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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Peak oil notes - Sept 9

Peak oil notes - Sept 9
by Staff

Prices and production

Keep industry out

Calgary Herald September 7, 2010

The provincial government's proposal to have members of the oilsands industry sit on a committee tasked with overseeing a study into the unusual rates of cancer at Fort Chipewyan is an absolute nonstarter.

Neither the residents of Fort Chip, downstream on the Athabasca River from oilsands operations, nor Albertans in general, can have confidence in the conclusions of any study in which members of the industry suspected of being linked to those cancers, have oversight or control.

Enbridge signs Husky, BP deal for Sunrise Project

Enbridge signs Husky deal

Sunrise Project Next In Line; Project raises investments in oilsands to $2.3B

By Shaun Polczer, Calgary Herald September 8, 2010

CALGARY -- Enbridge Inc. on Tuesday continued to redouble its oilsands expansion plans with a deal to tie Husky Energy's proposed Sunrise oilsands project to its Cheecham distribution hub in northeast Alberta.

The Calgary-based shipper said it had signed a $475-million deal with Husky to build and operate the facilities which will initially ship 90,000 barrels per day to its transportation hub near Conklin starting in 2013.

Secret German analysis warns of peak oil and coming energy crisis

Secret German analysis warns of peak oil and coming energy crisis
By Stephanie Dearing.
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Recently economically dominant governments have been turning their attention to studying the future of energy, trying to calculate when there might be an energy crisis.
In an ideal state, any government would prefer to circumvent a potential energy crisis. But analysis leaked from a German Military think tank, the Bundeswehr Transformation Center, states a crisis in the near future is increasingly inevitable, according to Der Spiegel.

Canadian Natural Resources, subcontractor charged in 2008 tailings pond drowning

Canadian Natural Resources, subcontractor charged in 2008 oilsands drowning
By The Canadian Press
September 3, 2010

EDMONTON - Workplace safety charges have been filed against petroleum producer Canadian Natural Resources and one of its subcontractors in an oilsands death two years ago.

Rick Boughner, 47, died in September 2008 when an excavator he was using tipped over and sank into a tailings pond, causing him to drown.

Transcanada’s Keystone Pipeline Shut Down for Work

Transcanada’s Keystone Pipeline Shut Down for Work
By Aaron Clark and Samantha Zee - Sep 3, 2010

TransCanada Corp. shut its Keystone pipeline Sept. 1 for unscheduled maintenance work, Michael Barnes, a company spokesman said in a telephone interview. The line is expected to resume service by Sept. 8, he said.

TransCanada expects to make all September deliveries on time, Barnes said. The inline inspections will take place throughout the 2,151-mile (3,461-kilometer) pipeline.

Now it all becomes clear: Premier due on Pelosi's mat next week

Stelmach's measured response to recent petro-goofs seemed out of character until we learned of his plans to see U.S. Speaker

By Graham Thomson, edmontonjournal.com
September 4, 2010

Every week the Alberta government releases what's officially called the "public itinerary" of meetings for the premier, cabinet and caucus -- which means, of course, journalists are left wondering what's on the unofficial "private" itinerary that we don't get to see.

How much proof do the global warming deniers need?

Johann Hari: How much proof do the global warming deniers need?

Everything the climate scientists said would happen - with their pesky graphs and studies and computers - is coming to pass. This is proving the hottest year ever

Friday, 27 August 2010

West Moberly says Site C would power tar sands not homes

Monday, 30 August 2010

Amid a bevy of resource projects in northeast B.C., the West Moberly First Nation claims the province is green-washing its Site C hydroelectric project.

“It’s not clean and it’s not green,” West Moberly Chief Roland Willson told BIV in a recent interview.

The First Nation community is a member of the Treaty 8 Tribal Association near Fort St. John where dozens of companies are snapping up land to build the next shale gas well, coal mine or renewable power project.

Protecting the Tar Sands, Protecting Capitalism

Whatever It Takes:
Protecting the Tar Sands, Protecting Capitalism
Ryan Katz-Rosene

Something is rotten in the province of Alberta! And it's not just the tar sands. It's the way political and corporate elites do whatever it takes to extinguish potential threats to the bituminous megaproject. The attempt to protect the tar sands from criticism can be framed as a part of a broader effort to protect the ‘rights’ of private interests to profit from bitumen production.