The Greenpeace website has an address that’s similar to Alberta’s official tourism page.Greenpeace has launched a tongue-in-cheek website touting the tourism potential of the Alberta oilsands.
The site, which has an address similar to Alberta’s official tourism page, is the conservation group’s response to the province’s $25-million campaign to improve the environmental image of Alberta’s energy industry.
The Greenpeace-produced site promises visitors “beautiful black sand beaches [that] stretch for miles,” toxic lakes and clearcut forests.
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – If it’s sand you crave on your vacation, then Greenpeace might have just the travel idea for you.
But you could have some hefty cleaning bills by the time you get home.
In an increasingly heated debate over the ecological impact of Canadian oil sands production, the environmental group has launched a tongue-in-cheek website promoting the huge northern Alberta energy projects as vacation destinations.
Using Alberta’s logo, the site, www.travellingalberta.com, invites tourists to laze on black-sand beaches surrounding tailings ponds, hang-glide on “the unique coal bed methane and sour gas updrafts,” then ride on one of the gargantuan dump trucks that trundle around the oil sands mines.
Greenpeace Offers Mock Oilsands Tour CHQR Newsroom 6/26/2008
Greenpeace is stepping up the pressure on the environmental record of Alberta’s oilsands with a tongue-in-cheek new website that offers mock tours of the province’s industrial northeast.
The site (travellingalberta.com), with an address similar to the province’s official tourism web page, tempts travellers with black sand beaches, toxic lakes and clearcut forests.
Don Martin, National Post Published: Thursday, June 26, 2008
Greg Fulmes For National Post
OTTAWA -There was a time when being Alberta’s man in Washington D. C. involved golf rounds and cocktail circuits of non-stop fun.
As America’s most reliable energy supplier, the province rated a red-carpet reception in a national capital thirsting for secure oil. Not any more.
Gary Mar is not yet a political pariah, but he’s running an Alberta office in the Canadian embassy that’s fighting negative perception battles on multiple fronts.
Arguably the brightest Cabinet minister to grace former premier Ralph Klein’s front bench for more than a dozen years, he’s been representing the province in the U. S. capital for less than a year now and finds himself under increasing siege by an organized environmental backlash against the Alberta oil sands.
Mr. Mar is continuing to fight the threat of a U. S. energy bill that would prohibit federal agencies, including energy gobblers like the air force and post office, from buying oil, such as from the oil sands, that gives off above-normal emissions during production.
Sad news in Detroit: yesterday the expansion of the Marathon Oil Refinery was approved in Detroit. As you would expect from the ruthless, profiteering oil industry, the refinery is cited in a predominantly community of color, and the brunt of pollution is borne by neighboring residents. In exchange for voluntary pledges from Marathon, the city awarded a whopping $176 million in tax breaks. Thus, African-American residents living in an area that has been dubbed Detroit’s “Cancer Alley” get even more pollution and big oil gets to pocket even more profit.
OK, Alberta oil producers, start thinking carbon taxes
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail
June 25, 2008 at 7:45 AM EDT
You might have recently seen newspaper advertisements for Suncor Energy, the oil-sands producer, touting its record in fighting greenhouse-gas emissions.
Suncor, relatively speaking, has been one of the most environmentally conscious oil companies. Rick George, the company’s president and CEO, has spoken often about environmental challenges.
Suncor’s ads, and its recently released progress report on climate change, show it has decreased the intensity of its energy use, thereby reducing greenhouse-gas emissions while investing in several renewable energy projects.
It’s in the middle of the mountains and two national parks, which suggests Jackson, Wyo., is a great place to talk environment.
It’s also a potential spot for Premier Ed Stelmach to pick up some allies, starting Sunday, as he meets with 15 Western U.S. governors during their annual get-together.
He’ll need them as his PR campaign continues against U.S. environmental opposition to the province’s so-called “dirty” oilsands.
While the trip has been scheduled for months, it also comes just days after a spokesman for Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama suggested future U.S. use of oil from Alberta’s oilsands is an “open question.”
Dear friends,
What comes to mind when you think about Alberta,Canada?Vast forests and wilderness, toweringmountains and ski hills, rodeos and cowboys?That might have been true once, but not any more. Albertais now home to the largest and most environmentally destructive project on theplanet, as revealed in a new site dedicated to dispelling Alberta’s clean image.
Hundreds of dead and dying fish have been found in a reservoir north of Fort McMurray on a site owned by Syncrude Canada, a discovery which has prompted an investigation by the Alberta government.
The fish were found Friday in the Poplar Creek reservoir built to divert water around an inactive oilsands mine.
Claudia Cataneo/National PostSuncor oilsands, in Fort McMurray, Alta.
There was a time when being Alberta’s man in Washington D.C. involved golf rounds and cocktail circuits of non-stop fun.
As America’s most reliable energy supplier, the province rated a red-carpet reception in a national capital thirsting for secure oil. Not any more.
Gary Mar is not yet a political pariah, but he’s running an Alberta office in the Canadian embassy that’s fighting negative perception battles on multiple fronts.
Arguably the brightest Cabinet minister to grace former premier Ralph Klein’s front bench for more than a dozen years, he’s been representing the province in the U.S. capital for less than a year now and finds himself under increasing siege by an organized environmental backlash against the Alberta oil sands.
The Greenpeace website has an address that’s similar to Alberta’s official tourism page. Greenpeace has launched a tongue-in-cheek website touting the tourism potential of the Alberta oilsands.
