Animal habitats and health are affected by tar sands production, whether from loss of habitat to any of the infrastructure developments across the continent, or through changes in the atmosphere such as melting polar ice caps in the Arctic brought on by out of control C02 emissions. Poisoning waterways, the food supply and the air in the immediate and not-so immediate surroundings has led to drops and even disappearances of species near pipelines, platforms and other infrastructure of the tarsands.
The people of Hartley Bay feel a bit more uneasy today
Jack Knox, canwest news services
Published: Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Six metres of snow in Hartley Bay so far this winter.
Usually it snows, then melts, then rains in a pattern that repeats all season long, but this year it just kept snowing and snowing until it piled high above the raised boardwalks that take the place of roads in the tiny coastal settlement.
Bateman smears famous work to protest pipeline
Video (at link at bottom): Bateman paints over painting in protest
Symbolic smearing meant to demonstrate hazards of spills
Mar 21, 2008 04:30 AM
Petti Fong
Western Canada Bureau Chief
VANCOUVER–Paintbrush in hand, poised over the canvas of orcas swimming in the ocean, wildlife artist Robert Bateman had a momentary feeling of uncertainty.
But when the black paint touched a $2,000 print of his famous painting, Orca Procession, Bateman knew defacing one of his most beloved images was the right thing to do.
Bush Administration's Rush to Develop Oil Shale and Tar Sands Endangers Local communities and Wild Lands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming
26 Conservation, Citizen, Local Government and Recreation Groups Denounce Lease Plan That Could Affect 2 Million Acres of Public Lands
Anthony Kovats // CAF
Tuesday March 11, 2008
The ritual is as old as the giant and enveloping forest itself.
Every spring, the shores of Lesser Slave, Peerless and North and South Wabasca Lakes explode with colour and sound as North America’s migratory songbirds return to the continent’s vast northern forest.
American robins with their robust red breasts join the cacophony of sounds generated by Tennessee, Connecticut and Canada warblers as they gorge on caterpillars and insects in the budding branches.
This is the boreal forest.
IN THE MAIL: Pipeline can and must be stopped
Grand Forks Herald
Published Wednesday, March 12, 2008
GRAND FORKS — The Keystone oil pipeline should not be built in the location where the state Public Service Commission has given permission to begin construction.
Aboriginal chiefs want oilsands moratorium
Renata D'Aliesio, Calgary Herald
Published: Monday, February 25, 2008
EDMONTON - Alberta's aboriginal chiefs are calling for a moratorium on new oilsands development until they've completed plans to manage water and resource development in the region.
Oil-rich Alberta showing shades of Green
From the Globe and Mail Feb 21, 2008
DAWN WALTON
With a report from Katherine O'Neill in Fort McMurray, Alta.
February 21, 2008
LACOMBE, ALTA. -- Alberta Green Party candidate Joe Anglin could hardly believe his eyes when 50 people - mainly baby boomers, some seniors and, on the surface, not a single member of the granola set - took their seats in the Lacombe parish hall over the long weekend.
Are the Sacred Headwaters being sacrificed for the Tar Sands?
The Athabasca Oil Sands are the largest single source of greenhouse
gases in Canada. They are also one of the largest users of methane, also
known as natural gas.
Bitumen extraction is an energy intensive process that requires between
700 and 1200 cubic feet of natural gas to produce one barrel of bitumen.
The natural gas is used to heat water, which is mixed with tar sands to
separate the crude bitumen (a semi-solid form of crude oil), from
silica, clay and other minerals.
Note: Fort Chip is not a reserve, but a hamlet.
--M
Reserve holds cancer rally
By SHANNON MONTGOMERY The Canadian Press
Sun. Mar 2 - 4:46 AM
EDMONTON — Janelle Vermillion owns a house in the tiny northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan. Her family, including her brother, still lives there. She considers it home.
But the 27-year-old woman says she will never again feel safe living there.
"I just want to move back home," she said, fighting back tears as she gestured to the pink-clad six-month-old baby in the stroller in front of her.
Finally Canada's establishment newspaper gets it right! The proposed partial moratorium is indeed a PR greenwash smokescreen:
