Forests lose more trees and habitat to pipeline “right of way” cuts and tar pit building than to clearcuts. With minor variation, pipelines go the direct route. Through the strip mining of the land that contains tarsand petroleum and through pipeline construction to accomodate, only the Amazon Basin in Brazil would see larger rates of deforestation than the Boreal forest cover surrendered to the tarsands. Roads often accompany pipelines, as do various other developments. Hundreds of thousands of miles of forests, all combined, have been lost to infrastructure built to accommodate tarsands operations. Now the industry wants to build two approximately 1200 km long Mackenzie and Gateway pipelines as well as 2700 km's from Alaska's North Slope to accomodate tarsand oil production.
More birds dying in oil sands than first reported: study
CTV.ca News Staff
Tuesday Sep. 7, 2010
A new report suggests more birds are dying in Alberta's tar sands than the government has let on.
Government industries have estimated that on average, about 65 birds die each year from tailings pond exposure, according to the study released Tuesday. The mean annual rate was determined by analyzing the mortality rate between 2000 and 2007.
NASA scientist to testify at Total oilsands hearing
The Canadian Press
Date: Sunday Sep. 19, 2010 10:15 AM ET
One of NASA's top scientists will appear at hearings into a proposed oilsands project to warn about the climate change consequences of approving Total E&P Canada's $2-billion plan to build the Joslyn North mine.
James Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is slated to testify at public hearings into the proposal, which begin Tuesday in Fort McMurray, Alta.
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.
Reports critical of oilsands keep piling up
'There needs to be an end to industry monitoring itself'
Published September 9, 2010 by Trevor Scott Howell in News
Alberta’s oilsands tailings ponds are killing birds at a rate 30 times higher than government and industry figures imply, according to a new study.
Ecologist Kevin Timoney, who co-authored the report, calls industry self-reporting of bird deaths “ad hoc” and says it consistently underestimates actual mortality.
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.
Canada Insists Oil-Rich Tar Sands Are Sustainable
By Leon Kaye | August 25th, 2010
Triple Pundit
Some of Canada’s most stunning natural beauty is in the prosperous province of Alberta. Walk through downtown Calgary and you get the vibe that it is the true economic center of Canada. Banff and Jasper National Parks boast incredible scenery and awe-inspiring wildlife. About 275 miles and a nine-hour drive away, the landscape changes, and displays the driver behind Alberta’s economic success.
Of the three supposed most incorrect statements listed here in this Tait article, I would assume that since the 3rd one is word for word lifted off of the front page of OilSandsTruth.org it deserves response.
However, since it is clearly designed to mock the tar sands critics, and to do so with the most far reaching split hairs, let us take up the first two points she critiques:
How the Tar Sands Threaten Canada's Economic Fate
A short course in Dutch Disease, deindustrialization and the Bitumen Curse.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, 13 Aug 2010, TheTyee.ca
Every week Canada's least favorite Emir, Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, earnestly lectures Canadians that the mighty tar sands are a boon to the national economy because "Alberta's engine drives Canada."
First ever 'Tar Sands Healing Walk' voices of concerned citizens
By Kyle Ashmead.
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Fort Mcmurray - A "Tar Sand Healing Walk" was held in Fort MacMurray, AB, Canada. On August 14th, 2010.
The first of its kind in the tar sands region of Alberta.
Unfortunately for all of us and not just the venerable Ms Yaffe, this is not in fact, true. The plans of Kinder Morgan, et al to pump more and more tar sands bitumen via a pipeline through the Rocky Mountains and down into Vancouver (Burnaby) to both bolster a Chevron and perhaps a Shell refinery there, while loading up tankers in the Vancouver Burrard Inlet to ship out to places both near (California) and far (Asia) has been touted as "making Gateway redundant". Tar Sands bitumen shipments from the Burrard Inlet is not a victory.
