Prime Minister Steven Harper is echoing the conclusions from a recent Canadian Government Report attempting to greenwash Tar Sands Oil production in Alberta using woefully incomplete data to give Tar Sands Oil a clean bill of health.
At issue is Hillary Clinton's upcoming decision on a proposed new pipeline to import more Tar Sands Oil from Canada. Oil imports from Canada make up about 20% of US consumption, and oil from Tar Sands makes up much of that amount.
Harper’s embrace of ‘ethical’ oil sands ignites new arguments
The Prime Minister told reporters Friday that his government wants to "explain to the world" that petroleum from Western Canada’s oil sands is superior in respects to crude from other countries.
"It’s critical to develop that resource in a way that’s responsible and environmental and the reality for the United States, which is the biggest consumer of our petroleum products, is that Canada is a very ethical society and a safe source for the United States in comparison to other sources of energy."
Harper's wishful thinking.
Of course Harper would like Americans to think that the dirtiest source of Oil is somehow "safe" and "ethical".
Canada's First Nations People don't see much safe or ethical about the monumental environmental injustice that Tar Sands Oil production has made tribal peoples in Alberta into collateral damage of the Oil Industry.
Tar Sands cause rising cancer among Albertans
First Nations communities in Alberta like the Cree, Dene and Metis presently experience profound negative impacts to their lands, waters, health and human rights arising from the tar sands project. These Canadian tar sands are the largest industrial project in the world, spanning 10.6 million acres and intending to produce over 1 million barrels of oil per day via highly-destructive methods of extraction and refinement. Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network describes the Athabascan tar sands region as a "landscape resembling a war zone marked with 200-foot-deep pits and thousands of acres of destroyed boreal forests."
And the lion’s share of the oil extracted is intended for the U.S. market.
Despite these staggering impacts – for example, exceedingly high cancer rates in indigenous communities around the extractive regions, and high rates of land and aquatic animal birth defects – few are aware of this project, let alone of the havoc it wreaks. Until recently, U.S. support for the project continued unabated. The U.S. State Department has been preparing to approve the third major pipeline project, called Keystone XL, from the tar sands to oil refineries in Texas.
Tribal peoples along the pipeline’s proposed route, and at the source of the devastation, continue to stand in solidarity with one another in pursuit of environmental justice, human rights, and a sane, sustainable energy policy for Canada.
Canada's First Nations Peoples have bore the brunt of the environmental destruction on a massive scale from Tar Sands development. Harper has turned a deaf ear to the voices of Alberta's First Peoples.
Things are about to go from bad to worse.
Alberta's Fight to 'Clean' Its Oil Sands
It is known as in situ, an alternative form of oil-sands extraction for bitumen more than 490 feet beneath the earth. The deep bitumen is not mined, but pumped out of the ground after being loosened with hot steam.
It is not yet the primary mode of production in the oil sands, but it will be, considering that 80 percent of the overall reserves are too deep to be extracted through traditional mining.
A technology to win Canada's PR war?
Without the massive trucks, factories and large "tailings" ponds of waste that have caused waterfowl deaths and bad press for the mining sector, in situ may help Canada win a public relations war.
Yet this next generation of oil sands extraction is raising concerns among environmentalists because of climate change. In situ produces more greenhouse gases per barrel of oil than traditional oil-sands mining, which in turn generates more heat-trapping gases than conventional oil drilling, such as that in the Middle East.
In terms of generating green House Gases In Situ is dirtier than dirty. In Situ is the most carbon intensive technology ever used for producing oil.
GHG emissions from the massive Tar Sands Projects has more than undone all the progress the entire country of Canada has made over recent years in curbing its carbon emissions. All to meet the insatiable appetites of American Drivers for gasoline, no matter how dirty the source.
However, the ultimate fate of in situ may not rest with arguments about climate change. Albertan government official Andy Ridge said the province will not consider a cap on emissions if the United States is not doing the same.
Later this month Secratary of State Clinton is due to make a decision on permits for the Keeystone Pipeline meant to import even more Tar sands Oil (produced using the In Situ method). Approving the Keystone Pipeline would be an extremely unfortunate direction to take US energy policy in.
Let Hillary Clinton know what you think.
202-647-4000
Dept. of State Public Communication Division: 202-647-6575
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Hillary's campaign manager in now a pipeline Lobbyist for Keystone. My diary from last month:
Hillary faces ethics charge over Tar Sands Pipeline permit.
And my diary from 2009 that lambastes Hillary for approving Enbridge Energy's pipeline to import Tar Sands Oil:
Why did U.S. just OK new pipeline to import Tar Sands Oil?