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.

warning: Creating default object from empty value in /var/www/drupal-6.28/modules/taxonomy/taxonomy.pages.inc on line 33.

Updating the book on global warming

Updating the book on global warming
by George Monbiot

Here is a portion of George Monbiot's speech at the Camp for Climate
Change in London August 18 2007 {1}. He has been studying and writing
about global warming for over twenty years and is the Author of Heat
(South End Press, 2007) which is about climate change and what needs to
be done about it. He explains that because of recent scientific
discoveries the book needs an extreme update.

Indymedia.org.uk (August 31 2007)

I'm going to start with some bad news, and the bad news is this. Two

The AFL: The Boom, Union Busting, and Temporary Foreign Workers

The Boom, Union Busting, and Temporary Foreign Workers
Plans to Import Workers a "Lose-Lose Proposition"

Alberta is in the middle of a boom. There is no question about that. Due to the pace of economic activity, the labour market is tight. Employers are having to work harder to find workers for their projects.

Most employers are taking necessary steps to recruit and retain desired workers - improving working conditions, increasing wages and offering good benefits. Some employers, however, are taking more drastic steps.

Marathon Oil to Expand Refinery in Detroit for Tar Sands

Marathon plans to expand Detroit refinery
$1-billion project would create more than 900 new jobs
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070827/BUSINESS06/7082...
August 27, 2007

By ALEJANDRO BODIPO-MEMBA
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Officials at Marathon Petroleum Co.’s refinery in Detroit plan to announce a $1-billion expansion proposal that would boost oil production 15,000 barrels a day by 2010 and add more than 900 jobs to the local economy.

N Dakota: "Proposed [Keystone] crude oil pipeline threatens land, wastes energy"

Proposed crude oil pipeline threatens land, wastes energy
http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=176522&section=Opinion&for...
By Janie Capp,
Published Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Regarding the proposed 1,830-mile, 30-inch crude oil pipeline coming from Alberta, Canada, across North Dakota, to Illinois and possibly farther.

The Sierra Club [USA] Greenwashes Al Gore

August 30, 2007
The Desecration of John Muir
The Sierra Club Greenwashes Al Gore
http://counterpunch.org/donnelly08302007.html
By MICHAEL DONNELLY

The Sierra Club accelerated its plunge to environmental irrelevancy, firmly cementing its role as Democratic Party lapdog by awarding its highest award, the John Muir Award, to Carbon Off-set magnate, Al Gore, Jr.

The club announced this year's award with a fawning press release stating;

Tar Sands the Only Reason Reserves Not Dropping

Global oil reserves up only 1% last year
Canada's Oilsands Sole Booster, Study Says
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
Published: Thursday, August 30, 2007
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=7bd3bdc5-...

CALGARY -- Record global oil and gas profits of US$243-billion and record spending of US$401-billion have resulted in a marginal 1% increase in world oil reserves last year -- all of it coming from a 1.9-billion-barrel addition from Canada's oilsands, according to a new study.

Keystone Pipeline hearings set in Missouri

Keystone Pipeline hearings set
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stcharles/story/CB3250...
08/30/2007

Public hearings on a draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Keystone Pipeline are planned in St. Charles and Collinsville next week.

Call for Moratorium on Mackenzie Gas Project

Green Groups Seek Freeze on Canada Arctic Pipelines
http://www.cnbc.com/id/20516662
30 Aug 2007 | 03:33 PM ET

Regulators should slap a moratorium on pipelines in Canada's North because governments and oil companies have not planned for long-term environmental impacts, a green-group representative said Thursday.

Several environmental and social activists began submissions Thursday to the regulatory panel probing the C$16.2 billion ($15.3 billion) Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline on the proposed development's cumulative effects.

Think I'll Go Out to Alberta

THINK I'LL GO OUT TO ALBERTA.

SCOTT HARRIS / scott@vueweekly.com

Greenpeace and its ilk set up shop to battle oilsands
Opposition to the Alberta oil sands got a boost this August when international environmental advocacy organization Greenpeace opened the doors of its Edmonton office, becoming the first of a number of well-known environmental organizations to officially set up shop in Alberta to take on increased development in the north of the province.

BC NDP Opposing Alberta Nuclear Plans

Carole James is, of course, correct to oppose a dramatic *increase* in global warming emissions brought about by the tar sands-fueling proposed nuclear plant near Peace River Alberta. However, another point that needs to be made for British Columbians is the fact that Tilma-- The Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement-- makes between provinces the same kind of impact as Chapter 11 of NAFTA; if the plants are approved in Alberta, by 2009 in both provinces such will not be allowed to be "interfered or impeded" with. Precedents become above legislation.

--M