A tail dragging romp through the swamps of the world
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| Burger King Japan’s Kuro Pearl burger, which has a black bun, black sauce and black cheese in addition to black-pepper heavy beef patties. |
Right now in Alberta, tar sands bitumen is spilling into the environment at four different sites, one directly underneath a lake. All four spills have been spilling for months and the Alberta and Canadian governments know all about it, they are just powerless to stop them.
STEVIE AND HIS OIL PATCH CRONIES are gonna be pissed — the New York Times editorial "No to a New Tar Sands Pipeline" is a resounding rejection of the proposed pipeline. With good reason, too:Later this year, the State Department will decide whether to approve construction of a 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast called Keystone XL. The underground 36-inch pipeline, built by TransCanada, would link the tar sands fields of northern Alberta to Texas refineries and begin operating in 2013. The department should say no.
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The environmental risks, for both countries, are enormous. The first step in the process is to strip-mine huge chunks of Alberta’s boreal forest. The oil, a tar-like substance called bitumen, is then extracted with steam or hot water, which in turn is produced by burning natural gas. The E.P.A. estimates that the greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands oil — even without counting the destruction of forests that sequester carbon — are 82 percent greater than those produced by conventional crude oil.
The project poses a major threat to water supplies on both sides of the border. Turning two tons of tar sand into a barrel of oil requires four times as much water as producing a barrel of conventional oil. Operations in Alberta have already created 65 square miles of toxic holding ponds, which kill migrating birds and pollute downstream watersheds, a serious matter for native communities.
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The Keystone XL would cut diagonally across Montana and the Nebraska Sand Hills — a delicate region of porous, sandy soils — to northern Kansas before heading south to the Gulf. It would also cross the Ogallala Aquifer, a shallow underground reservoir of enormous importance for agriculture that also provides drinking water for two million people. A pipeline leaking diluted bitumen into groundwater could have disastrous consequences.
For this reason, Senators Mike Johanns and Ben Nelson of Nebraska have vigorously opposed the planned route of the Keystone XL. Still, political pressure to win swift approval has been building in Congress. Moving ahead would be a huge error. From all of the evidence, Keystone XL is not only environmentally risky, it is unnecessary.
Maybe oil professionals like, oh, I don't know, BP?
~ Athabasca River is being polluted
~12 barrels of freshwater required to produce one barrel of crude
~world's largest man-made dams contain 170 square kilometres of toxic mining waste and two of them are leaking
~steam plants could affect aquifers over an area the size of Florida when using 3½ to 6 barrels of groundwater to extract one barrel of bitumen
The opposition can jump up and down, they won't get anywhere, because they're attacking the effects and not the causes.
Attacking other political parties, this is also true for BC, and anywhere on Earth, is a waste of time, because politicians are nothing more than pimp/executioners of and for the criminal neoclassical market economic economic theory, being taught in our universities as a "science", that's destroying the Earth and humanity.
Unless our politicians will one day get enough gumption together to attack the causes, they're part of the problem, regardless of the hot air they're blowing.
The tar sands crime wave is part of the "growth" and the "GDP", without any deductions for damages and no politician would dare to question it, as it would bring panic to the almighty stockmarkets.Then, when the Chinese bring back the money we're paying them for killing our manufacturing infrastructure, praised by economists and the WTO, to buy the country up from under our feet with our own money, it is called "wealth creating foreign investment" that helps to pay for the billions spent on "defence".
"Sveinung Svarte, chief executive of Athabasca, said the company would likely ship its initial output to U.S. refiners, but would consider other export routes if they open up."In 2005 the state-owned PetroChina signed a memorandum with Enbridge to take up to half the space on its proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the port of Kitimat in BC.
Yup. Just in case this :"Such a takeover would be subject to a new provision recently incorporated into the Investment Canada Act, under which the federal government could block a deal from a foreign firm if it was deemed to pose a threat to national security. But Ottawa will likely wave through the deal.
Geopolitics Central economist Vince Lauerman : ""Given the environmental factor down in the states, it only makes sense to diversify our customers, especially to customers that are somewhat less concerned about the environment in general and greenhouse gas emissions in particular."
The Chinese takeover is good news for Alberta, said Alberta Energy spokesman Tim Markle."
"The Obama administration yesterday approved [an Enbridge] pipeline to carry oil-sands fuel from Canada into the US, saying its action was designed to send "a positive economic signal in a difficult economic period".reverts back to this :
Good to know the Cons' criticism of China's crappy environment record - their stated reason for blowing off the Kyoto Accord - isn't likely to stand in the way of selling China the product of our own crappy environment record."Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America's addiction to "dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive" oil if he is elected U.S. president -- and one of his first targets might well be Canada's oil sands."
It seemed the perfect way to promote the outdoor life that Canada has to offer: blue skies, clear water and a girl laughing as she runs through sand dunes.Because nothing says ignore those tar sand pits like a seacoast.Officials in Alberta thought that it was just the thing for a £14 million rebranding exercise to counter controversy over oil extraction but they weren’t smiling yesterday after a sailing enthusiast revealed that the landlocked province had borrowed the scene from Beadnell Bay, Northumberland, 5,000 miles away.
While the Alberta government admitted that it had “screwed up”, it insisted that there had been “no attempt to make people think that the place pictured was Alberta”. The location represented Albertans’ interest in the world around them, they said.At about this point, the best possible recovery would have been to admit an attempt at deception and just toss up a different picture. Perhaps something from National Geographic - like this one which certain Canadian and Alberta politicians screamed was... deceptive.
But, it is Alberta.
Back to The Times:
Tom Olsen, the director of media relations for Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, said: “There’s no attempt to mislead. That picture fitted the mood and tone of what we were trying to do. Children are a symbol of the future. They symbolise that Albertans are a worldly people.”Olsen, on the other hand, is attempting to cover an effort to mislead by misleading. How very "Harper" of him. And this "we" thing... curious.
Indeed, some Albertans are worldly people. Some even get out there and improve the world with innovation and imagination. But when they present images from around the world they make sure you know it's not Alberta.
Alberta is dripping with natural wonders and stunning wilderness. Adding an image from a tiny fishing village in the north of England certainly seems... deceptive. So why would the government of Alberta (and apparently the PMO) do such a thing?
One might note that the producers did not use a Canadian Maritimes beach nor a British Columbia beach. Of course, those places are distinct enough that it would have been noticed in an instant. Better to use a beach from some obscure fishing village in the north of England.
Beach envy coming out of Alberta isn't really all that new. The West Edmonton Mall can't seem to get out of the idea of keeping pelagic sea mammals in a landlocked pool next to the North Saskatchewan River. After facing a barrage of criticism, in 2004, the WEM removed the Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins from the Dolphin Pool. It didn't stop them, however, from rebranding the indoor attraction as Sea Lions' Rock and keeping different species of salt-water animals - California Sea Lions and African penguins. (Where, according to the WEM site, "you'll have an experience like no other...") (Or you could just watch a Telus ad on TV.)
They're right. Where else could you see pelagic mammals in the middle of a prairie shopping mall?
Or you could go here and see them in the wild - in British Columbia. 
For penguins, you'll have to go much farther south.
And since Alberta (and apparently the PMO) wants you to get the full Alberta experience, if you're at home in Britain, thinking about a travelling vacation, you only have to go here to get the beach part. At the very least, you'll save the air fare.
More at Lilian Nattel.
