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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Shifting Tar Sands

Shifting oil sands
Telegraph UK Magazine
15/09/2007

In the hunt for new fuel sources, a vast swath of western Canada is being mined for its precious 'oil sands'. Jack Fairweather visits the centre of the new gold rush. Photographs by Jonas Bendiksen

Donnie Leblanc is surprisingly nonchalant for a man who has just blown $20,000 on a two-day trip to Las Vegas. But then, since he came to northern Canada, he hasn't had to worry too much about money - and there is plenty more where that came from. In a few months' time he will have saved enough to hit the casinos again.

Oil industry 'sleepwalking into crisis'

Oil industry 'sleepwalking into crisis'
Former Shell chairman says that diminishing resources could push price of crude to $150 a barrel
By David Strahan and Andrew Murray-Watson
Published: 16 September 2007 // Independent UK

Lord Oxburgh, the former chairman of Shell, has issued a stark warning that the price of oil could hit $150 per barrel, with oil production peaking within the next 20 years.

Is it too late to stop the ethanol con job?

Is it too late to stop the ethanol con job?
ERIC REGULY
September 14, 2007 at 6:27 AM EDT

ROME — Not so long ago, you could feel complacent - smug even - about your little greenish exertions. You traded your SUV for a smaller set of wheels. You bought compact florescent bulbs and dragged the old push mower out of storage. You approved of ethanol and other biofuels and vowed to buy them whenever possible. Okay, there wasn't a lot of sacrifice involved. But you could feel a tad superior to your fossil-fuel-slurping neighbours.

Pasta, Beer, Easter Eggs too Expensive because of Ethanol

Meat, dairy and other food producers assail ethanol
Congress about to decide whether to require sixfold hike in fuel output
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.16.2007

WASHINGTON — Already this year, ethanol has been blamed for more expensive Easter eggs, dying shrimp along the Louisiana coastline and costlier milk in school lunches.

Germans curse biofuels for higher beer costs. In Italy, consumer advocates organized a pasta boycott last week, complaining that pasta prices have soared because farmers grow crops for fuel, not food.

CNN gets in on the Peak: "The End of Oil"

The article here, rather poorly put together, nonetheless should be noted for a multitude of reasons & not least that this is on CNN and is a follow up on the GAO in the lower 48 actually discussing the problem. There is a slow but clear trend towards not just peak oil, but peak denial. We have hit the peak in reasonable denial; the costs of continuing any further such denial are simply too great for the "market of ideas" to bear.

--M

The end of oil
A small - but growing - group of experts think world oil production will peak in the next few years, to devastating effect.

Editorial: North Dakota must step up on planned [Keystone] pipeline

North Dakota must step up on planned pipeline
Sep 14, 2007 - 08:30:11 CDT
By TIM MATHERN
Fargo

A pipeline company wants access to thousands of acres of private land in the state. Recent hearings before the Public Service Commission tell me this issue goes way beyond the PSC; the governor needs to provide leadership.

The TransCanada Keystone pipeline would carry Canadian "tar sands" oil from Alberta to refineries in other states. PSC approval of the route would make more than 400 landowners subject to condemnation proceedings.

Peak Oil Facts Converge with Theory

Copyright 2007 Financial Times Information
Global News Wire - Asia Africa Intelligence Wire
Copyright 2007 Kasturi & Sons Ltd,
The Financial Times Limited
September 14, 2007 Friday
PEAK OIL FACTS CONVERGE WITH THEORY

Bitumen Who’s Who

When I see an article like this, I am reminded of a quote from Utah Philips: "The earth is not dying, she is being killed... and the people killing her have names and addresses!"

--M
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Bitumen Who’s Who

Six influential individuals who's opinions count regarding oilsands development
From Western Gold: Heavy Oil and Oilsands in Canada

There are a lot of things about Alberta’s oilsands that are nice to know:

Angry Union Workers Continue Loud Demonstrations Against Labour Laws

Angry Union Workers Continue Loud Demonstrations Against Labour Laws
Sep, 13 2007 - 2:40 PM

CALGARY/AM770CHQR - A court ruling early Thursday morning has put the kibosh on information pickets being staged at various locations throughout the province, particularly in the Edmonton area and Fort McMurray.
Outside the Petro-Canada refinery in Fort Saskatchewan, the cease and desist order didn't have much of an impact, as many more workers gathered, including Roger Jordan.

Canada votes 'no' as UN native rights declaration passes

Canada votes 'no' as UN native rights declaration passes
Last Updated: Thursday, September 13, 2007 | 3:07 PM CT
CBC News

The international community adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on Thursday, despite high-profile opposition from Canada and three other countries.