Social Impacts

Challenge Corporate Power, Embrace True Democracy
by Vandana Shiva
AlterNet (October 01 2007)

Editor's note: the following remarks were made this September at a
conference on "Confronting the Global Triple Crisis - Climate Change,
Peak Oil, Global Resource Depletion & Extinction", in Washington DC. For
more information, visit the International Forum on Globalization's website.

Before I came here I was very fortunate to join the group of scientists
and religious leaders who made a trip to the Arctic to witness the

Canadian Crude: Owning Land On A Pipeline

TransCanada has been in business for more than 50 years, and has thousands of miles of natural gas pipelines. In 1996, the Calgary based company helped build a crude oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Wyoming.

On a picture perfect autumn day in central Montana, Gary Brewington is getting some work done around his ranch.
Montana Landowner Gary Brewington says, "We always kinda wondered about it, I guess, when they first came in here."

For Many Women, Alberta's Boom a Bust
Rising housing costs, lack of alternatives lead to precarious situations

by Maya Rolbin-Ghanie

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

Driven by the tar sands, Alberta's white-hot economy continues to make headlines. But the gendered repercussions of the province's boom are often neglected, understated, or altogether denied.

Canadian Crude: Impact Felt 1,200 Miles Away
- 11/12/2007

Canada produces two and a half million barrels of oil a day and production is expected to double over the next decade. So, energy companies are looking for ways to get a newly developed oil from Canada to refineries in North America. One option is TransCanada's proposed Keystone Pipeline that would run through South Dakota and it all would start in Fort McMurray, Alberta.

It's about as far north as any paved road in Alberta goes. Fort McMurray sits in the Athabasca River valley 275 miles north of Edmonton.

Warning: this article justifies the virtual slavery of the "temporary foreign worker" programs, placing business "needs" ahead of human rights, especially in Energy exploding Alberta. Defend migrant rights, shut down the tar sands. The tar sands TFW's are not allowed off the work camp site. Think about that.

--M

Labour shortage temporarily met from abroad
Norma Greenaway , CanWest News Service
Published: Sunday, November 11, 2007

OTTAWA -- Joe Marshall had reached the end of his rope.

Cocaine: Alberta-wide increase
By CHUCK CHIANG

Fort McMurray Today staff
Tuesday November 13, 2007

The overall drug problem in Alberta is down, but cocaine-related issues are on the rise, according to a recent report by a provincial task force.
The Crime Reduction and Safe Communities Task Force said offences involving cocaine increased by 12 per cent last year, according to the Calgary Sun, versus drops in overall and marijuana drug offences.

The Richest First Nation in Canada
Ecological and political life in Fort MacKay

by Macdonald Stainsby

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

The primarily Indigenous, mostly Cree (also 'Chipewyan Dene') community of Fort MacKay--just north of the internationally famous tar sand "boom" city of Fort McMurray--is said to be the "richest First Nation in Canada." The alleged wealth is largely due to the fact that the community is surrounded by, and on top of, tar sand.

Study Finds Carcinogens in Water Near Alberta Oil Sands Projects
By IAN AUSTEN
Published: November 9, 2007

OTTAWA, Nov. 7 — High levels of carcinogens and toxic substances have been found in fish, water and sediment downstream from Alberta’s huge oil sands projects, according to a new study.

The 75-page report, written by Kevin P. Timoney, an ecologist with Treeline Environmental Research, was commissioned by the local health authority of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, where many residents say they believe the oil sands developments to the south are damaging their health.

SAUDI ARABIA'S NEW MIGHT: ENERGY
Fort McMurray of the Middle East
As Saudi Arabia tries to extend its oil reach, it faces the same hurdles as Alberta

DAVID EBNER

November 13, 2007

RABIGH, SAUDI ARABIA -- It's 35 C and humid on the shore of the Rea Sea north of Jeddah as a sprawling industrial facility and construction cranes emerge through the bright haze in the near distance.

For Saudi Arabia, a crude oil producer and refiner, the site is a first step into a future of doing more with the black gold that lies in vast quantities beneath the desert kingdom.

Whether we avert catastrophe with climate change may actually be decided
by Citibank and Bank of America.

by Tara Lohan

AlterNet (October 06 2007)

We're nearing the end of the window of opportunity we have to avert the
catastrophic effects predicted from the earth's changing climate. We're
either going to sink or swim. Our best hope at this time is to
drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, like carbon dioxide.

Global leaders are putting their heads together to come up with
solutions. Across the world, countries and municipalities are passing