In this video made by Greenpeace, you will see the contrast between the beautiful Boreal Forest and the Tar Sands strip mining for bitumen.
Professor Andrew Weaver Deputy Leader of the Green Party of British Columbia, Canada
The Keystone XL pipeine is owned by TransCanada, a US/Canadian Company with pipelines all over the continent. The dilbit that will be in the pipeline comes from the Alberta Tar Sands that is operated by a multinational conglomerate, Syncrude. Even so, the KXL is identified as a Canadian pipeline. 42% of Canadians are solidly against this pipeline and many environmental activists are letting it be known. Among those activists is Andrew Weaver above and award-winning author Andrew Nikiforuk.
Andrew Nikiforuk's Twelve Steps to Energy Sanity in Canada
from his book
TAR SANDS: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.
1. Admit the magnitude and the complexity of the energy crisis.
2. Slow down tar sands development and cap production at 2 million barrels a day.
3. Establish a national strategy for energy security and innovation.
4. Impose a carbon tax with a 100% dividend.
5. Challenge the first law of Petropolitics.
6. Challenge continental energy integration.
7. Relocalize food production.
8. Abandon economic dead-end activities such as carbon capture and storage.
9. Orient all rural and urban planning to renewable energy
10. Pick the lowest hanging fruit first. [conservation]
11. Don't wait for government.
12. Re-negotiate NAFTA.
The Boreal Forest
The tar sands bitumen is extracted after the boreal forest is clear cut and the wetlands are scraped off. It is an extremely destructive process of an ecosystem that took 5,000 years to develop. As an intact ecosystem it is an enormous carbon sink.
The Boreal Forest is the single-largest terrestrial carbon storehouse in the world. The Canadian Boreal Forest alone stores 186 billion tonnes of carbon – equivalent to 27 years of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions from the consumption of fossil fuels.
http://www.naturecanada.ca/...
Thousands of miles of Canada's boreal forests are being destroyed by the 24-hour-a-day strip mining for bitumen. That bitumen is then diluted with chemicals to form dilbit the product that will be flowing in the Keystone XL pipeline at the rate of 830,000 barrels a day.
The Keystone XL pipe line begins at Hardisty, Alberta Canada, the hub where all the pipelines from the tar sands deposits in Alberta meet. It is south of Fort MacMurray, Alberta the center of the Canadian tar sands mining. Blocking the KXL will discourage investment and slow down the destruction of the boreal forest. No matter what the oil industry says, the forests, the wetlands, rivers and lakes cannot be reclaimed.
From Hardisty, Alberta the pipeline will slither down to Steele City, Nebraska. It is 36" wide and requires a right-of-way from 60 to 125 feet. It's 1179 miles long (from Hardisty, AB to Steele City, NE) and that's a lot of US real estate.
A spill of tar sands dilbit looks like this:
Mayberry, Arkansas Dilbit Pond
There is still time to write your comment to the President on his pending decision regarding the Keystone XL pipeline. The dirty fuel extracted for this pipeline will contribute to green house gases at the extraction point and during the refining and burning. Refusing to green-light this pipeline will preserve Canada's Boreal Forest and the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska.
Mammals of the Boreal Forest
#NOKXL Blogathon: April 12 - April 22, 2013
| 860,000 Comments Submitted!
As of today, around 860,000 comments have been submitted so far and forwarded by our coalition partners to the United States Department of State. Please help us reach and, even, exceed our goal of one million comments opposing this pipeline.
The deadline for submission of public comments is April 22, 2013.
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You Can Make a Difference
On March 1, 2013, the United States State Department released a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Presidential Permit application for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. The SEIS evaluates the potential environmental impacts. The purpose of this campaign is to obtain one million public comments in opposition to building this environmentally-destructive pipeline. We hope that this blogathon will make submission of public comments easier.
This effort is being coordinated with Bill McKibben of 350.org and in coalition with the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, Oil Change International, and Bold Nebraska.
A victim of the recent tar sands oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, this bird says it all.
Photograph being used with permission from Fast For The Earth.
We have an exciting line up of prominent lawmakers, environmental activists, and Daily Kos diarists. Each one of them will be posting a diary in opposition to the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline. Some guests will be including a brief "sample comment" that readers can copy and submit at the State Department website. The diaries and "sample comments" can be used as your comments! Readers who have specialized knowledge and skills relating to the pipeline, tar sands, climate change, or the petroleum industry may, of course, choose to create their own comments with additional details.
Comments written by you are reviewed by our government with no media filter. Three of our coalition partners will keep track of the number of comments submitted to the U.S. Department of State.
Please submit your comments through one of the below links:
- "A Million Comments Against Keystone XL" - 350.org will deliver your comments directly to the State Department and has a system set up so that you can customize your comment.
- "Tell President Obama: Reject Keystone XL!" - Sierra Club has a sample public comment that allows you to personalize your message.
- "Tell the State Department: #NoKXL" - Oil Change International has a very helpful template to formulate your comments.
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Let your voice be heard. Our Daily Kos community organizers are Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, boatsie, rb137, JekyllnHyde, Onomastic, citisven, peregrine kate, DWG, and John Crapper, with Meteor Blades as the group's adviser.
Diary Schedule - All Times Pacific
More helpful details are in this diary - DK Blogathon Hosts Eco Coalition in #NOKXL Public Comment Campaign by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse. Use hashtag #NOKXL to tweet all diaries posted during this blogathon.
1:00 pm: #NOKXL Blogathon: Your voice on the Keystone XL pipeline matters by DWG.
11:00 am: Keystone XL: a pipeline THROUGH the US, not to it by dturnbull, Campaigns Director of Oil Change International.
1:00 pm: #NOKXL: Dilbit in the Pipeline by Agathena.
11:00 am: Keystone XL: Wildlife in the Crosshairs by Target Global Warming, Peter LaFontaine is the Energy Policy Advocate for the National Wildlife Federation.
1:00 pm: #NoKXL: The Future Is In Our Hands; Say No To The XL Pipeline Disaster by beach babe in fl.
3:00 pm: #NoKXL: Guess What's NOT in POTUS' Budget! (Rhymes with Shnipeline) by ericlewis0.
Note: All diaries for this day were rescheduled due to the Boston Marathon bombings.
8:00 am: KXL will carry as much carbon as all the cars on the West Coast, plus Michigan, NY, and Florida. by Bill McKibben, Founder of 350.org.
12:00 pm: #NoKXL: InsideClimate News Wins Pulitzer for Coverage of Kalamazoo River Dilbit Spill in 2010 by peregrine kate.
2:00 pm: Reject Keystone XL; Our Focus Should Be on Investing in a Sustainable Energy Future by Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA13), Member of the United States House of Representatives.
2:00 pm: #NoKXL: (un)Ethical Pipeline? by A Siegel.
3:00 pm: #NoKXL — The Pipeline To Oblivion: Memes From The Climate Letter Project by WarrenS.
11:00 am: My government doesn't believe in climate change by Tzeporah Berman, Canadian Environmentalist and Co-Founder of Forest Ethics.
3:00 pm: #NoKXL ?? The Keystone XL Pipeline, Deep Time, and the Nature of Humanity by gregladen.
10:00 am: Keystone East: Doubling down? Or admitting KXL defeat? by Roger Fox.
2:00 pm: Watch it Now! Fantastic Live Hearing Opposing Keystone XL Pipeline from Nebraska by JekyllnHyde.
3:00 pm: #NOKXL: The Ill-Logic of Keystone XL by Kelly Rigg, Executive Director of the Global Call for Climate Action.
2:00 pm: #NOKXL - A Dispatch From The Committee To End The Future by joe shikspack.
3:00 pm: Collision With Reality by James Wells.
11:00 am: Nebraska Hearing: Pipeline Fighters Dominated by Jane Kleeb, Executive Director of Bold Nebraska
12:00 pm: Scientific American:"Keystone XL Oil Pipeline Exacerbates Climate Change"-Consultant's Bias EXPOSED by Lefty Coaster
1:00 pm:#NOKXL Blogathon - Keystone Principles and the Line in the Sand by John Crapper
3:00 pm:The 'Un'Silent' Spring by boatsie
11:00 am: Keystone XL Pipeline: Can John Kerry’s State Department Finally Get it Right? by Ross Hammond, Friends of the Earth.
12:00 pm:Agathena.
1:00 pm: Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse.
3:00 pm: Assaf.
Please remember to republish these diaries to your Daily Kos Groups. You can also follow all postings by clicking this link for the Climate Change SOS Blogathon Group. Then, click 'Follow' and that will make all postings show up in 'My Stream' of your Daily Kos page.
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