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.
The American Conservative movement has started to embrace and defend the tar sands. Delightful to see, considering article like the one below are always a reflection of effectiveness, even if they portend to belittle the very effectiveness we are starting to have.
--M
Tar sands: More oil than Saudi Arabia
Posted: June 16, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56206
Keystone Pipeline Hearings Begin Monday
http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDetail6371.cfm?Id=0,58147
06/22/2007
Plans to build a 220 mile underground oil pipeline in eastern South Dakota have unearthed plenty of questions from landowners affected by the project. They'll have a chance to get some answers during a series of public meetings next week.
Chinese dragons sniff around the oilpatch
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070621.WBwenergyblo...
Norval Scott, 21/06/07 at 1:21 PM EDT
Blog from Globe and Mail Report on Business
Inside Energy is on the road, finding out what there is to see and do in Edmonton at the 3rd Canada-China Economic Co-operation conference, which is being billed this time around as "Energy and beyond."
China leases a bit of Alberta's oil patch
State-owned CNPC buys rights to develop oil sands properties
NORVAL SCOTT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070622.RCNPC22/TPStor...
June 22, 2007
EDMONTON -- In a possible first step toward becoming a producer of Canadian crude, the Chinese National Petroleum Corp., China's largest oil company, revealed yesterday that it has acquired some land in Alberta, with the intention to eventually develop an oil sands project if possible.
Woodland Cree First Nation
Jun 22, 2007
http://www.marketwire.com/2.0/release.do?id=745361
Woodland Cree First Nation Challenges Shell Oil Sands Expansion-Seeks to Prevent Another Ft. McMurray Disaster
PEACE RIVER, ALBERTA--(Marketwire - June 22, 2007) - On June 25, 2007, the Woodland Cree First Nation ("WCFN") will file an intervention with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board ("EUB") with regard to Shell Canada's Carmon Creek Oil Sands project located near Peace River, Alberta.
Notes from the Tarpits:
Between MacKay and McMurray, my run in with the Gigaproject
June 14, 2007
IT'S TIME FOR ALBERTANS TO DRAW A LINE IN THE (TAR) SAND
http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=6589
BILL MOORE-KILGANNON / pialberta.org
There once was a thin red line on a map. That may sound like the start of a fairy tale, but in fact it is the real beginning of a critical debate about Alberta’s energy future.
Copyright 2007 The Globe and Mail
June 11, 2007 Monday
ANDREW NIKIFORUK
Calgary journalist and columnist for Canadian Business magazine
Is Canada the latest emerging petro-tyranny?
Every day, the First Law of Petropolitics quietly insinuates its way
into the nation's political blood like a rogue parasite. The law,
first coined by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, posits that
the price of oil and the quality of freedom invariably travel in
opposite directions.
As the price of crude oil goes higher in an oil-dominated kingdom,
Thu, June 7, 2007
Smoke, embers blowing into Fort McMurray
Out-of-control forest fire has officials advising some to stay indoors
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Alberta/2007/06/07/4242370.html
By CP
FORT MCMURRAY — Smoke and embers from a massive out-of-control forest fire near Suncor Energy’s oilsands plant in northern Alberta are blowing into Fort McMurray.
The MacKay River fire is burning about 25 km north of the city and covers about 150 square km.
Alberta Environment officials say people with respiratory problems are being advised to stay indoors.
The regional papers should really talk to one another more, or perhaps this is deliberate obfuscation.
