International Oil & Gas is a category for stories relating to tar sand production or climate change but not in any of the projects already listed geographically. This includes other regions of the planet with horrible environmental and high energy costs that, like the tar sands, are only a "choice" because of high prices and the global depletion of easily recoverable oil reserves. Such issues as the threat of war on Iran, "instability" in Iraq and Venezuela or disasters like Katrina will all drive up oil prices, which in turn doubly encourages tar sand production-- by price demand and energy demand.
Stock markets and global oil interests (including war) would be included here, as would attempts to get oil out of high risk, low return areas from oil shale in Colorado, to natural gas and heavy oil in the high eastern Arctic. The tar sands are part of this trend and should be seen as such. What happens with the tar sands will have a tremendous impact on what kind of choices are made elsewhere, environmentally and socially.
TRANSPORT REVOLUTIONS
Moving people and freight without oil
by Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl
To be published by Earthscan in December 2007
(scroll down for an overview and for advance ordering information)
Richard Gilbert
Consultant on Urban Issues
focusing on transport, energy, waste management,
and urban governance
Web site: http://www.richardgilbert.ca
Anthony Perl
Professor of Political Science
Director, Urban Studies Program
Simon Fraser University
OVERVIEW
Everyone’s Downstream: Tar Sands Realities and Resistance
Conference to be held at:
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
November 24-25th, 2007
http://oilsandstruth.org
A Quest for Energy in the Globe’s Remote Places
By JAD MOUAWAD
HAMMERFEST, Norway — For a quarter-century, energy executives were tantalized by vast quantities of natural gas in one of the world’s least hospitable places — 90 miles off Norway’s northern coast, beneath the Arctic Ocean.
Bitter winds and frequent snowstorms lash the region. The sun disappears for two months a year. No oil company knew how to operate in such a harsh environment.
I must comment on this-- This corporation is the one that is trying to re-shape human rights, migrant and labour rights law and is leading the way in getting the flood gates opened for massive amounts of "temporary foreign worker" programs. They have been operating in their "Horizon Oilsands Project" with 500 no-rights, no papers labourers. These workers are the ultimate in cost saving, and CNRL, apparently while making people "learn while they go on the job", have killed 2 in accidents and wounded four others, all from China. If this doesn't save them enough money, then nothing will.
Climate will alter travel patterns: UN
Published: Saturday, October 06, 2007
DAVOS, Switzerland -- Global warming will produce stay-at-home tourists over the next few decades, radically altering travel patterns and threatening jobs and businesses in tourism-dependent countries, according to a stark assessment by UN experts.
The UN Environment Program, the World Meteorological Organization and the World Tourism Organization said concerns about weather extremes and calls to reduce emissions-heavy air travel would make long-haul flights less attractive.
Greenhouse gas emissions hit danger mark
Tue Oct 9, 2007 9:05am EDT
By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - The global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia's leading scientists.
Tim Flannery, a world recognized climate change scientist and Australian of the Year in 2007, said a U.N. international climate change report due in November will show that greenhouse gases have already reached a dangerous level.
The Globe and Mail
WONDER OF GEOGRAPHY
Don't sacrifice the Sacred Headwaters
WADE DAVIS
Explorer-in-residence, National Geographic Society
October 8, 2007
In a rugged knot of mountains, in the remote reaches of northern British Columbia, lies a stunningly beautiful valley known to the first nations as the Sacred Headwaters. There, on the southern edge of the Spatsizi Wilderness - the Serengeti of Canada - are born in remarkably close proximity three of Canada's most important salmon rivers: the Stikine, Skeena and Nass.
Fargo mayor: Don't allow Canadian oil pipeline
Oct 07, 2007
By DALE WETZEL
Associated Press Writer
Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker says the huge new Keystone oil pipeline is a potential threat to his city's water supply, and he's asking the state Public Service Commission to deny a permit for the project.
Walaker suggested Friday that the pipeline's route should be forced outside North Dakota until Canadian officials halt what he considers to be unreasonable opposition to a project that would bring Missouri River water to Fargo.
Forget Your Silver Bullet
Bill Moore, EV World
US Task Force finds unconventional fuels from tar sands to shale oil will make little contribution to future energy needs.
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The United States' Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuels (www.unconventionalfuels.org) has made public its findings and recommendations on the futARTHUR MAX, AssocARTHUR MAX, Associated Pressated Pressbe played by five non-petroleum energy sources found in America: shale oil, heavy crude, tar sands, coal-to-liquids and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) using captured carbon dioxide.
Inuit across Canada's Arctic are worried about global warming
Friday, September 28, 2007 07:17AM
CBC Labrador
CINDY WALL: Inuit across Canada's Arctic are worried about global warming but the effort to help solve the problem is giving them something else to worry about. Efforts to find alternative cleaner energy sources have driven up the price of uranium, the fuel used in nuclear reactors. Developers want to build new uranium mines on Inuit land in Labrador. As Reporter Paul Pigott reports, some people in Labrador wonder if they won't be trading off one problem for another.
