Greenpeace Protestors Shine Light on Toxic Future

Greenpeacers Arrested Protesting Oil Sands in Northern Alberta

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta, Canada, July 24, 2008 (ENS) – Eleven Greenpeace activists entered Syncrude’s Aurora North Tar Sands facility north of Fort McMurray today, erecting a banner that transformed the opening of a tailings pond pipe into the “mouth” of a giant skull, spewing toxic sludge.

Shortly after 8:00 am, Greenpeaceers attempted to block the pipe, but the strength of the water pressure prevented the closure from being completed, said a spokesperson for the group.

Investment and the Tar Sands

June 26, 2008

Shelley Alpern on How Tar Sands Perpetuate Petro-Addiction
by Bill Baue

SocialFunds writer Bill Baue speaks with Shelley Alpern of Trillium Asset Management about its shareholder activism on oil company exploitation of tar sands.

SocialFunds.com — In a 2006 Rolling Stone interview, Al Gore infamously likened the practice of extracting oil from tar sands to “junkies find[ing] veins in their toes” to inject heroin. Gore’s image simply extends to its logical conclusion George Bush’s 2006 State of the Union “addicted to oil” metaphor. Clean, renewable energy represents a healthy cure for petro-addiction. Tar sands, which increase the carbon intensity of petroleum extraction, represent an exacerbation of the climate-changing addiction — kind of like trying to cure heroin addiction by injecting arsenic.

SocialFunds writer Bill Baue recently spoke with Shelley Alpern, director of social research and advocacy at Trillium Asset Management, about her shareholder activism asking oil companies such as ConocoPhillips and BP to assess and disclose the social, environmental, and financial risks of tar sands exploitation.

U.S. EPA says NO to Tar Sands Refinery

U.S. EPA Rejects ConocoPhillips Refinery Expansion

CHICAGO, Illinois, June 10, 2008 (ENS) – In a case that could affect oil refineries around the country, plans by ConocoPhillips to expand its refinery in Roxana, Illinois were sidelined on Friday when an appeal board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency upheld a challenge to the air permit required for the project.
The decision sends ConocoPhillips and the Illinois EPA, which had granted the permits for the Wood River refinery expansion, back to the drawing board.

The legal challenge mounted by environmental groups in August 2007 argued that harmful air pollution from the refinery’s flares, which relieve pressure in the refining process, was not being sufficiently controlled.

Dead loon found days after duck disaster

By KATIE SCHNEIDER, SUN MEDIA

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Greenpeace officials are again crying foul after a loon was found dead and two others in distress at the ConocoPhillips tar sands site, the second wildlife incident in the oilsands in a week.

Mike Hudema, a Greenpeace tar sands campaigner, said it causes him concern an anonymous tip received Saturday afternoon comes about a week after 500 ducks were found dead on a tailings pond at the Syncrude oilsands site.

“It’s definitely a concern for us … the fact that the death of birds and wildlife in some of these sites is not a one-time occurrence,” he said, adding the incident was reported to Greenpeace by a tipster.