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.

warning: Creating default object from empty value in /var/www/drupal-6.28/modules/taxonomy/taxonomy.pages.inc on line 33.

Oil in the Desert

Oil in the Desert
Will water be sacrificed to oil in Jordan?
November 13, 2011
by Macdonald Stainsby

AMMAN, Jordan--In March of 2011, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan jumped headlong into unconventional oil extraction, and signed a deal with Karak International Oil (KIO), a subsidiary of Jordan Energy and Mining Limited (JEML--a British company) for the commercial mining of oil shale approximately one hour’s drive from the capital of Amman. Unlike most countries in the region, if you fill up your gas tank in Jordan, you are using imported oil— but the Kingdom is touting a future when extreme extraction will change that, and soon.

Apartheid Oil

Apartheid Oil
Crude trapped in shale could transform Israel into energy powerhouse
November 10, 2011
by Macdonald Stainsby

JERUSALEM-- Major offshore gas strikes in 2009 and 2010 may soon convert converted Israel into a gas exporting country with self-sufficient energy. But perhaps more important than the gas under the sea is the mock crude trapped in husk dry sands and rock hard shale, reserves which could push Israel into the upper echelons of recoverable oil on the planet. Israel has long had a weakness economically and militarily because of their reliance on others for energy supplies.

Could Israel be another Middle East oil giant?

Could Israel be another Middle East oil giant?
30 September 2011

By Daniel Estrin BBC co-production The World

Prospectors in Israel say hundreds of feet below the ground lies shale rock that can be converted into billions of barrels of oil. But environmentalists say it's a disaster waiting to happen.

"This is the distinct smell I'm talking about when I talk about oil shale."

Tar Sands Actions Escalate in Ottawa

Oil Sands Actions Escalate in Ottawa
Over 100 Arrested as Tensions Over Resource Heat Up

Sheridan Polinsky & Julian Ward — September 30, 2011
Volume 32 Issue 05 |
The Link

Hundreds of protesters gathered on Parliament Hill to demand a proposed pipeline between the US and Canada be put to rest once and for all.

Oppenheimer: "America's tar sands and shale will be world's oil source"

Oppenheimer: America's tar sands and shale will be world's oil source

By Andres Oppenheimer
JournalStar.com
Thursday, September 29, 2011

The turmoil for reform sweeping most Middle Eastern oil producers is grabbing big headlines today, but that region may lose some of its economic clout in the future: There are signs that the Americas will replace the Middle East as the world's biggest oil-producing region.

"Canadian crude under attack on two fronts"

Canadian crude under attack on two fronts
By Bill Mann, MarketWatch
September 29, 2011

VANCOUVER, B.C. (MarketWatch) — With the rancorous Keystone-XL pipeline debate currently raging across the United States and Canada, it seems we’re at a tipping point: Will Canada’s oil sands be seen as an “ethical” source of oil, or a polluting pariah?

The other Keystone debate

Canada’s oil industry
The other Keystone debate
The Economist
Oct 1st 2011

China's cash floods into Canadian energy sector

China's cash floods into Canadian energy sector
By Wenran Jiang
Asia Times

As China has become the world's second-largest economy, its demand for energy has caused it to become the world's biggest comprehensive energy consumer. Accompanying this process has been a sharp upward trend in Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) focused on energy and other resources.

Canada has become the latest addition to Beijing's FDI investment priority list with C$15 billion (US$15.2 billion) worth of Chinese capital pouring into the energy-rich province of Alberta in 2010. [1]

Activists, company spar over controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline

Activists, company spar over controversial international oil pipeline
By the CNN Wire Staff
Mon September 19, 2011

(CNN) -- As the decision deadline on the controversial proposal to build a giant oil pipeline between Alberta, Canada, and Texas draws closer, activists and the company behind the project are ratcheting up their war of words.

Known as Keystone XL, the 1,700-mile pipeline has drawn fierce criticism from activists like Daryl Hannah, who spoke to CNN's Brooke Baldwin on Monday.

EIA sees huge oil hike by 2035

Oil production is set to soar by nearly 27 million barrels a day to meet booming demand from mainly non-OECD countries by 2035, the US Energy Information Administration claimed on Monday.

Eoin O'Cinneide
19 September 2011
Upstream Online

Iran and Qatar are also set to take centre stage in a jump in natural gas production in the next quarter of a century with the Middle East and Australia weighing-in heavily with increased LNG supply.