Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Social Impacts

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.

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The World's Most Expensive Babysitters

The World's Most Expensive Babysitters
By Tom Dyson
August 6, 2007
http://www.dailywealth.com/archive/2007/aug/2007_aug_06.asp

Today, I heard the story of Angela.

Angela is 17 years old. Recently, she was offered $3,500 per month to babysit three children for a few hours after school each day while the parents work late. Two of the children are grown up. The third is a toddler. The toddler sleeps. The other two children take care of themselves. Angela watches TV, does her homework, then goes home. That's it.

National Post "Warns" of Consequences of Tar Sands Problems

Oilpatch risks turn from value creation to value destruction
Everybody Wants A Bigger Cut Of The Booming Industry
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=40c0596f-...
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
Published: Tuesday, August 07, 2007

For the first time in a generation, Alberta is facing a general strike within its construction trades that threatens to disrupt its booming oilsands industry and is introducing a new type of uncertainty --labour unrest.

Greenpeace in Edmonton, their sights set on shutting down Alberta’s tarsands.

Target: tarsands
Greenpeace comes to Edmonton

By NICKI THOMAS, SPECIAL TO SUN MEDIA
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2007/07/31/4383282.html

Greenpeace is setting up shop in Edmonton with their sights set on shutting down Alberta’s tarsands.

“The tarsands are one of the most environmentally destructive projects in Canada, if not the world,” said tarsands campaign organizer Geeta Sehgal.

Sehgal said the tarsands create 40 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year, ensuring Canada can’t meet its commitments to the Kyoto Protocol.

Oil, gas development could harm First Nations' quality of living: Sierra Club

Oil, gas development could harm First Nations' quality of living: Sierra Club
Last Updated: Friday, July 27, 2007 | 12:23 PM MT
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2007/07/27/nwt-sierra.html
CBC News

Decades of oil and gas activity in northern Alberta has done little to improve the lives of aboriginal people living there, according to a national environmental group that used federal government numbers that gauge community well-being.

Growth and Pipelines Everywhere

Snippets from the Business pages:
1 Enbridge Promises to build Gateway Pipeline without PetroChina & build Alberta Clipper
2 Largest Companies trying to get in on Expansion of Tar Sands
3 CP to further Expand in Tar Sands
4 Husky adding more Refineries
5 Imperial Oil buys huge exploration permit in Arctic /Beaufort Sea

These stories paint a collective picture of development of mock "oil" out of control.

Populations Tar Sands Demands Ignored by Province

some may think it a bit unfair of myself to often change the headlines originated by the newspapers or other news sources the story is fair-used from. But this one begs to be the prototypical reason why that is necessary: The recommendations concluded have only the small or nearly inconsequential ideas approved, and things from water use to moratoriums to land use, to greenhouse gas emissions and more are "not able to reach consensus". In other words, the whole procedure is a giant play, and the consultations are not to be incorporated.

The Fort McMurray airport is "bursting at the seams"

Airport expansion plan set to take off
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/Local%20News/326841.html
Stories by SARAH FOX
Today staff
Friday July 27, 2007

The Fort McMurray airport is bursting at the seams as it welcomes 580,000 passengers a year through its doors.
This is twice the number the terminal was meant to accommodate when it was built in 1986.
Officials are currently planning an $80- to $100-million airport expansion which will include building a second runway and possibly an entirely new terminal building, said airport CEO Darryl Wightman.

Not enough pipelines for the Tar Pits: National Energy Board

This news article below shows, once again, that taking out the ability to construct pipelines to send oil and and bring gas (x2) in is a viable strategy for the cessation of the tar pits expansion. In other words, our fights against the Keystone, Alberta Clipper and North-Central Corridor, along with the Mackenzie Gas Project and Enbridge Gateway (among so many more!) all slow down the speed of flowing mock crude to a bottleneck pace.

Record gas prices not curbing drivers

Record gas prices not curbing drivers
By Associated Press // July 21, 2007
http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/07/21/money/doc46a2c55c375cf8724...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Record-high prices for gasoline this year haven’t dampened U.S. drivers’ demand for fuel, an industry trade group said last week.

Drivers consumed a record 9.2 million barrels, or 388 million gallons, of gasoline on average every day during the first half of the year, up 1.5 percent from last year’s levels, the American Petroleum Institute said in its midyear review of fuel statistics.