Oil Sands Truth: Shut Down the Tar Sands

Water

Water is needed in huge amounts in tarsands production and in all other construction stages of tarsands infrastructure across the continent. It takes five litres of water to produce one of usable petrol. There is also water used to move gas, build new tar pits or that water which becomes polluted in the outlying areas. Waste tailings ponds are so vast as to be visible from outer space at this early point in production. Water is now being privatized in slow motion, as “access rights” are available in Alberta. As production grows and climate change continues to parch southern Albertan land, more and more water will be needed to help supply fuel for the American market. This water will ultimately be diverted from rivers, lakes, farms and cities throughout Canada; the water levels in the Athabasca River have already dropped several meters. The Deh Cho/Mackenzie River is already threatened, both from development along its valley and it is downstream from tar sands operations. A generation ago, the Athabasca River was clear and drinking was common. Now, those that live with the river consider it poison and off-limits.

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Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going

December 28, 2007
Greenwashing Energy Crops
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going

By JIM GOODMAN

Aboriginal title at risk in British Columbia

Aboriginal title at risk in British Columbia
Ann Rogers

Freedom Socialist Newspaper, Vol. 28, No. 6 December 2007 — January, 2008

Almost all of British Columbia in Canada is unceded indigenous territory. Its land and resources have not been given up by treaty, but occupied and stolen. In recent decades, a growing sovereignty movement, especially among young people, has offered fierce resistance to the continued theft and corporate development that threatens Native peoples’ means of survival and existence as nations.

Albian to try and push production to physics limitations

Translation, in short: Royal Dutch Shell (Albian Sands) plans to expand as much as the physics allows and beyond that which (current) labour markets have room for. This all well-timed to move along lock step with the expansion of Temporary Foreign Worker programs, and in tandem with the reduction in labour and environmental standards being "phased in" under the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement" [Tilma]. These plans are to create new vast mines, expand the upgraders, blow the Muskeg River Mine into the stratosphere and much, much more.

Utah: BLM identifies oil shale-rich areas it would consider leasing

Land has energy promise
BLM identifies oil shale-rich areas it would consider leasing
By Steven Oberbeck
The Salt Lake Tribune
12/22/2007 02:42:48 AM MST

Entrepreneurs who dream of reaping huge profits from Utah's extensive oil shale and tar sands deposits now have reason to hope that the opportunity to commercially develop those resources is a bit closer.

WHAT?? "'Over the top' pipeline could work for Alaska and Canada"

This idea (and I use that term loosely) has been pushed for a long time, and is a disaster on so many levels. This was explicitly spelled out by Tom Berger himself 'back in the day' as a truly horrible idea. It is also illegal in Alaskan state law. The idea has not improved with age.

--M

'Over the top' pipeline could work for Alaska and Canada
COMPASS: Points of view from the community
By MICHAEL KENNY
Published: December 20th, 2007 06:44 AM

RAMPANT DEVELOPMENT RAISES RESIDENTS' CONCERN ABOUT THE FUTURE IN THE HEARTLAND

Samantha Power / samantha@vueweekly.com

http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=7708

Calculating the amount of sulfur dioxide in the air is not something
many Edmontonians think to do. But Maureen and Dennis Chichak make
sure they check it at their home on a daily basis.

The Chichak home is located just outside of Fort Saskatchewan, in the
330 square kilometres known as the Industrial Heartland, and with
their neighbours having grown over three decades to include Shell,
Agrium and Dow, they’re regularly exposed to sulfur dioxide, benzene

[Yukon] Peel Plateau to be sacrficed for Mackenzie Gas Project?

This region is one of the most spectacular, beautiful and nearly pristine regions I have ever seen in my life. Near the one gas pump and lodge on the 10 hour drive of the Dempster Highway called Eagle Plains, this place is one where the planet itself made me feel so tiny and insignificant, like an insect, a surreal experience that I have no parallel for. Now they want to plunder it for gas, gas they want to put into the Mackenzie Gas Project and send to Fort McMurray to make mock oil from tar and the devastation of more land than can be comprehended.

Shall we let them?

--M

Fargo, North Dakota Approves Keystone Pipeline

Fargo mayor says he had hoped for pipeline support from other cities
Andrea Domaskin, The Forum
Published Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Mayor Dennis Walaker says Fargo didn’t get much help from other cities when it protested an oil pipeline that would run near Lake Ashtabula and the Sheyenne River.

“I don’t want this thing to blow out of proportion by any stretch of the imagination,” Walaker said today. “I was hoping we would get more support, but we didn’t.”

Fargo city commissioners approved a settlement Monday with TransCanada Keystone Pipeline.

Walruses Die; Global Warming Blamed

By DAN JOLING Associated Press Writer

Dec 14th, 2007 | ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- In what some scientists see as another
alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above
the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes earlier this year after the
disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in
extraordinary numbers.

The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of
the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia. "It was a pretty

Yikes! : "Prentice reviewing Mackenzie Valley pipeline financial plan"

Prentice reviewing Mackenzie Valley pipeline financial plan

Jon Harding, Financial Post Published: Sunday, December 16, 2007

The proposed pipeline would run through the Mackenzie Valley.HO/AFP/Getty ImagesThe proposed pipeline would run through the Mackenzie Valley.

CALGARY -- Canada's Industry Minister Jim Prentice is reviewing a financial plan submitted to him Friday by the backers of the $16.2-billion Mackenzie Gas Project.