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.
What do you know about the largest industrial project in human history?
EDUCATIONAL ON THE TAR SANDS
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18TH
6:30 PM ROOM 2270
SFU HARBOUR CENTRE
515 WEST HASTINGS
Come learn about the Alberta Tar Sands and its impact on indigenous rights, the environment, labour rights including migrant workers, as well as its global consequences in an era of oil-dependency, the War on Terror, and an expanding corporate regime through the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement.
by Bill Totten (December 11 2007)
In an article I posted here on December 9th entitled "What Will We Eat
as the Oil Runs Out?" Richard Heinberg refers to the peaking of another
valuable, but finite, resource:
"Phosphorus is set to become much more scarce and expensive, according to
a study by Patrick Dery, a Canadian agriculture and environment analyst
and consultant. Using data from the US Geological Survey, Dery performed
a peaking analysis on phosphate rock, similar to the techniques used by
petroleum geologists to forecast declines in production from oilfields.
"At a City briefing by an international bank last week, a senior
executive said: 'Today everyone is talking about global warming, but my
prediction is that in two years water will move to the top of the
geopolitical agenda.'"
Water becomes the new oil as world runs dry
Western companies have the know-how - and the financial incentive -
to supply water to poor nations. But, as Richard Wachman reports,
their involvement is already provoking unrest
* Richard Wachman
* The Observer,
* Sunday December 9 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/09/water.climatechange
Bruce Power looks at Alberta facility
By The Canadian Press
Published: 12/14/2007 - Vol. 3, No. 25
An Ontario-based company that operates Canada's first private nuclear electricity generating plant wants to build a similar facility in Alberta.
Bruce Power has announced plans to buy Energy Alberta Corp., which has already begun preliminary work on a proposal to build a nuclear plant in the Peace River area about 350 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
The company says any decisions it makes will rely heavily on having a willing community.
It's war on city crime dens
Houses of drugs and prostitution to be targeted in new enforcement program
By FRANK LANDRY, CITY HALL BUREAU
Thu, December 6, 2007
Edmonton's top drug-house-busting cop welcomes the province's plan to crack down on crime dens.
Sgt. Maurice Brodeur sees the initiative working hand in hand with the program he runs, the Edmonton Police Service's Report A Drug House program.
"Too long, these little disorder houses ... have caused a lot of grief in neighbourhoods," Brodeur told Sun Media.
The Biggest Global Warming Crime in History
By Cahal Milmo, Independent UK. Posted December 13, 2007.
The Canadian wilderness is set to be invaded by BP in an oil
exploration project dubbed 'the biggest global warming crime' in
history.
BP, the British oil giant that pledged to move "Beyond Petroleum" by
finding cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, is being accused of
abandoning its "green sheen" by investing nearly £1.5bn to extract
oil from the Canadian wilderness using methods which
environmentalists say are part of the "biggest global warming crime"
B.C. shale gas set to be next generation's oil sands
PATRICK BRETHOUR
December 14, 2007
VANCOUVER -- In the remote north of the province, there is a vast warehouse of hydrocarbons lurking in difficult geology, waiting for the right combination of technology, economics and entrepreneurial guts to free them.
A generation ago, that description applied to Alberta and its oil sands. Today, that scenario is playing out in British Columbia and its shale gas fields where trillions - yes, that is a T - of cubic feet of natural gas could be on their way to market.
Petro-Canada increases investment in oil sands
But company plans to lower its financial outlay for natural gas production in Western Canada
NORVAL SCOTT
December 14, 2007
CALGARY -- Petro-Canada has joined the parade of Canadian companies that are raising their total spending next year, but also cutting exploration in Alberta's conventional oil and gas sector.
When $1.3-billion isn't that much
Dave Ebner, Globe and Mail
December 12, 2007 at 6:39 PM EST
The last sale of new oil and natural gas exploration rights in Alberta for the year was announced late Wednesday, with $68-million coming into the provincial treasury, boosting the total for the year to $1.29-billion.
That’s the third-highest annual haul in the province’s history — but it’s down more than 60 per cent from the record of $3.43-billion hit last year, and also lower than the $2.26-billion in 2005.
Notes for the presidential candidates
by Dave Cohen
The next president of the United States will have to confront the urgent problems attending rapid oil depletion in the OECD countries.
The world's liquid fuels supply can no longer meet demand and global exports levels are set to decline. Oil prices are high, volatile and rising each year, which is likely a permanent condition in the markets while demand remains strong.
