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.
Rise in tanker traffic sparks fear of spills
Concern about a crude spill has one councillor trying to slow the increase of exports from Burnaby terminal
DON WHITELEY
Special to The Globe and Mail
November 27, 2007
VANCOUVER -- The potential for large increases in exports of crude oil through the Port of Vancouver has local politicians concerned about the port's growing vulnerability to oil spills.
TransCanada Corp. seeks permit to build $983M gas pipeline in Alberta
at 16:24 on November 21, 2007, EST.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
CALGARY - A TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) subsidiary is seeking permission to build a 300-kilometre natural gas pipeline in Alberta at an estimated cost of $983 million, largely to transport fuel to oilsands operations in the province's northeast.
TransCanada said Wednesday that Nova Gas Transmission's application to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board comes after 11 years of considering the North Central Corridor.
November 23, 2007
What in Tar Nation?
Life among the tar sands
by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
A plume of smoke from a Syncrude processing plant, viewed from Fort Mackay. Photo: Dru Oja Jay
We leave Fort McMurray and hitch a ride to Fort MacKay, a Native community 40kms north, where we stay for three days.
"The system of slavery is like holding a wolf by its ears: you don't like
it, but you don't dare let go."
- Thomas Jefferson
The oil sands and slavery
By Frederick Douglass*
It was once the case that slaves were the most valuable asset in America. As the horrors of slavery began to be documented and a concern that this was a horrible practice spread, the justifications for continued slavery sound eerily familiar to the justifications for the continuation and massive expansion of the oil sands.
NEWS RELEASE 21/11/07
CARC’s Final Argument: Get More Information or Reject Pipeline Project
Warning: Depressing content.
Center for American Progress
AlterNet (September 29 2007)
Say Goodbye to French Wines. Wacky temperatures and rain cycles brought
on by global warming are threatening something very important: Wine.
Scientists believe global warming will "shift viticultural regions
toward the poles, cooler coastal zones and higher elevations". What that
means in regular language: Get ready to say bye-bye to French Bordeaux
and hello to British champagne. [LA Times]
Say Goodbye to Light and Dry Wines. Warmer temperatures mean grapes in
TransCanada files for natural gas permit
By Staff Reports
Argus Leader
PUBLISHED: November 21, 2007
TransCanada Corp., which is seeking to build the crude oil Keystone Pipeline through South Dakota to supply refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma with oil from Alberta, is also looking to expand its natural gas carrying capacity to better serve the Canadian oil industry which is the source of that crude.
An open letter to James Richardson & Sons and the Richardson Foundation regarding investment in the Alberta Oil Sands and the damage being done to environment and health in the region and globally,
To the Richardson Family business and Foundation:
Upgrader fire ignites safety concerns
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 | 11:44 AM MT
CBC News
A third sour gas leak in two years at a Shell refinery northeast of Edmonton has some residents wondering how safe it is to live in the area known as Upgrader Alley.
A giant fireball erupted above Shell's Scotford upgrader near Fort Saskatchewan on Monday afternoon, sparked by a leak of the highly toxic and flammable gas. About 3,000 workers were sent home, but no one was injured in the incident.
Worker Rod Whitford said it wasn't a big scare.
Chávez and Ahmadineyad agree that the dollar empire is collapsing
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/noviembre/mar20/47dolar.html
TEHRAN, November 19.— Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez stated today
in Teheran that “the dollar empire is collapsing,” according to ANSA.
“Soon we won’t be talking about dollars anymore because the value of
the dollar is in free fall and the dollar empire is collapsing,”
Chávez said to a group of journalists.
The Bolivarian leader visited Tehran, coming from Riyadh where he had
