tagged w/ Boreal Forest
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This is an incredible presentation by photogtapher Garth Lenz showing shocking photographs of the devastation of tarsands along with the beautiful ecosystems threatened by them. Even he could not hold back his emotion when relaying the effects on indigenous communities and the responsibilty we all have in stopping this atrocity of nature before it is too late.This is an incredible presentation by photogtapher Garth Lenz showing shocking... more
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The prime minister is talking about being "held hostage" by U.S. interests. Radio ads blare, "Stand up to this foreign bully." A Twitter account tells of a "secret plan to target Canada: exposed!"
Could this be Canada? The cheerful northern neighbor: supplier of troops to unpleasant U.S.-led foreign conflicts, reliable trade partner, ally in holding terrorism back from North America's shores, not to mention the No. 1 supplier of America's oil?
Canada's recent push for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta to the nation's West Coast, where it would be sent to China, has been marked by uncharacteristic defiance. And it first flared in the brouhaha over the bananas.
Responding to urgings from U.S. environmentalists, Ohio-based Chiquita Brands International Inc. announced in November that it would join a growing number of companies trying to avoid fuel derived from Canada's tar sands, whose production is blamed for accelerating climate change and leveling boreal forests.
Then in January, President Obama abruptly vetoed a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada's $7-billion project to deliver oil across the U.S. Midwest to the Texas Gulf Coast , which environmentalists have long opposed.
Mix in a touch of nationalism, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's view that Canada needs to hedge its oil bets by diversifying its export markets, and the fight was on — not only with the neighbor to the south, but also among Canadians.
"Canada is not what it used to be," said Todd Paglia, executive director ForestEthics, an environmental group that has been calling for the international boycotts on tar sands oil. "It's hard to believe, but it's tilting toward becoming more of an authoritarian petro state, positioning itself as a resource colony for China."
On the other side, a lobbying group pushing Canada as an alternative to unstable and sometimes unsavory oil producers in the Middle East ramped up a boycott of its own, this one targeting Chiquita bananas.
"Stand up to this foreign bully. Don't buy Chiquita bananas," said a radio spot by the group, which calls itself EthicalOil.org, complaining about what it called Chiquita's record of supporting terrorist groups in South America. A Twitter profile was set up for @bloodbananas to expose the allegedly hypocritical campaign against Canada.
Over the last few weeks, a two-agency review panel has convened the first in a long round of hearings on Northern Gateway, pointedly described as a pipeline that won't deliver much oil to the U.S. Instead, it will allow Canada to end its sole dependence on American buyers for its most important export by opening up markets in Asia, and allow it to attract the badly needed foreign investment to develop the sands.
"I think what's happened around the Keystone is a wake-up call, the degree to which we are dependent or possibly held hostage to decisions in the United States, and especially decisions that may be made for very bad political reasons," Harper, whose government has labeled pipeline opponents as foreign-funded "radicals," told CBC television in January.
The $5.5-billion Northern Gateway project, which would carry 525,000 barrels a day of crude 731 miles from a town near Edmonton through the Rocky Mountains to a new port on the British Columbia coast, has long been in the works as a companion to Keystone XL.
But with Keystone's recent turmoil in the U.S., Northern Gateway has risen to new prominence as a defiant Plan B for a nation increasingly aggressive in combating international hurdles, whether it's greenhouse gas treaties, low-carbon fuel standards or U.S. presidential politics.
"There has always been very strong support by the Harper government, by the province of Alberta and by the oil industry for the Northern Gateway pipeline. But there's no question that for all three of those entities, that urgency increased dramatically with the apparent defeat of Keystone XL," said George Hoberg, a political scientist and professor of forestry at the University of British Columbia.
"The Harper government's view is that, especially in the Obama years, the U.S. is becoming a less reliable partner for the oil sands."
More at the linkThe prime minister is talking about being "held hostage" by U.S. interests.... more
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Canada’s caribou population are in steep decline. That’s due in part to the destruction of habitat through logging, expanding tar sands production, and other industrial development in the province of Alberta.
But rather than focus on habitat conservation efforts to protect threatened caribou populations in the province, Canadian officials are poisoning and shooting wolves that prey on caribou.
The practice is not new in Alberta. But the stunning decline in Caribou herds is forcing the Canadian government to ramp up culling efforts around Alberta’s oil sands — potentially resulting in the death of 6,000 wolves over the next five years, according to the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental think tank.
Government officials didn’t confirm those figures, but one Canada’s environment minister admitted it would be “very large numbers.”
Environmental organizations are hammering the Canadian government over the killing of wolves, saying that it is proof of the cascading environmental impacts of tar sands production. The National Wildlife Federation released a short report today on the issue:
Two particularly repugnant methods of destroying wolves – shooting wolves from helicopters and poisoning wolves with baits laced with strychnine – would be carried out in response to the caribou declines. Strychnine is a deadly poison known for an excruciating death that progresses painfully from muscle spasms to convulsions to suffocation, over a period of hours. Wildlife officials will place strychnine baits on the ground or spread them from aircraft in areas they know wolves inhabit. In addition to wolves, non-target animals like raptors, wolverines and cougars will be at risk from eating the poisoned baits or scavenging on the deadly carcasses of poisoned wildlife.
These methods have already been used in Alberta to kill hundreds of wolves. Now the Canadian government wants to use them to kill thousands more.
According to a report from the Alberta Caribou Committee, it is very possible that increased industrial activity in Alberta — much of it driven by expanding tar sands mining — will cause the complete collapse of caribou populations living in the Boreal forest:
Boreal caribou will not persist for more than two to four decades without immediate and aggressive management intervention. Tough choices need to be made between the management imperative to recover boreal caribou and plans for ongoing bitumen development and industrial land-use.
The Canadian government agrees that caribou populations around Alberta and British Columbia are “very unlikely” to survive due to decades of sustained industrial development in fragile habitat. The dramatic expansion of tar sands is becoming a key driver of this habitat loss.
But rather than slow this type of environmentally-destructive activity to prevent Caribou (and now wolves) from being eviscerated, the Canadian government only plans to continue aggressive expansion of tar sands.
More at the linkCanada’s caribou population are in steep decline. That’s due in part to... more
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With the Keystone XL pipeline on hold, the giant companies tapping Canada’s oil sands will turn to Plan B — existing pipelines to the United States.
Those pipelines, which now carry slightly more than 1 million barrels a day from Canada’s oil sands to the United States, can be expanded by adding pumping stations. Some companies, notably Enbridge, already have plans to boost the capacity of their lines and speed the journey of crude from Alberta to Texas.
.“It’s inevitable that it will get here. This oil will have to find a market,” said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. “All these competing pipelines are going to rethink their strategy.”
That would disappoint foes of the Keystone XL pipeline, who hope that the delay or defeat of the project would impede the growth in output from the oil sands, whose exploitation releases 5 to 15 percent more greenhouse gases than the average crude used in the United States.
Asked what the Keystone delay would mean for oil sands development, a spokesman for Chevron, which owns 20 percent of one of the oil sands projects, said: “The Keystone decision has no implications for Chevron.”
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers forecasts that oil sands output will nearly double from 1.5 million barrels a day in 2010 to 2.9 million barrels a day by 2020. Proponents of the Keystone XL pipeline warned that a rejection of the project would lead to exports to China via a pipeline to Canada’s west coast, or shipments to the United States using barges, trucks and railroads, thus creating a larger carbon footprint.
Many Canadians prefer a pipeline to be built from Alberta to eastern Canada, which still imports oil from Saudi Arabia.
But oil analysts said Friday that existing pipelines to the United States offer the easiest and most likely fallback plans.
Enbridge is a likely choice for oil companies seeking additional pipeline space over the next two or three years. The company’s 1,000-mile long Alberta Clipper line, which went into operation last year, goes from Hardesty, Alberta, to Superior, Wis., and has an initial capacity of 450,000 barrels a day. But it can be pushed up to 800,000 barrels a day, the company says. That alone would make up for half of the capacity Keystone XL would have added.
more at the linkWith the Keystone XL pipeline on hold, the giant companies tapping Canada’s oil... more
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This thread is just one of many that I will be starting in the next two weeks to virtually protest in solidarity with those risking arrest in Washington DC who are sitting in to stand up for our climate, our water, our land and our energy future. Please help us support these good people. If you are in agreement type NO in the comments section, or add any type of encouragement to share the spirit of the people being heard for climate justice.
The Keystone XL pipeline must go!
Tarsands is the sign that desperation has hit the fossil fuel industry as our addiction has become dangerous for the continued sustainability of our planet. Tarsands is the wake up call regarding a moral imperative we are losing.
Consider the actions involved in extracting the bitumen tar from the sand and the process of separation that involves usage of huge amounts of water and toxic agents in making the finished product suitable for gas tanks. Consider the environmental degradation of pristine ecosystems, rivers, species and cultures. Consider the health effects and cancers related to the toxification of land, water and air that have taken lives. Consider the climate timebomb being released by the burning of this dirty toxic crude all to satisfy the greed of those who care nothing for the damage this is doing to the world you and yours will live in. This is not progress, this is insanity.
However, the fault is not just with those who process this destruction. The fault also lies with us. Those who continue to consume it in order to satiate a need that has led our environment to the breaking point. And now, Transcanada and those who seek to benefit from this destruction here wish to do so by constructing another pipeline through the heartland of this country directly threatening our water supply, our agriculture and our environment.
Starting tomorrow and going to Sept 3, people will be risking arrest in acts of peaceful civil disobedience outside the White House to tell President Obama NO regarding approving the Keystone XL pipeline.
(Caps for emphasis because this is important)
THIS IS NOW THE TIME THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA MUST HEAR YOU. THE WORLD WE ARE MAKING FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS DEPENDS ON OUR ACTIONS TODAY.
So even if all you can do is send an e-mail to the White House, you need to do it. Call, write, tweet, blog. But please, don't allow another ecocide to take place. We do have power in great numbers. We do have other energy choices. We CAN change things for the better (as the end of this video illustrates.)
But that won't happen unless we make noise by whatever means we have.
Kudos to those willing to be arrested for this important cause. I thank you, my child thanks you, I stand with you and I will do all in my power to be heard with you.
NO TO KEYSTONE XL.!This thread is just one of many that I will be starting in the next two weeks to... more
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Congress took a first step on Wednesday to fast-track a controversial Alberta tar sands pipeline, ordering Barack Obama to reach a decision on the project by 1 November.
The bill, voted through a panel of the house energy and power subcommittee, would compel Obama to over-rule demands for a further review of the project from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and disregard local opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline from landowners along its 1,700-mile route.
Republicans in Congress are planning further action to push ahead on the pipeline next week, environmentalists said.
Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is the main force among climate change sceptic in Congress, is working on a bill that would repeal a 2007 provision restricing the federal government's use of high-carbon fuels, such as those from the Alberta tar sands.
Between them, the actions are aimed at cutting off growing opposition to the pipeline – before it sinks the project.
The pipeline is intended to pass through Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska before reaching the refineries on the Gulf coast of Texas.
But a series of pipeline accidents - including the shutdown of the Keystone itself for several days this month because of a leak - have amplified fears about transporting highly corrosive thick crude across the American heartland to the refineries of Texas.
Democrats said the accidents were a powerful reason not to rush to approval. "I don't think it makes any sense to set some kind of arbitrary deadline," said Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat.
But Republicans said the pipeline was already three years in the planning, and that its construction would end America's reliance on Middle Eastern oil. "It makes perfect sense," said Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
More than 100,000 people wrote to the State Department this month to express their views on the project. Nebraska state legislaters and members of Congress have also written letters of concern.
Meanwhile the EPA issued a letter last week criticising the State Department for failing to fully take into account the risks of a pipeline accident, or of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the import of more fossil fuels.
Supporters of the project have been active as well, pushed in part by a new report suggesting the pipeline was running out of time.
cont.Congress took a first step on Wednesday to fast-track a controversial Alberta tar... more
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Our canoe emerged from that unsettled land, past the confluence with the Clearwater River, and into the stunning industry of the oil sands. We coasted past high banks of bermed-up sand. Yellow machines the size of houses roared down the roads, tore into the ground, stripped up the layers of earth to get at the seams of bitumen, or tar. Our mouths fell open - the scale of it, the sounds, and the effluent pouring back into the river that we had come to know. Even without understanding the challenges of refining that sludge, the transportation required and the environmental damage being done, we knew that we were gliding past a monster.
A quarter century has passed since that summer. The oil sands strip-mining effort has continued unabated, and steadily expanded. It has gone on non-stop, day after day, year after year, decade on decade: Knocking down forest, peeling up peat, dredging bitumen-soaked sand, denuding habitat, dumping countless gallons of tainted river water.
The Chipewyan settlement of Fort Chipewyan, downstream, worries about elevated instances of kidney failure, Graves disease, and the risk of cancer from river water tainted with arsenic, mercury, other metals and sediments laced with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - toxics commonly found in tailings pond water. Chipewyans are told not to eat fish caught in the river, but fish and game provide their traditional diet.
Polluted river water sullies the Athabasca delta, one of the world's most important wetlands and migratory bird habitats. Year by year the mining expands its footprint, a scar visible from outer space. Combined, the oil sand fields of northern Alberta cover an area of 54,000 square miles, an expanse larger than England.
Northern Alberta is far enough off the radar that it might as well be another planet. Very few people live there. It's easy to forget about that carnage, even if, like me, you've been there.
Two years ago, watching the movie Avatar it all came back.
This is an old, tired story, I thought, watching the industrial colonization of a foreign planet, the clear-cutting of ancient forest and the apocalyptic demise of the beings who lived there. But in that dark theater, I felt the canoe paddle in my hands again, felt the river beneath the hull, witnessed the assault taking place just over the Athabasca's bank. I know where this Hollywood plot is unfolding right now, I thought.
And right now I'm reminded again because trucks are hauling behemoth loads across Montana, where I live, delivering equipment on a scale even science fiction screenwriters didn't anticipate.
Mega-trucks are pulling loads nearly 600,000 pounds, three stories high and 220 feet long across Idaho and Montana. This equipment is manufactured in Asia, shipped to the west coast, transported on barges up the Columbia watershed to the port of Lewistown, Idaho, and then transferred onto trucks that wind their way through some of the West's most picturesque river canyons and mountain passes.
These are the test runs. Imperial Oil, the Canadian arm of ExxonMobil, has plans to truck 200 similarly gargantuan loads along the same route to the oil sands of the North.
The trucks will hammer the pavement, stop traffic, add nothing to local economies. Scenic lands which support recreation and tourism are at risk. Citizen groups are waging campaigns. The Missoula County Commission and several districts of the U.S. Forest Service have lodged complaints.
But we are a small state, and the pressures from industry are immense.
The oil sands produce roughly 1.5 million barrels of oil per day. Alberta's biggest customer is the United States. Long-range, the plan is to build a pipeline from Alberta through Montana and Wyoming to Denver, and perhaps on to the Gulf Coast.
The problems are tremendous. The oil doesn't flow, to start with. It has to be separated, steam-injected, and mixed with liquids before it will even move through the pipe. Once south, it has to be further refined before it can be rendered usable.
To turn one barrel of oil sands bitumen into something you can pump into your gas tank requires removing two or three tons of earth, using three barrels of water, and burning 1,200 cubic feet of natural gas in a convoluted series of expensive processes to separate the oil, liquefy it, and refine it. All of this produces two to four times the amount of greenhouse gases as refining conventional petroleum. Talk about burning the candle at both ends. The mines pull 359 million cubic meters of water from the Athabasca River each year. While land reclamation is part of the discussion, not one reclamation certificate has been awarded to date, and the challenges of returning the landscape to anything remotely approximating its original state are appalling.
It took days to regain our mental rhythm, to let "river time" reassert itself. Life, and the river, bore us on. But now, it comes stabbing back.Meanwhile, Alberta's regulators just approved the ninth open-pit mine north of Fort McMurray. An industry-led monitoring body concluded that the pit would produce "no significant adverse environmental effects on water quality."
cont.Our canoe emerged from that unsettled land, past the confluence with the Clearwater... more
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10123210.stm
Timber companies and environment groups including Greenpeace, Canopy, and ForestEthics have unveiled an agreement aimed at protecting two-thirds of Canada's vast forests from unsustainable logging.
Over 72 million hectares are included in what will become the world's largest commercial forest conservation deal.
Logging will be totally banned on some of the land, in the hope of sustaining endangered caribou populations.
Timber companies hope the deal will bring commercial gains, as timber buyers seek higher ethical standards.
The total protected area is about twice the size of Germany, and equals the area of forest lost globally between 1990 and 2005.
"The importance of this agreement cannot be overstated," said Avrim Lazar, president and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC).
"We're thrilled that this effort has led to the largest commercial forest conservation plan in history," said Steve Kallick of Pew Environment Group.
"Together we have identified a more intelligent, productive way to manage economic and environmental challenges in the Boreal [Forest] that will reassure global buyers of our products' sustainability."
The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA) brings together FPAC's 21 member companies and nine environment groups, many of which have fought a bitter battle against what they have sometimes criticised as rapacious logging.
As part of the agreement, those groups have agreed to suspend criticism of the industry and calls for boycotts.
The Pew Environment Group, which has worked for about a decade on trying to "green" Canada's forestry, said it was "excited" by the agreement.
"We're thrilled that this effort has led to the largest commercial forest conservation plan in history, which could not have happened without both sides looking beyond their differences," said Steve Kallick, director of Pew's International Boreal Conservation Campaign.
Pew notes that the total area covered by the deal is larger than in some agreements currently feted as global leaders, such as the Brazilian Amazon Region Protected Areas project.
Throughout the protected lands - which run right across the country from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts - companies and environment groups are pledging to work together to implement "world-leading forest management and harvesting practices".
The effects of forest protection on wildlife, particularly caribou, will be monitored; and timber will be certified as coming from sustainable sources.
Pew believes the agreement could be a template for future forest agreements in other parts of the world, as industry leaders respond to an increasingly environmentally-aware public.
"There is a recognition that this is how forestry will be done in the 21st Century, and there's a great interest in getting ahead of the rest of the industry," Mr Kallick told BBC News.
The agreement at present covers companies and environment groups; both parties are looking now for backing and reinforcement from governments.
In the Canadian system that means the national and provincial authorities, and "First Nation" governments of indigenous groups, some of which have already indicated their support.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10123210.stm
Timber companies... more
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Enbridge Energy Partners LP, the Houston-based pipeline partnership controlled by Canada’s largest pipeline company, said it may take seven years to fill new crude oil pipelines from Canada to the U.S. because of excess capacity.
“It may be 2017 before we see all the pipes that are being planned to be full,” said Stephen Letwin, managing director of Enbridge Energy Co., the general partner of Enbridge Energy Partners, during an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “The fact that these pipes are not filling until 2017 is not critical because we know we are going to get our value back.”
The Clipper operates under a so-called common carrier agreement, where shippers nominate deliveries to the pipeline and tolls increase if volumes decrease. Enbridge will collect about $180 million a year from its shippers regardless of the volume shipped. If the pipeline runs at reduced rates shippers will pay a higher price per barrel.
It will take about 6.4 million barrels to fill the pipeline and that will “likely be later in the year or even next year,” Mark Maki, the company’s chief financial officer, said.
The Clipper, which runs 1,000 miles (1,607 kilometers) from Hardisty, Alberta, to Superior, Wisconsin, can be increased in capacity to 800,000 barrels a day, according to the company’s Web site.
Keystone Pipeline
The line faces competition from a pipeline built by Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. Its Keystone Pipeline System runs from Hardisty, Alberta, to Wood River and Patoka, Illinois, and can transport 435,000 barrels a day. Commercial operations on Keystone are scheduled to begin in the middle of the year.
Pipelines carrying Canadian crude to the U.S. will operate at 59 percent of capacity by 2013, Chad Friess, an analyst with UBS Securities Canada Inc., said in an e-mail last week. Pipeline capacity is expected to reach 4 million barrels a day while Western Canadian exports to the U.S. are estimated to reach 2.3 million a day at the same time, he said, citing the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.Enbridge Energy Partners LP, the Houston-based pipeline partnership controlled by... more
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Donner Summit, CA, (October 7, 2009) - Boreal’s snowmaking efforts are about to break yet another record. Boreal is scheduled to turn on the Castle Peak Quad lift for the earliest season opener in the resorts history this Friday, October 9th. First record was set at Boreal on October 11, 2000. Boreal’s opening will also mark the first and only resort to open in California for the 2009/10 winter season.Donner Summit, CA, (October 7, 2009) - Boreal’s snowmaking efforts are about to... more
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Syncrude Canada Ltd pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges in the deaths of more than 1,600 ducks in a toxic waste pond in 2008, a case that heightened international concern about the environmental impact of developing Canada's vast oil sands.
After a brief court appearance in St. Albert, Alberta, just outside Edmonton, Syncrude officials declined to divulge details of the company's defense in the high-profile case, in which the waterfowl got coated in oil and sank.
Syncrude, the largest oil sands miner and processor, faces charges under Canada's Migratory Birds Convention Act and Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act. The trial is slated to begin March 1 in Alberta Provincial Court.
Syncrude Chief Executive Tom Katinas said he would not explain the decision to plead not guilty "out of respect for the judicial system".
"We will provide our reasons in court, and we ask Canadians for their patience as we go through this legal process," he said in a statement.
The birds were killed in April 2008, when a snowstorm delayed deployment of bird-deterring sound cannons at Syncrude's tailings pond. Other lakes in the region were still frozen, leaving the migrating flock with no other option for setting down, the company has said.
Syncrude, a joint venture of several international oil companies, initially said 500 ducks were killed. But last March it said the number was more than triple that.
Alberta's oil sands represent the largest oil deposits outside the Middle East, and the tar-like crude is seen as an important source of secure energy for the United States.
Environmentalists argue that multibillion-dollar oil sands mining developments harm wildlife, land, air and water.
Green groups say the Syncrude case shows governments are not doing enough to restrict the spread of tailings ponds, which are filled with water, clay and some oily residue from the oil sands extraction process.
"For us, the real issue here is about powerful oil companies and weak politicians," said Bruce Cox, executive director of Greenpeace Canada. "The pressure's got to be on our elected officials to get serious about the environmental degradation that is happening in the tar sands."
Syncrude reiterated it is sorry about the incident and said it had made improvements to its waterfowl protection program.
"Our position on what happened hasn't changed. We feel horrible that this occurred and we've put a lot of resources and time into implementing changes to help prevent it from happening again," Syncrude spokesman Alain Moore said.
Greenpeace released a report Monday that charges, among other things, that the oil sands have a much higher carbon footprint than any other commercial oil product, and if development continues unabated could produce more greenhouse gases than Austria, Portugal, Ireland or Denmark.
The report, called "Dirty Oil: How the tar sands are fueling the global climate crisis", by Alberta author Andrew Nikiforuk, also says growing revenue from the oil sands has turned Ottawa into a "carbon bully" that fights against moves to lower greenhouse gas emissions.Syncrude Canada Ltd pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges in the deaths of more than... more
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RBC's lawyers apparently don't like that we've been using their corporate logo to expose their financing of dirty tar sands oil extraction, and they sent us a letter demanding that we "cease and desist." Please take a minute to send RBC's lawyers a letter demanding that they "cease and desist" funding the expansion of the Alberta tar sands, one of the most destructive projects on earth.
RBC is the world's biggest funder of the tar sands. This industrial gigaproject is Canada's fastest-growing source of water pollution and global warming emissions. It's also violating the rights of Indigenous communities. (RAN tends to think that that's a bigger deal than a few stickers.)
Please send this letter to RBC's lawyers, and help them get their priorities straight.RBC's lawyers apparently don't like that we've been using their... more
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Native Americans are to join the Climate Camp protests in the City of London this week in an attempt to draw attention to corporate Britain's "criminal" involvement in the tar sands of Canada.
The oil sands extraction process requires top soil to be removed, is highly energy-intensive and releases huge amounts of carbon dioxide. Five representatives from the Cree First Nations are coming to co-ordinate their campaign against key players in the carbon-heavy energy sector with British environmentalists.
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, from Fort Chipewyan, a centre of Alberta's tar sands schemes, said: "British companies such as BP and Royal Bank of Scotland in partnership with dozens of other companies are driving this project, which is having such devastating effects on our environment and communities.
"It is destroying the ancient boreal forest, spreading open-pit mining across our territories, contaminating our food and water with toxins, disrupting local wildlife and threatening our way of life," she said.
It showed British companies were complicit in "the biggest environmental crime on the planet" and yet very few people in Britain even knew it was happening, said Deranger. She was speaking ahead of an annual Climate Camp that will be held for one week somewhere in Greater London from this Thursday.
The exact site of the camp has not been revealed as green organisers are worried that the police might move to thwart their plans if they are notified in advance.
BP and Shell are two of the major oil companies extracting oil from the tar sands. The thick and sticky oil can only be removed from the sands by using a lot of water and power as well as producing far heavier CO2 emissions.
RBS, now partly owned by the British government after its financial rescue, is also a target of environmentalists and aboriginals because it is seen as a major funder of such schemes.
The Climate Camp concept started with a protest outside the Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire and was followed up by similar protests at Heathrow - against the proposed third runway - and Kingsnorth in Kent, where E.ON wants to construct a new coal-fired power station.
There was also a Climate Camp in April at Bishopsgate inside the City of London, which became linked with bad policing after a bystander died following a clash with a constable.
The tar sands are seen by many as a particularly dangerous project providing enough carbon to be released in total to tip the world into unstoppable climate change. Shell was the first major European oil company to invest in the Canadian-based operations but BP followed under its chief executive, Tony Hayward.
end of excerptNative Americans are to join the Climate Camp protests in the City of London this week... more
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Sears Holding Company, most known for their ubiquitous catalogues, continues to stall on crafting a more environmental paper policy, according to the nonprofit environmental organization ForestEthics. Sears’ long delay to implement a more forest-friendly policy is adding pressure to already threatened caribou populations and deforesting forests in Canada, where the company sources much of its paper.
"Sears has been made fully aware of the costs of stalling on a strong environmental paper policy," said Ginger Cassady of ForestEthics. "It’s hard not to conclude that they place a lower priority than their competitors on the welfare of caribou and Endangered Forests. Their fellow Chicago company, Crate & Barrel, for example, cleared this hurdle two years ago."
ForestEthics has negotiated with Sears for over two years to come up with a better paper policy, but the company continues to stall.
Currently, 425 million Sears and Lands End catalogues are sent to Americans every year, a number that eclipses the population of the entire United States by more than 100 million. According to ForestEthics, Sears Company was one of the pioneers of the junk mail industry.
As well as containing a large number of threatened species, including the caribou, the boreal forests act as a massive carbon sink.
"Crate & Barrel implemented a strong paper procurement policy that gives preference to FSC, increases its use of recycled fiber, sources no paper from Endangered Forests and reduces paper use overall," Cassady says. "ForestEthics is asking Sears to do the same."
In addition to pressuring companies to change the ways they use forests products like paper, ForestEthics also runs a Do Not Mail campaign that seeks to establish a national Do Not Mail Registry, so Americans can opt out of receiving destructive junk mail.Sears Holding Company, most known for their ubiquitous catalogues, continues to stall... more
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The Obama administration faces a test of its environmental credentials in deciding whether to approve a pipeline carrying greenhouse gas-intensive oil sands fuel from Canada into the US.
Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, is expected to decide as early as this month whether to approve the Alberta Clipper, a 1,000-mile pipeline designed to carry up to 800,000 barrels a day of fuel from Canada's vast oil sands.
Environmentalists say doing so would be at odds with the green economy pledged by the administration.
"Approving new mega-projects like the Alberta Clipper pipeline would lock North America into the old, high-carbon energy economy," said Keith Stewart, director of climate change at WWF-Canada. "We need to invest in the green economy of the future, not pour billions into the Betamax of the energy world."
But Enbridge Energy, the Canadian pipeline builder, said the project would improve US energy security. The pipeline and associated facilities "will serve the national interest ... enhancing the ability to deliver a secure and growing supply of Canadian crude oil, thereby supplementing the diminishing supplies of domestically produced crude oil," the company said in its May application.
It is hard for the US to resist the 175 billion barrels of oil sand reserves, given rising concerns over energy security. But the extraction of a barrel of crude from oil sands is estimated to generate as much as five times more greenhouse gas emissions as from a barrel of conventional crude.
Environmentalists have seized on a delay in granting the permit, which could have come in early July, as a sign it might be rejected. But the state department told the Financial Times it had not finished the review process.
Enbridge is confident it will obtain the permit this month, enabling it to build.
"We're going to start construction at the end of this month," the company said. "We believe we will have a successful outcome and look forward to completion by mid-2010. We're not worried at all."
Canadian environmentalists sent the state department a letter last week urging it to delay a decision until after a climate treaty emerges from the Copenhagen summit. "This decision carries significant implications regarding greenhouse gas pollution and global warming that cannot be duly considered in the absence of clear US climate change policy and an understanding of an international climate treaty," it read.
The Dirty Oil Sands Network said: "Climate security and energy security must go hand in hand. The best way to achieve this is for the Obama administration to keep building a clean energy economy."
end of excerptThe Obama administration faces a test of its environmental credentials in deciding... more
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How disappointing to know that Steven Chu actually thinks tar sands is a viable energy source. How can this administration give permits to blow up mountains, prospect for uranium in the Grand Canyon, and now bow to corporate pressure regarding tar sands and still think of themselves as caring for the environment? And again, how can this climate bill in Congress ever look credible in regards to decreasing emissions if tar sands are going to be allowed to go ahead? And it isn't even all about the emissions as much as it is the total environmental devastation of the Boreal Forest and its ecosystems. Al Gore made a speech previously wherein he totally decried the Alberta tar sands and likened it to a drug addict looking for a place in his toe to make an injection. I hope to hear his voice now on this because it is simply wrong for any administration regardless of party to condone this blatant destruction of our environment simply for political expedience.How disappointing to know that Steven Chu actually thinks tar sands is a viable energy... more
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STOP THE INSANITY!
"Imperial Oil, the Canadian subsidiary of US oil giant ExxonMobil, said Monday it is going ahead with a 7.1-billion-US-dollar first phase of its Alberta oil sands mining project.
The company's Kearl oil sands project -- a surface mining operation northeast of Fort McMurray, Alberta -- is to be developed in three phases and could ultimately produce more than 300,000 barrels of bitumen per day.
The first phase of the project would produce an average of 110,000 barrels per day starting in late 2012, Imperial Oil said in a statement.
It was initially due to come online in 2010 or 2011, but the company delayed its launch, citing a sudden drop in crude oil prices.
Canadian authorities had also revoked and then reinstated permits to Imperial Oil to develop the project, criticized by environmentalists a massive potential source of greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.
The Kearl mine is estimated to hold 4.6 billion barrels of bitumen."
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end of excerpt, and the boreal forest.
So much for emissions caps. They are already in the red.STOP THE INSANITY!
"Imperial Oil, the Canadian subsidiary of US oil giant... more
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Americans like their soft & fluffy toilet tissue. Fluffyness that comes at a price: millions of trees harvested in North America and in Latin American countries, including some percentage of trees from rare old-growth forests in Canada. Although toilet tissue can be made at similar cost from recycled material, it is the fiber taken from standing trees that help give it that plush feel, and most large manufacturers rely on them.
The country’s soft-tissue habit — call it the Charmin effect — has not escaped the notice of environmentalists, who are increasingly making toilet tissue manufacturers the targets of campaigns.
“No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper,” said Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council.
In the United States, which is the largest market worldwide for toilet paper, tissue from 100 percent recycled fibers makes up less than 2 percent of sales for at-home use among conventional and premium brands.
Environmentalists are focusing on tissue products for reasons besides the loss of trees. Turning a tree to paper requires more water than turning paper back into fiber, and many brands that use tree pulp use polluting chlorine-based bleach for greater whiteness. In addition, tissue made from recycled paper produces less waste tonnage — almost equaling its weight — that would otherwise go to a landfill.
Still, trees and tree quality remain a contentious issue. Although brands differ, 25% to 50%of the pulp used to make toilet paper in this country comes from tree farms in South America and the United States. The rest, environmental groups say, comes mostly from old, second-growth forests that serve as important absorbers of carbon dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas linked to global warming. In addition, some of the pulp comes from the last virgin North American forests, which are an irreplaceable habitat for a variety of endangered species, environmental groups say.
Greenpeace, the international conservation organization, contends that Kimberly Clark, the maker of two popular brands, Cottonelle and Scott, has gotten as much as 22 percent of its pulp from producers who cut trees in Canadian boreal forests where some trees are 200 years old.
Georgia Pacific (the maker of Quilted Northern) - says customers “demand soft and comfortable... recycled fiber cannot do it.” said James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia PacificAmericans like their soft & fluffy toilet tissue. Fluffyness that comes at a... more
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It is beyond my comprehension how any climate accord between Canada and the US could even think to exclude tar sands emissions from it. That however, is what Steven Harper is hoping Barack Obama will allow. It will be very telling what he does regarding the tar sands of Alberta, as the Bush administration supported it and its environmental devastation lock, stock, and barrel. Even though Bush now claims to be an "environmentalist' by trying to make us think he saved the oceans that are already saturated with CO2, in part from the huge amounts of CO2 spewed from the tar sands development in Alberta. Let's see what Obama does at this meeting with Harper. If he allows the tar sands emissions to be excluded from this accord it will then be clear to me that he is just a political player who does not really care about the Earth or in reigning in the Co2 that is exacerbating the climate crisis. I hope he stands up for what is right.
The world is watching.It is beyond my comprehension how any climate accord between Canada and the US could... more
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A coalition of North American environmental groups says the development of Canada-s oil sands region threatens to kill as many as 166 million birds over the next five decades and is calling for a moratorium on new projects in the region.
The coalition-s groups, which include the Natural Resources Defence Council, the Boreal Songbirds Initiative and the Pembina Institute, say petroleum-extraction projects in the oil-rich region of northern Alberta are a threat to migratory birds and the boreal forest they rely on.
Their study concluded that development of the oil sands, would be fatal for 6 million to 166 million birds because of habitat loss, shrinking wetlands, accumulation of toxins and other causes.
The solution, the groups say, is to halt new projects in the oil sands and to clean up existing facilities. They are also calling for strengthened regulations to protect Canada-s vast boreal, or northern, forest and for Alberta, whose government has backed oil sands developments, to prove the resource can be exploited without serious environmental harm.
People need to take a hard look at whether this can be mitigated or if tar sands development is just incompatible with conservation of bird habitat said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defence Council.
The report estimates about half of North America-s migratory birds nest in the boreal forest and between 22 million and 170 million birds breed in areas that could be subject to oil sands development.
The oil sands contain the biggest oil reserves outside the Middle East but the crude is expensive and difficult to extract. Mining projects strip large areas of land to access the oil-laden soils below the surface.
While the report has not yet been made public, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which represents the country-s big oil firms, said the oil sands industry complies with environmental regulations and dismissed calls for a moratorium.
We need a balanced conversation, supported like a stool with three legs, environment, economy and energy, David Collyer, the association-s president, said in a statement. Calls for a moratorium that consider only one leg of the stool, in a vacuum, are not constructive.
Developments in the region have been criticized for pumping large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, using too much water and being harmful to wildlife.
Indeed, the death of about 500 ducks earlier this year after they landed on a toxic tailings pond operated by Syncrude Canada Ltd, the biggest oil sands producer, brought international attention to the region.
The environmental groups' forecast is based on a big expansion of oil production from the region. The oil sands currently produce more than 1 million barrels a day, but the report is based on an eventual output of 5 million barrels a day, in line with industry forecasts of production in two decades or more.A coalition of North American environmental groups says the development of Canada-s... more
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