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July 13, 2008

Youth summit raises awareness on tar sands

Edmonton, Alberta – Over 150 young environmental, labour and social justice activists from across Canada attended the third Canadian Youth Climate Coalition (CYCC) summit in Edmonton earlier this month, according to the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW). The summit, held at the University of Alberta, was organized to raise awareness on the environmental destruction caused by rapidly expanding tar sands in northern Alberta.

How to get oil from the Tar Sands

Middle East oil running dry? Looking for a new source of energy? Environment editor John Vidal takes you step-by-step through how to extract oil from Canada’s tar sands, destroying habitat, polluting water and increasing carbon emissions as you go

More…

World’s Dirtiest Oil

Canadians ponder cost of rush for dirty oil

As oil prices continue to reach record highs, the search for new sources of energy has led the world to Alberta, Canada, and its vast oil sands. Now, John Vidal finds, the country famed for its wilderness and clean living finds itself caught between fuelling the world’s oil-hungry economy and the ecological devastation and soaring greenhouse gas emissions that exploiting the tar sands produces

• John Vidal, environment editor, in Fort McMurray
• The Guardian,
• Saturday July 12, 2008

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Link to this video
The Caterpillar 797B heavy hauler is the world’s biggest truck. It’s taller than a four-storey house, as wide as a tennis court and it removes nearly 35,000 tonnes of oily sand a day from a deep open cast mine in northern Alberta in western Canada.

More from the Denial Machine

By JEREMY LOOME, EDMONTON SUN

“Unfair” environmental criticism that is mounting in the U.S. against the oilsands could cause an uncertain economic future for Alberta, Finance Minister Iris Evans said yesterday.

Evans said she won’t predict the double-digit multibillion-dollar surplus many expect here next year due to high oil prices, noting the province is waging political war against anti-dirty oil legislation in the U.S. that could impact its ability to develop an oilsands-based economy.

HOPING FOR HELP

And she said she’s hoping for help from states that also benefit from upgrading bitumen, the oilsand/tar mix that is refined into synthetic crude.

“It offends me deeply to hear people say ‘dirty oil,’ ” she said. “When they go to the gas tank and fill up with the oil, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a drop of oil out of our oilsands and any other oil they’ll purchase anywhere else. So that’s highly offensive.”