Tar Sands 101
The Tar Sands "Gigaproject" is the largest industrial project in human history and likely also the most destructive. The tar sands mining procedure releases at least three times the CO2 emissions as regular oil production and is slated to become the single largest industrial contributor in North America to Climate Change.
The tar sands are already slated to be the cause of up to the second fastest rate of deforestation on the planet behind the Amazon Rainforest Basin. Currently approved projects will see 3 million barrels of tar sands mock crude produced daily by 2018; for each barrel of oil up to as high as five barrels of water are used.
Human health in many communities has seriously taken a turn for the worse with many causes alleged to be from tar sands production. Tar sands production has led to many serious social issues throughout Alberta, from housing crises to the vast expansion of temporary foreign worker programs that racialize and exploit so-called non-citizens. Infrastructure from pipelines to refineries to super tanker oil traffic on the seas crosses the continent in all directions to allthree major oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.
The mock oil produced primarily is consumed in the United States and helps to subsidize continued wars of aggression against other oil producing nations such as Iraq, Venezuela and Iran.
To understand the tar sands in more depth, continue to our Tar Sands 101 reading list
Tarsand Tankers and Pipelines on BC's Coast to be Discussed at Victoria Forum
TANKER TRAFFIC TALKED ABOUT
A public forum being held in Victoria on Tuesday, May 22 will examine the impact of oil tanker traffic in B.C. waters.
By Thomas Winterhoff
News staff
http://www.vicnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=36&cat=23&id=986802&m...
May 18 2007
May 22 public forum
will examine tanker traffic off B.C.’s coast
With Alberta’s tar sands fueling Canada’s booming oil industry, domestic and international energy companies are looking for better and faster ways to transport raw petroleum products to world markets.
Is the Impact of the Tarsands on Water Worse than on Climate Change?
Choke point for oil sands may be water shortage
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
May 11, 2007
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070511.TARSANDS11/TPS...
The amount of water available in Northern Alberta isn't sufficient to accommodate both the needs of burgeoning oil sands development and preserve the Athabasca River, contends a study issued jointly yesterday by the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta.
OST Statement on Housing Rally at the Legislature: Edmonton, Alberta.
OST statement on Rally for Housing at Edmonton Legislature
Today, May 17, 2007 there was an emergency rally held in Edmonton in support of those who are increasingly being blown away by Alberta’s “boom”. As housing prices continue to skyrocket while available housing plummets, workers can no longer even find places to live right at the “Ground Zero” of the operations of the Tar sands near Fort McMurray.
Edmontonians have seen unlimited rent increases every year, with no end in sight.
Federal Money to save a dying Mackenzie Gas Project?
Federal government money-- as a means to destroying the Mackenzie Valley and many of the nations who live within it-- in order to send the gas south to Alberta to (stop me if you've heard this one) destroy the livable biosphere and the people living within it. This is the "alternative" to letting what should die die, i.e., the Mackenzie Gas Project, if left to its own market based devices.
CEP on Keystone Pipeline: "Canada gets pollution, US gets oil and jobs"
"Canada gets pollution, US gets oil and jobs":
Critical questions need to be answered on Keystone, energy union tells NEB
EDMONTON, AB, May 16 /CNW Telbec/ - The entire oil and gas industry is
being restructured with the construction of the Keystone pipeline, and neither
the National Energy Board, nor the provincial or federal governments
understand the implications for oil and gas supply, jobs, the environment and
more.
That statement from Canada's largest union of energy workers today as it
joins with the Alberta Federation of Labour, the Parkland Institute and Dr.
Presentation on the SPP to the International Trade Committee [Parkland Institute]
Gordon Laxer
Political Economy Professor, and The Director
Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta
May 10, 2007
Introduction
Parkland Institute is an Alberta-wide research network at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. We are supported by over 600 individual members and dozens of progressive organizations. Parkland Institute conducts research and education for the public good.
My remarks are on the energy and climate change implications of the SPP.
Why No Energy Security for Canadians?
The Peace may become home to nuclear power plant
The Peace may become home to nuclear power plant
http://www.prrecordgazette.com/News/305593.html
By Kristy Lesh
Peace River//Record-Gazette Editor
Tuesday May 08, 2007
An Alberta-based energy company is eyeing Peace River to be home to a nuclear power plant to provide clean, emission-free power for the growing oilsands.
Want your Kids Working out of Fort McMurray?
Teenagers should be working in the land of cocaine, fake pee, escorts for everyone, and live only for today in a small town with smog greater than a big city.
I'm sending my kids right now!
--M
Teens wooed by Fort McMurray employers
Last Updated: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 | 12:05 PM MT
CBC News
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2007/05/15/teens-fortmcmurray.html
Teenagers looking for summer work in Fort McMurray, Alta., are being wooed with fat wages, big bonuses and even housing allowances.
Second Storage Tank Collapses at Canadian Natural Oil Sands Site
After the killing of two non-Canadian "guest workers" from China only weeks ago, a second part of the same structures has collapsed, only thanks to a stop work order was life loss averted. This scenario will play out over and again as the rush to work has people who have no training working on the job and learning at the same time. They want to quintuple production and are out of "domestic labour sources" already. What to do? Kill a few people who aren't even allowed to apply to stay past their temporary work.
--M
Second Storage Tank Collapses at Canadian Natural Oil Sands Site
Fidel Castro on the Lie of Ethanol Production as an Alternative Energy Source
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2007/ing/f140507i.html
Fidel Castro
May 14, 2007
María Luisa Mendonça brought to the meeting in Havana, a powerful documentary film on the subject of manual sugarcane cutting in Brazil.
As I did in my previous reflection, I have written a summary using María Luisa’s own paragraphs and phrases. It goes as follows:
