Canadian protestors urge Obama to shun tar sands

I know he doesn't. And JanforGore you are one of the reasons I even come here to read anymore. Thanks for all the information you put out here.

Obama is a puppet, you think he cares about that?

Sad but true on all fronts, csmonut.

Jan,
You are perfectly correct. If Obama wants to be a global leader, he needs to do what is right by the world, as a whole, and not just what suits the moment.
"Carbon sequestering" is not a vaible alternative and the science behind it is not even real science. It's the big oil companies "yes" men doing what they are told.

If Current continues to go the way of all the other "entertainment stations" and doesn't put the truth out there, what does that say about the ethics of the people involved in it?
Did one of the media giants finally get their fingers in the pie? If so, this will become just another site that won't be worth bothering with.

OOPS forgot, you can't criticize anything about President Obama here. True? Tar sands are perfectly healthy if he says so? BTW, what do you have to do to get an important story to the top here now? Because unless you can get to number two on the topics here now you aren't even seen anymore and won't be if people don't happen to like that topic and don't look into it. So how do you get on the top five news stories since it seems to be the same people all the time now? I stated I would hold judgement of this format and give it a chance. I see now that while it may appeal to those who post celebrity trash news, it really does do a lot to hide those who were getting truth out here and frankly, I really don't like that change at all. What does Current really stand for? Being different from the rest, or another Entertainment Tonight?

Regarding this, should Obama agree to a climate treaty with Canada that allows these tar sands emissions to not be counted in it and calling for its demise he will have committed a grave crime against the environment, the people who are dying from cancer, as well as the species including the birds who are dying there. The Boreal Forest was once one of the richest areas in the world regarding biodiversity and it is being killed by corporate greed. His playing along with it loses much respect in my eyes and this will have a great effect on the environment of the world at large. We also could never then chide China and India for not working to bring down emissions if we continue to support this. Does he really understand what affect tarsands are having on the ecosystems of this planet?

From the article:
Greenpeace activists scaled a bridge in the Canadian capital on Wednesday and unfurled two large banners urging U.S. President Barack Obama to take a tough stand on Canada's huge oil sands when he visits on Thursday.

"Climate Leaders Don't Buy Tar Sands" read one of the banners, which faced toward Parliament. The oil sands represent the largest reserves outside the Middle East, but extracting the heavy crude from the sands releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases, blamed for global warming.

Obama -- who has vowed to spend billions developing cleaner sources of energy -- is due to spend a few hours in the houses of Parliament while in Ottawa on his first foreign visit since taking power last month.

"President Obama and the American public need to know that tar sands produce the dirtiest oil on earth ... the tar sands are an international global warming disaster," said Mike Hudema of Greenpeace.

The problem for Obama is that Canada is the largest single supplier of energy to the United States. Canadian oil production last year was 2.75 million barrels a day, of which the oil sands accounted for just under half.

Speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp on Wednesday, Obama declined to characterize crude from the sands as "dirty oil" which should somehow be curtailed.

He acknowledged the sands create "a big carbon footprint" and said the United States and Canada should collaborate on ways to capture carbon and then store it to prevent greenhouse gases from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Separately, a group of 50 prominent Canadians sent Obama an open letter on Wednesday saying it would be wrong to have much faith in such untried methods.

"Costly and unproven technological fixes such as carbon capture and storage do not provide 'silver bullet' solutions to addressing emissions from tar sands," the letter said.