Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Indigenous

Indigenous nations have protected the earth on their territories for thousands of years. With the government of Canada ignoring their sovereignty, nations not only see massive theft of resources that could help alleviate social problems, but their exacerbation through their further alienation from their own lands, often accompanying being overrun by development and southern workers, while having no self-determination during this process. In the south of Canada industrial farming displaced many nations with often genocidal results. In the north, a modern equivalent of that fate is only just beginning, wrought on by industrial oil and gas drilling schemes (among many industrial plans) that are condemning entire societies, languages and cultures to a precarious future, becoming minorities in their lands for the first time.

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Mining Tar Sands Produces Much More Air Pollution Than We Thought

Mining Tar Sands Produces Much More Air Pollution Than We Thought
Research shows that emissions of a class of air pollutants are two to three orders of magnitude higher than previously calculated

By Joseph Stromberg
February 3, 2014es

Environmental health risks of Alberta oil sands likely underestimated: study

John Cotter

EDMONTON — The Canadian Press
Feb. 03 2014

A new study suggests the environmental health risks of oilsands operations in Alberta’s Athabasca region have probably been underestimated.

Researchers say emissions of potentially hazardous air pollution that were used in environmental reviews done before approving some projects did not include evaporation from tailings ponds or other sources, such as dust from mining sites.

Keystone-Resisting Landowners See Cash Offers Skyrocket

Keystone-Resisting Landowners See Cash Offers Skyrocket
Jan 26, 2014
Huff Post (Canada)

PAGE, Neb. - Cash offers have been skyrocketing, as much as seven-fold, for holdout Nebraska landowners who are willing to sign quickly to allow the Keystone XL pipeline onto their property.

The landowners say they've received written offers from pipeline builder TransCanada Corp. in the last few weeks offering exponentially more money than initially promised, on the condition that they sign soon.

Toxic rocks and declining health: 3.5 years after Enbridge's tar sands pipeline disaster

Toxic rocks and declining health: 3.5 years after Enbridge's tar sands pipeline disaster
By
Sonia Grant
| January 14, 2014

As communities in Ontario and Quebec await the National Energy Board’s (NEB) decision on the Line 9 reversal, new details about the devastating impacts of Enbridge’s now infamous 2010 Kalamazoo River spill in Michigan raise a series of unanswered questions about the health impacts of exposure to spilled diluted bitumen (dilbit), and about Enbridge’s ability to manage potential pipeline incidents.

The Kalamazoo River’s toxic rocks

Neil Young renews push on treaty rights, tar sands development

Neil Young renews push on treaty rights, oil-sands development

BRAD WHEELER

The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jan. 13 2014

On the day following his Honor the Treaties concert at Massey Hall, where he had lambasted the Canadian government’s handling of Alberta’s oil-sands development, Neil Young continued his campaign against the environmental policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s administration.

Climate change rattles mental health of Inuit in Labrador

Climate change rattles mental health of Inuit in Labrador
'Grief, mourning, anger, frustration' over environmental changes

CBC News Posted: Jan 10, 2014

Researchers studying the mental health and well-being of Inuit populations in coastal Labrador say rising temperatures are having damaging psychological effects on people in traditional communities.

'Many people said they also felt very depressed about not being able to get out there on the land'- Ashlee Cunsolo Willox, researcher for Inuit Mental Health Adaptation to Climate Change project

How Is Climate Change Reshaping Our Culture?

Tell us what you think. Then hear leading thinkers on shifts in tech, business, politics and nature at free Jan. 22 event.

By Geoff Dembicki, Today, TheTyee.ca
Jan 14, 2014

English Bay, Vancouver

Enbridge’s Expansion: The Flanagan South Pipeline

flanagan south

Enbridge’s Expansion: The Flanagan South Pipeline

The Cause:

To resist the construction of the KXL and the expansion of tar sands infrastructure and dedicated to stopping Tar Sands transportation and extraction infrastructure in the beautiful heartland of North America.

1: Opposition to all forms of Tar Sands exploitation
2. Opposition to Infrastructure Which Supports Further Tar Sands Exploitation
3: Explicit Support for Indigenous Peoples
4: Acknowledgement of Direct Action as A Legitimate and Necessary Tactic
5: No Condemnation of Resistance

A rant on the Federal attempted approval of Enbridge Gateway

(This was written in the hours after the Federal announcement of 209 conditions on Gateway approval, essentially a 'yes'.)

If anyone is surprised or disheartened by today's announcement about Gateway, you haven't been paying attention.

This government is the most rancidly reactionary, anti-democratic and pro-industry ever seen in Canada. That is not to let anyone else off the hook for their crimes, either.

It means you forgot the basic fact of how this works: They cannot be negotiated with. They must be stopped.

Imperial Oil's Mackenzie Valley pipeline still on ice

Imperial Oil's Mackenzie Valley pipeline still on ice
Cost of gas project now expected to be around $20B

CBC News Posted: Dec 19, 2013

Imperial Oil has announced it will not go ahead with the Mackenzie Gas Project, as the market conditions are just not good right now, says a company spokesman.

Imperial Oil had to give its decision on the construction of the pipeline to the National Energy Board by the end of 2013. The company was also required to provide an updated cost estimate.