Social Impacts. Overnight injections of migrant workers will not build healthy communities and can have severely adverse impacts on existing communities, especially those of indigenous nations on their traditional lands. Such development brings vices and long term displacement too often. Drugs, alcohol and associated violence spreads. Hunting becomes difficult when the land is threatened, leading to a further loss of culture and tradition. In towns like Fort McMurray there is no planning for the future, but merely consumption in the present. However transient the individuals may be, the populations will not leave, as “development” takes on a logic all its own. All levels of run away development are subordinate to that development, not social need.
Tar Sands Destroying Wolf & Caribou Populations In Canada
by Beth Buczynski
February 7, 2012
Extracting oil from tar sands (aka oil sands) is detrimental to human health in a number of ways. It drastically increases greenhouse gas emissions, continues our society’s addiction to fossil fuels, and puts soil and water quality at risk.
But these aren’t the only threats posed by tar sands projects like the Keystone XL pipeline.
Possible tar sands pipeline to Portland worries environmental groups
By Matthew Arco
Feb 08, 2012
Portland Daily Sun (Maine)
Environmental groups fearing that talks to pump "incredibly destructive" crude oil from Canada to Greater Portland are once again resurfacing, are opposing the project even before one is officially put in writing.
Too Much Energy Used to Mine, Move Bitumen Says BC Firm
'Energy Return on Investment' hard to justify says P.G.-based engineering
analyst.
By: By Geoff Dembicki 6 February
2012, TheTyee.ca
A B.C. engineering consulting firm claims it has hard numerical proof that
Enbridge's Northern Gateway proposal augurs poorly for the future of modern
society.
The Prince George-based C.J. Peter Associates
Engineeringcame to this conclusion after
performing an EROI analysis on the
$5.5-billion project.
Huge BC rally in Prince Rupert protests Northern Gateway pipeline
By Lynn Herrmann
Feb 5, 2012
Digital Journal
Prince Rupert - A huge rally took to the streets on Saturday in British Columbia’s Prince Rupert, opposing Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline which would transport Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, primary access point along the province’s northwest coast.
Canada's tar sands emerging as an energy heavyweight
By SYED RASHID HUSAIN
Published: Feb 5, 2012
ARAB NEWS.
The energy world is in a transition. It is undergoing a major metamorphosis. New energy frontiers are cropping up and the global energy map is changing fast. Of these new emerging global energy centers, the landlocked province of Alberta in Canada, with its rich resource base, stands out in more than one ways. Many say Calgary, its most important city, is the Dhahran of tomorrow or at least the equivalent of it.
Op-Ed: Is Canada’s oil sands monitoring program a ‘PR stunt’?
By Kathleen Blanchard
Feb 5, 2012
Digital Journal
Environment Canada announces they are taking steps to monitor the effects of development of oil sands in the area. The plan is designed to gauge the cumulative effects on the environment from oil production from tar sands.
South Africa: Enter the Four Degrees Celsius World - the Failings of Climate Negotiations
By Saliem Fakir
12 December 2011
All Africa
Fourteen days of climate change negotiations started off with much scepticism and ended with a sense of despair despite the COP 17 outcome being declared "landmark" and "historic". COP 17 was painted, at once, as a victory for the world -- but such statements belie the real truth.
A 'mammoth project' with India?
By David Renwick
Trinidad Express
Jan 31, 2012
It may not be generally recognised but the upgrader project that Energy and Energy Affairs Minister Kevin Christian Ramnarine pursued with Reliance Industries during the Trinidad and Tobago delegation's visit to India last month, led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has enormous game-changing (sorry to use a now popular cliché) implications for this country's energy sector.
Factbox: Enbridge pipeline to the Pacific: facts and issues
Reuters
Mon Jan 30, 2012
(Reuters) - Enbridge Inc's Northern Gateway pipeline is aimed at opening up lucrative overseas markets for surging Canadian oil sands production, but it has become highly contentious as Ottawa and the oil companies that support the project seek to fend off opposition from environmental and aboriginal groups.
House GOP Pushing Dirtiest Fuel on Planet, Oil Shale (Much Worse than Tar Sands)
By Zachary Shahan On February 3, 2012
Oh my, they just can’t stop. The House GOP seems dead set on destroying the country and destroying the planet. Here’s the latest, via Climate Progress, on its push to develop the dirtiest fuel on the planet (you thought tar sands were bad?!):
by Joe Romm
