Tag Archives: Alberta Tar Sands

“Greening” of US Military

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From TheTyee.ca – Dec. 20, 2010

by Andrew Nikiforuk

One of these days, Ottawa’s oil patch salesmen might want to sit down with the U.S. military and have a real “man-up” talk.

By any standard, the guys and gals in uniform now make Greenpeace look like the Boy Scouts.

In fact admirals, generals and colonels
have seen the enemy, and it’s oil. They don’t care if the stuff is
bloody or dirty; they just want to get off pricey crude, asap.

They also believe that climate change,
another byproduct of the Oil Age, poses a serious security threat to
civilization, as we know it. Not surprisingly, people call these tough
hombres, “the Green Hawks.”

Around the same time Canada’s political
elites started to dunk their donuts in bitumen, the U.S. military
experienced an energy epiphany in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blood will do
that.

Read full article here

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Ottawa kept in dark on abnormal fish found in oil-sands rivers

Energy and Resources, Tar Sands, WATER,
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Globe & Mail – Dec. 17, 2010

by John Wingrove

Hundreds of deformed fish found in rivers running through the Alberta
oil sands have been collected and documented by an industry-led
monitoring body, The Globe and Mail has learned, but the findings were
not shared with the public or key decision makers in government.

That body, the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP), has been
criticized in scientific quarters as secretive and is under the scrutiny
of three reviews. Former environment minister Jim Prentice ordered one
of those reviews after being shown photos this fall of a few malformed
fish, and it was delivered Thursday to Environment Canada.

Read full article here


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Enter the Great Bear Rainforest

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Starring grizzlies, eagles, humpback whales, and the legendary spirit
bear. This
magical place is threatened by Enbridge’s proposal to bring an oil
pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands and supertankers to BC’s North and
Central coast – Gillis was filming for his recently released short
documentary, “Oil in Eden.” This 4 min film captures the highlights of
that experience – featuring breathtaking, never-before-seen footage of
the Great Bear Rainforest!

We highly recommend you try watching this video in 720p or 1080p HD in full screen mode (both buttons located in the bottom right corner of the youtube video player window).

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‘Baywatch’ star wants oil tanker ban – Toronto Sun

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Toronto Sun – Friday December 10

by Laura Payton

OTTAWA – An actress better known for running on beaches than protecting them
is joining a campaign to ban oil tankers from the south coast of B.C.

Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson, popular for her bouncing bosom in the
show’s opening credits, lent her famous face to a YouTube video called Oily
Beaches? No Tanks! A B.C. chapter of the Council of Canadians posted the
video to its YouTube channel.

“A 30-second navigational error could be catastrophic,” Anderson, who grew
up in Ladysmith, B.C., says in the video about the tankers that enter and
exit the Port of Vancouver.

“If there was an oil spill here, I don’t think (the coast) would ever
recover.”

“Oil on the beaches where I grew up? No tanks.”

Supporters of a ban on oil-tanker traffic off the south coast of B.C. argue
the ecosystem is fragile and navigation through relatively shallow water and
underneath the city’s bridges is tough.

Kinder Morgan, the owner of the pipeline that runs into the port, plans to
double capacity and increase the current traffic, which hit 65 tanker loads
last year.

Read full Toronto Sun article here


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Pamela Anderson Says “No Tanks” to South Coast Oil Spill

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Watch this new 1 min PSA by Nanaimo filmmaker Paul Manly, starring Pamela Anderson, speaking out to protect the  beaches of her youth from a plan to bring hundreds of oil supertankers a year to the South Coast of BC. The Canadian film and television star, famous for her role on California beaches, grew up on Vancouver Island and says she was horrified to learn of Kinder-Morgan’s proposal to expand its Trans-Mountain pipeline – from the Alberta Tar Sands to Burnaby’s Westport Terminal. The expansion, from 300,000 barrels a day to 700,000, would put the South Coast in grave jeopardy from an oil spill as increasing numbers of tankers navigate the perilous waters of Burrard Inlet and the Strait of Juan de Fuca en route to Asia and the United States.

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BC Oil Tanker Ban Motion Passes in Commons

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The House of Commons has adopted an NDP motion calling for a ban on crude-oil tanker traffic off British Columbia’s north coast.

But the motion, which was passed 143-138, is non-binding and is likely to be ignored by the Conservative government.

Canada has had an unofficial moratorium on tankers off B.C.’s north coast for decades. But New Democrat MP Nathan Cullen, the B.C. MP who put forward the opposition motion, said it is vital to enshrine the unwritten moratorium in legislation.

It comes as Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. has proposed sending up to 225 oil tankers every year out of the port of Kitimat to carry crude oil to new markets such as Asia and the western United States as part of its Northern Gateway project, which also includes a proposed pipeline from Alberta to the port.

A coalition of First Nations, commercial fisheries and environmental groups from the Pacific Northwest Coast has called for a ban on oil tankers in the region, claiming the local economy is in jeopardy because of increased traffic.

Read full CBC article here 

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/12/07/oil-tanker-motion.html#ixzz17X62NeLr

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Tanker Ban: The Vote to Protect BC’s Fragile North Coast

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Nathan Cullen is the member of Parliament for the riding of Skeena-Bulkley Valley

 
BY NATHAN CULLEN, VANCOUVER SUN

Last week the House of Commons spent some hours debating an issue uniquely West Coast but also critical to Canada: whether or not we need a legislated ban on supertanker traffic plying the waters of BC’s north and central coast. The vote will be cast Tuesday.

It’s not often that Canada’s Parliament looks across the Rockies to cast an opinion on a debate that is familiar and passionate to those of us fortunate to live in this stunningly beautiful province.

New Democrats have long suggested that the vagueness of the Federal government’s policy towards tankers on the coast creates an environment of damaging uncertainty not just for business but more importantly for the people of the coast.

Read full op-ed by Nathan Cullen in the Vancouver Sun here

 
 Last week the House of Commons spent some hours debating an issue uniquely West Coast but alcritical to Canada: whether or not we need a legislated ban on supertanker traffic plying the waters of BC’s north and central coast. The vote will be cast TuesdayIt’s not often that Canada’s Parliament looks across the 

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No Tanks-South Coast PSA

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Watch this informative new PSA by Nanaimo filmmaker Paul Manly on the proposal to bring hundreds of oil supertankers a year to BC’s south coast. The tanker traffic would come from Kinder-Morgan’s proposed upgrade to its Trans-Mountain pipeline – which ends at Burnaby’s Westport Terminal – from 300,000 to 700,000 barrels a day of Alberta Tar Sands crude. The 2 min video illustrates the navigational hazards these massive vessels would face on their way through Vancouver via Burrard Inlet, and out to sea through the Gulf Islands and Strait of Juan de Fuca – en route to California and Asia.

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Prestigious Journal Calls Oil Sands an ‘Environmentalist’s Nightmare’

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The prestigious scientific journal Nature is urging scientists to
speak out against the environmental impacts of Alberta’s oil sands.

“It would be unrealistic to expect that we could harvest fossil fuels or minerals without an effect on the environment,” reads an editorial
in this week’s issue. “But the fast development of the tar sands,
combined with weak regulation and a lack of effective watchdogs, have
made them an environmentalist’s nightmare.”

Since the 1990s, greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands
extraction have declined 30 percent per barrel, the journal notes. And
ongoing University of Alberta research to reduce water impacts is a
positive step, it reads.

On the surface, Nature’s editorial argues, Alberta
government regulations appear to be tough on industry. Large companies
have to pay $15 per tonne on each tonne of carbon they emit over a
certain limit and mined lands and tailings ponds must legally be
reclaimed.

“But many of these rules are weaker than they seem,” the editorial argues.

Read full Tyee article here

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Tories Play Down Accusation of ‘Con Job’ on Tar Sands

Canada, Energy and Resources, Tar Sands, ,
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OTTAWA
— The Harper government played down opposition accusations Monday that
it was running a “con job” to lobby against climate change policies
abroad affecting the oilsands industry. Instead, the government said it
is trying to “work with industry.”

“The stupidest thing you
can do is to run against an industry that is providing employment for
hundreds of thousands of Canadians, not just in Alberta, but right
across the country,” said Environment Minister John Baird in the House
of Commons in response to a question from Liberal MP Joyce Murray.

Baird said his comments were actually repeating the position of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff on the oilsands.

“The member (Murray) should listen to the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada,” Baird said.

The
government lobbying efforts were revealed by Postmedia News following
the release of federal documents obtained through an Access to
Information request by Climate Action Network Canada, a coalition of
environmental, labour and faith-based groups. The documents uncovered a
multi-department government communications strategy in partnership with
Alberta and the oil and gas industry to fight global warming policies in
jurisdictions such as the U.S.

Read full Calgary Herald article here

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