawa

A former chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nations yesterday told Justice Douglas Cunningham that he will continue to resist uranium prospecting on lands claimed by Frontenac Ventures Corp. north of Sharbot Lake, even if it means disobeying an order of the court.

Don't fight the Environmental movement-- Buy your own.

Dear Editors of Winnipeg Free Press

First of all, I thank you for sending a reporter to our Treaty One Press
Conference. I would also like to clarify some of the comments makes
regarding the issue in the article and then for the benefit of the readers
to restate some of the conference information left out of the article as
written by Ms. Welch.

"The First Nations hope to parlay those consultations into a funding deal
that would give the bands a source of revenue, similar to property taxes
collected on the pipeline by rural municipalities."

Chávez's Oil Threats Slick but Not Solid
Halting Exports Would Hurt Venezuela More Than U.S.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, center, has threatened to halt oil sales to the United States.
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 13, 2008; Page D01

Northern pipelines at mercy of global energy prices, experts say
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 | 3:05 PM CT
CBC News

Natural gas pipelines being proposed in the North may never be built at this point if global energy consumers can instead import liquefied natural gas from other sources around the world at cheaper prices, experts say.

Projects like the Mackenzie pipeline in the Northwest Territories and the North Slope pipeline down the Alaska Highway have been in the planning stages for decades, with Mackenzie pipeline proponents waiting for regulatory approvals.