Youth Mobilize Against the Tar Sands

Youth mobilize against tar sands TheStar.com - comment - Youth mobilize against tar sands

July 04, 2008

Carol Goar

While Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this week, defending his province’s environmental practices, a spot of trouble was brewing back home.

Young people from across the country were gathering in Edmonton for a national summit on the Alberta tar sands.

“Oil is making us a lot of money right now, but it’s destroying our future, our environment,” said Nicole McDonal, one of the 100 delegates attending the three-day conference.

The Edmonton student used to be proud of her Alberta roots, but now she’s not sure. “A lot of people my age feel this way. Why are we allowing this to happen to Alberta?”

This is the not the kind of publicity Stelmach needs.

McCain and Obama Agree - No to Tar Sands

McCain and Obama Stand United on Canada’s Oil Sands

2 Jul 08

Barack Obama made headlines across Canada last week over his proposed national “low carbon fuel standard.” Such a proposal, if implemented, would be a serious hit to Canada’s oil sands operations, which emit about 3 times the amount of greenhouse gas to produce when compared to the production of a conventional barrel of oil.

Not nearly as prominent in the Canadian press was an article in the Washington Times the week before reporting that presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain shares a similar view as Obama on a “low carbon fuel standard.” The Washington Times reported that:

Mr. McCain, who just this week praised Canada as a secure source of oil, embraced a national fuel standard plan last year at a press conference with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Mr. McCain has made his support for environmental issues a major part of his presidential campaign, and uses it as a key issue where he breaks with many other Republicans.”

Library Fines Higher than Tar Sand Enforcement

Government records show close to no environmental regulation enforcement in Alberta’s Tar Sands

    LIBRARY LATE FEES IN CALGARY AND EDMONTON TOTAL 16 TIMES MORE THAN

    ENVIRONMENTAL FINES LEVIED AT TAR SANDS COMPANIES

    TORONTO, July 2 /CNW/ - After a recent spate of 'greening' campaigns by

government and industry for the Tar Sands, information obtained by

ForestEthics shows government is failing to enforce environmental regulations,

giving oil sands companies a free ride.

    Oil companies operating in the Tar Sands were fined only $249,000 in

2006, despite numerous environmental violations including 240 air quality

exceedances by just one company, Suncor. By comparison, library fines for

Alberta's largest cities, Calgary and Edmonton, totaled more than $4 million

that same year, in 2006, or sixteen times more than what all the oil companies

were fined for their environmental violations.

 

Clarity Wanted

Statoil, Nexen Demand Regulatory Clarity for Canada Projects

By Eduard Gismatullin and Marianne Stigset

July 2 (Bloomberg) — StatoilHydro ASA, Norway’s largest oil producer, and Nexen Inc. called for “clarity” in Canadian regulation governing Alberta’s tar-sand projects before they proceed with investment in refineries.

Nexen, based in Calgary, has put on hold expansion of an upgrader at its C$6.1 billion ($6 billion) Long Lake refining project in Alberta, Chairman Francis Saville said today in Madrid, where he’s attending the World Petroleum Congress. StatoilHydro in May postponed the start of an upgrader, a crude-processing unit, at its Canadian oil-sands project by two years to 2016.

Workers Wanted

Come to Canada! But only if you’ve got a job

Stories of Canada looking to poach British citizens are wildly exaggerated. We’re only interested in professionals who can help us dig up oil

All comments ()

• Heather Mallick
• guardian.co.uk,
• Wednesday July 2, 2008

Pissed-off workers of Britain, Alberta wants YOU.

I beg your pardon? Alberta. It’s a western province of Canada. The Rockies? Edmonton? Calgary, had the Olympics in 1988? A variety of scenic spots named after various homely minor Royals of the Victorian era?

I know what will ring British bells. The tar sands. Alberta has oil, sadly mixed up with tar deep below the ground and extracting it will destroy water and land for generations to come, but never mind. Oil is the most-wanted fluid on earth next to water. Alberta has it, billions of dollars are rolling in and Alberta wants you to have a share because there aren’t enough Canadians to get the muck out of the earth.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: england, environmental devastation, foreign workers, oil, oil sands, tar sands, wanted, workers | No Comments »

New Policy Step in Wrong Direction

Posted by mhudema on July 4, 2008

Issues - New ERCB directive on toxic tailings is a huge step in the wrong direction

RICARDO ACUÑA / ualberta.ca/parkland

The Alberta Government, along with their friends in the oil industry, have recently embarked on a major campaign to educate Canadians and Americans about the fact that extraction of oil from Northern Alberta’s bituminous sands is actually an environmentally friendly and ecologically sound process.

This is no easy task. Especially given that the science, statistics and pictures reflecting what is happening in Northern Alberta tend to speak for themselves. From Syncrude’s dead ducks to tailings leaks into the Athabasca River to aerial pictures of the area, the giant tailings lakes attached to these operations have, of late, become one of the most visible manifestations of all that is wrong with bituminous sands projects and a political hot potato for both government and industry in terms of their “education” campaigns.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: directive, ercb, new policy, oil sands, oilsands, pond, ricardo acuna, tailings, tar sands, toxic | No Comments »

Time to Kick the Habit

Posted by mhudema on July 4, 2008

Kicking the habit: Headlong rush to oil shale won’t end energy woes
Tribune Editorial
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:07/02/2008 06:35:46 PM MDT
A junkie gets desperate when his junk runs out. He’s got to have more, and he’ll do just about anything in order to keep feeding his habit.
America is like that about oil. As our supply from foreign sources gets more expensive and rumors float around that those dealers are running out, we’re panicking, ready to trade our natural resources, even the future of the planet, for one more hit.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: tar sands, oil sands, oil, environment, oilsands, dirty oil, addiction, habit, oil shale | 1 Comment »

Conservatives Reward Friends with Tar Sands Denial Contract

Posted by mhudema on July 4, 2008

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Alberta Conservatives pay off buddies with tax money.

Rebranding Alberta contract awarded to Tory-friendly ad firm
Link downplayed, but opposition parties say money best spent elsewhere
Published June 26, 2008 by Trevor Howell

There is no end to the crap this outfit goes into.

On June 20, an advertising firm with ties to Premier Ed Stelmach’s campaign team was awarded a $25-million contract to “rebrand” Alberta. With little fanfare and no official announcement by the Alberta government, Calder Bateman Communications and Identica (a division of Cossette Communications Group) were given the lucrative contract. Margaret Bateman, a co-founder of Calder Bateman, is a former managing director of the government’s Public Affairs Bureau, the department that awarded the contract. She is also listed as a member of Stelmach’s election campaign team.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: auditor general, calder bateman, contract, denial, investment, ndp, oil sands, oilsands, tar sands | No Comments »