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.
Harper rolls dice to play oil sands 'wild card'
Mar 02, 2009
Tyler Hamilton
ENERGY REPORTER
Canada's oil and gas sector is a crucial engine of our economy and isn't going away, so any technologies that help reduce or capture emissions are both welcome and necessary.
But can these technologies help us right now, particularly to justify rapid expansion of oil-sands projects? And, taken alone, are they enough?
Three charged in death of philanthropist
PETER CHENEY
Globe and Mail
March 2, 2009
TORONTO — Three men have been arrested and charged in the 2007 shooting death of wealthy Toronto philanthropist Glen Davis, opening a dramatic new chapter in a long-stalled murder mystery.
“This was a lengthy and complex investigation,” said Staff Inspector Brian Raybould of the Toronto Police Homicide squad.
Crude Business in Colombia
Alberta's oil and gas sector gets behind the Free Trade push
February 25, 2009
by Dawn Paley
BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA–When Minister of International Trade Stockwell Day
signed the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Peru on
November 21, it was a happy day for Canada’s oil and gas sector, but
the deal was celebrated by its signatories as a landmark for human
rights and democracy in Colombia.
“Deepening both economic and political engagement between our
countries is the best way Canadians can support the citizens of
*Oilsands will never get a fair shake*
*Lamphier:* I've always had a thing for National Geographic. Without
access to its pictures, I'm sure I would have flunked Grade 5 geography.
My projects on the Great Pyramids of Egypt or the lost Incan city of
Machu Picchu would have been a crashing bore. I know that in my heart.
_*MORE...*
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Business/Oilsands+will+never+fair+shake/1...
* Canada needs the oil sands*
*NP:* National Geo-graphic magazine's current ar ticle on Al -berta's
Co-op backs Canadian oil fight
February 26, 2009
MANCHESTER-based Co-operative Financial Services said today it was backing legal action by Canada's Beaver Lake Cree Nation in its fight to stop tar sand developments by oil giants including Shell, BP and ExxonMobil.
CFS said it would fund the Alberta community's efforts to demonstrate the impact of tar sand developments on their traditional way of life and seek injunctions to prevent them.
Tories, Liberals defend oil sands
Feb 25, 2009
THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA – Conservatives and Liberals both came to the defence of Alberta's oilsands today, responding to a stark 20-page spread in this month's National Geographic magazine.
The article, "The Canadian oil boom: Scraping the bottom," details the environmental and social problems around the oilsands, as well as an explanation of the extraction process.
This Op-Ed was refused publication by the New York Times.
by Charles Hall and Nate Gagnon
EROEI.com (March 23 2007)
Op-Ed Editor, New York Times:
The recent front page article "Oil innovations pump new life into old
wells" by Jad Mouawad (March 5 page 1) is dangerously misleading. The
author would have us believe that technological innovations will
increase the proportion of oil recoverable from known fields
sufficiently to compensate for the dearth of new discoveries. It gives
a false sense of security about our difficult oil situation based on a
Syncrude pockets $18.5B bonanza
Liberals slam 'sweet deal' negotiated in 1997 worth billions of dollars to oilsands producers
Darcy Henton, The Edmonton Journal
February 24, 2009
Oilsands giant Syncrude stands to earn a extra $18.5 billion over the life of its operations as a result of cashing in late last year on a royalty option it negotiated more than a decade earlier with the Alberta government, says Liberal MLA and energy critic Kevin Taft.
The unspoken part of this "unpalatable" duality is that green-minded folks have just such an equally repulsive "choice". Either be "unreasonable" and "not a part of the solution" by pointing out that CCS and all other Climate Change in the tar sands "solutions" are nonsense, especially when one sees the forms of emissions yet to come from the In Situ developments. There is no solving the climate crisis, preventing deforestation, preserving the Mackenzie River Basin or using the remaining natural gas on Turtle Island in a sane manner-- unless we also prevent the tar sands from operating.
Alberta gets fresh black eye with oilsands coverage
By Kelly Cryderman, Canwest News ServiceFebruary 22, 2009
CALGARY - It seems the Alberta government can't catch a break.
To add to the long list of international publications that have focused on the environmental costs of the oilsands, National Geographic chose its March edition to splash images of the development - with at least four pictures depicting unsightly tailings ponds - across its pages alongside an article.
