Article by Elisabeth Rosenthal in the New York Times. “The pipeline, which will stretch from Alberta in Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast, would nearly double
the United States’ capacity to import oil made from Canadian oil sands.
Canadian oil sands are a plentiful and secure source of oil, but the
extraction process is high in carbon dioxide emissions and takes a toll
on pristine Canadian forest ecosystems.” Read article
Article by Tom Zeller Jr. in the New York Times. International oil companies see US 12 as a road to riches. They are angling to use it to ship gargantuan loads of equipment from Vancouver, WA, to Montana and the tar sands of Alberta. Read article
Article by Ian Austin in The Province. Rex Weyler: “We’re calling for an absolute, 100-per-cent ban on oil tankers on the West Coast.” Read article
Article by James MacPherson and Josh Funk in Bloomberg Business Week. “Some experts conclude the so-called Keystone XL pipeline is a victim of guilt by association amid the negative publicity of the Gulf Coast oil rig explosion and other spills.” Read article
Article by Kent Spencer in The Province. “Ten shivering bathers, covered in brown molasses and sand, collapsed on the beach in a mock ‘die-in’ to call attention to the dangers of tanker traffic in local waters.” Read article
Article by Geoff Dembicki at The Tyee. “How do you develop a pristine eco-system? Or do you develop it at all?
Green groups, First Nations and logging companies fought bitterly over these issues during the decades-long campaign to protect the coastal Great Bear Rainforest.” Read article
Story from the Canadian Press.
“Delegates at the UBCM conference in Whistler overwhelmingly passed two motions brought forward Friday by the Village of Queen Charlotte.
“The first urged Ottawa to legislate a ban on bulk crude oil tanker traffic through Queen Charlotte Sound, Dixon Entrance and Hecate Strait, while the second opposes the Northern Gateway pipeline between Alberta’s oilsands and the B.C. coast, proposed by Enbridge Inc.”
What the hell is in it for us?
I hate to sound ungracious towards our friends and neighbours by asking that question but it’s occurred to me quite often and I, for one, would like an answer.
With fish farms, what the hell is in it for us?
Over 90% of the farms are foreign-owned . The license fees we collect are like a handful of sand is to Vancouver’s beaches. Our wild salmon are destroyed, the environment desecrated, and the loot all goes to big companies and their shareholders, mostly in Norway. Furthermore, because these companies are from out of province they don’t give a fiddler’s fart how much damage they do.
Jobs?
A few caretakers and that’s it.
We take all the risks, we take the certain environmental losses and they get all the money!
Whoops, I forgot that there is a BC beneficiary – the Liberal Party of BC and Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell.
With pipelines shipping oil from the Tar Sands to Kitimat for passage through our waters – what the hell is in it for us?
The oil comes from Alberta so that only the Alberta and Federal governments get any royalties and other taxes – except maybe for the peppercorn rent for the pipeline right-of-way. We run many real risks in taking this filthy stuff over our province, through our delicate habitat, then shipping it down the most treacherous part of our coast and get nothing for it!
We have to do the policing for sabotage, terrorist attacks, or plain misadventure since Enbridge sure isn’t going to. And based on their track record, who would want them to be our watchdogs?
When the damage is done – and it will happen – we’ll have to bear the cost since Enbridge sure isn’t BP and a big loss could bankrupt them.
These questions apply to the oil presently being piped down to tankers in Burrard Inlet putting not only Vancouver Harbour at risk but all the BC coastline they sail past.
Moreover, as with fish farms, these companies are from out of province and don’t give a damn for our environment.
What’s in that for us?
Some rent for the right-of-way?
Jobs?
Sure there will be employment to build the line but that’s short term and most of those jobs will be from out of province.
We take all the risks and they get the dough!
Whoops! I forgot Pinocchio and his trained seals. (See “whoops” above for details.)
Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are building their dams (they prefer we call them weirs) on rivers all over the province to make electricity.
What the hell’s in it for us?
These are all large offshore companies that take the profits while we inherit buggered up rivers. But it’s worse – not only do we lose our rivers, we pay for these dams because our provincial company, BC Hydro, owned by me and thee, is forced to pay these IPPs double what their power can be sold for. Since IPPs don’t make much electricity unless their river is flowing quickly, as in the Spring run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need it, Hydro must export it at a huge loss! Our loss as citizen/shareholders!
We don’t need their power – indeed can’t even use it – but we finance their plants by making Hydro give them sweetheart deals, we get a fast bankrupting BC Hydro, and the money goes mostly to non-BC shareholders like Warren Buffett and General Electric!
What’s in it for us?
Whoops again! (See above re Pinocchio and his lickspittles).
We’re chumps! Marks! Rubes playing Three Card Monte at the fair! We’re being robbed blind then we beg for more!
Think on this, gentle readers – we’re taking a three-way financial hit and a huge three-pronged attack on our environment, be it our salmon, our rivers, our harbours, our coastline, and our wild habitat and, through our government, we’re begging for more!
But I predict a change, an awakening of the people. When the Premier and the Attorney-General instructed Crown Counsel to ask for a life sentence for Betty Krawczyk for disobeying a court order to cease demonstrating, using two violent pedophile cases to back it up, it touched a lot of nerves. A life sentence for an 82 year-old for protesting an environmental desecration? Likening it to sexual violation of kids? What has this government come to?
There will be civil disobedience in BC and it won’t be pretty. We’ve been lied to enough. Our heritage is bring ripped apart not with government consent but at its request.
I’m not calling for civil disobedience – I’m saying it will come because this disgraceful government has asked, no begged for it.
Watch this new 16 minute documentary – produced by Damien Gillis for Pacific Wild – on the battle to stop the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands, and the associated oil supertankers that would gravely threaten BC’s spectacular coast.
Oil in Eden: The Battle to Protect Canada’s Pacific Coast from Pacific Wild on Vimeo.
It’s one of the last bastions of Canadian wilderness: the Great Bear Rainforest, on BC’s north and central Pacific coast. Home to bountiful marine mammals, fish, and wildlife – from orca and humpback whales to wild salmon, wolves, grizzlies, and the legendary spirit bear – this spectacular place is now threatened by a proposal to bring an oil pipeline and supertankers to this fragile and rugged coast.
The plan is to pump over half a million barrels a day of unrefined bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands over the Rockies, through the heartland of BC – crossing a thousand rivers and streams in the process – to the Port of Kitimat, in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. From there, supertankers would ply the rough and dangerous waters of the BC coast en route to Asia and the United States. Dubbed the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the project is of concern for three main reasons: 1. It would facilitate the expansion of the Tar Sands, hooking emerging Asian economies on the world’s dirtiest oil; 2. the risks from the pipeline itself; 3. the danger of introducing oil supertankers for the first time to this part of the BC coast.
Now a growing coalition of First Nations, conservation groups, and concerned citizens from Canada and around the world is banding together to say no the Enbridge project, in what is shaping up to be the defining Canadian environmental battle of our time. Produced by Canadian filmmaker Damien Gillis for Pacific Wild, This 16 minute short documentary – featuring stunning images from the Great Bear Rainforest – provides a summary of the key issues involved in this battle over the pipeline, tankers, and Canada’s Pacific coast.
Please forward this video to your friends and colleagues – and go to PacificWild.org and PipeUpAgainstEnbridge.ca to take action today to help protect BC from Enbridge’s proposal.
Article by Mitch Anderson at The Tyee. “Vancouver has quietly become a major oil port, as the capacity of the Kinder Morgan pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby has recently been scaled up to 300,000 barrels per day. Every week several oil tankers squeeze through Second Narrows at the highest tides with less than two metres of water under the keel. These shipments have doubled over the last two years.” Read article