It's unethical to allow caribou in Alberta to disappear under the boot print of unchecked tar sands developments. But the ethical oil campaign wants you to ignore that.
Proponents of the ethical oil argument want you to look away as the tar sands drive the boreal caribou to extinction, an animal so entangled with our country's history that it's etched on the back of our quarter. They want you to ignore the fact that the tar sands suck up water from the Athabasca River and spit out toxic sludge into tailing ponds. They even want you to close your eyes as the quest for oil swallows large patches of Boreal forest.
In northeastern Alberta, boreal caribou are under siege. Herds have declined by more than 70 per cent during the past 15 years. A 2010 Government of Alberta study found that the tar sands could make local caribou extinct in less than 40 years. Ecojustice is unwilling to let that happen. We went to federal court in June to fight for the caribou. Representing Pembina Institute and the Alberta Wilderness Association, we asked the court to force federal Environment Minister Peter Kent to recommend emergency protection of the critical habitat for the threatened caribou.
Victory came in July, when the federal court set aside the minister's decision not to recommend emergency protections and ordered the minister to reconsider the steps government was taking to protect the caribou and come to a new decision. The court said the minister's decision not to recommend emergency protection was contrary to the scientific evidence that exists about the threats facing caribou. The court also said that a recovery strategy to protect and recover woodland caribou was four years overdue and gave the minister until Sept. 1, 2011, to release a proposed recovery strategy.
We reviewed the proposed strategy, released on Aug. 26, and found that it will do little to protect caribou herds. The science is clear: if Alberta's boreal caribou herds are to survive, their habitat must be improved. The proposed strategy, however, makes no mention of improving habitat. Rather, it sacrifices further habitat destruction as long as there is a plan to stabilize the population. In effect, the strategy has written off the herds in Alberta.
All of this has occurred as the ethical oil publicity campaign urged the world to avert its gaze from the ecological disaster that is the tar sands. Fortunately, not everyone in the world is so easily distracted. On Oct. 4, the European Commission labelled the tar sands as a dirty source of fuel, one whose import they may eventually ban. Why did they do that? The European Union has made a commitment to lowering its carbon footprint. Importing fuels that are more environmentally damaging -- such as those that come from shale gas or tar sands -- would compromise this shift towards sustainability.
On the same day the EU labelled the tar sands a dirty source of fuel, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Scott Vaughan told Canadians that federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gases have failed. In his audit, Vaughan reported that while billions have been spent to cut emissions, pollution and emissions from tar sands projects have more than doubled in the last decade (and continue to grow). It's now unlikely that we'll meet our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and, even more alarming, the government has slashed its goal for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 90 per cent.
Time and again, the government's own studies say climate change will cost Canadians. Sometimes the costs are measured by the loss of critical habitat and threatened species. The boreal forest is our ally in the fight against climate change, moderating temperatures, producing oxygen and purifying our water. It's also home to majestic species like Alberta's boreal caribou. Sometimes the cost of climate change is in dollars and cents. A federal advisory panel said in September that ignoring climate change could cost Canada between $21 billion and $43 billion per year by 2050. The panel is an independent organization whose members were appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's own government.
The ethical oil campaign often glosses over the price we're paying to develop the tar sands. Through calculated diversion and distraction techniques, they've tried to shift the focus to oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran or Venezuela and their appalling records on human rights. They want you to support Canadian oil because it is ethical. But how ethical is an industry that destroys our boreal forests, pollutes our water and drives species, such as the boreal caribou, to extinction? It's time we stop pointing fingers at other countries and take a long hard look at how we are acting in our own backyard.
Will Amos and Melissa Gorrie are staff lawyers for Ecojustice, Canada's leading nonprofit using the law to protect and restore the environment.
Learn more at www.ecojustice.ca.
Follow Melissa Gorrie on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ecojustice_CA
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The problem is when books like "Ethical Oil" or lobbyists and supporters use the ethical oil argumetn the forget entirely to mention that the very same companies, like Shell for exampl, who are doing business in the oil sands are the also doing the very same nefarious business practices in Nigeria that "ethical oil" is supposed to address.
Truely "ethical oil" in it's basica concept would be an easier idea to embrace if Canada insisted that corporations who do business in the oil sands or Canada adhere to a basic set of rights, regulations and standards not just here, but world wide. *That* would be "more "ethical oil".
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/46519
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-philip/8901985/Wind-farms-are-useless-says-Prince-Philip.html
The authors of this article are fundamentally misrepresenting the ethical oil argument by suggesting that it is arguing that the oilsands are ethical in some kind of absolute sense. This is clearly not the case. The ethical argument is that the oilsands are *better* than the alternative, not that they are perfect on their own. Nothing is completely ethical. Ethical diamonds aren’t completely ethical, nor are ethical clothes, and the oilsands certainly do have their issues as well which should be addressed, but they also do not exist in a vacuum. The great promise that they hold – the one that the authors are so deceptively trying to stop – is that they have the ability to greatly reduce American dependence on Middle Eastern oil, oil which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives in bloody oil wars and caused untold amounts of environmental damage.
That's what it costs the US Navy to protect the oil supplies and shipping in the middle east.
Canadian oil is 54 bucks a barrel cheaper in other words, if the US could quit paying for the protection of the mid east oil suppliers.
These are all the things the authors of this piece are trying to hide. They’re trying to get you to not think of them, or perhaps to not even be aware of them, by the use of their straw man argument. They’re trying to take the oilsands completely out of context, because that’s how they can paint it as dirty oil. It’s only dirty if you don’t think about what the alternatives are.
"A vast herd of northern caribou that scientists feared had vanished from the face of the Earth has been found, safe and sound -- pretty much where aboriginal elders said it would be all along.
"The Beverly herd has not disappeared," said John Nagy, lead author of a recently published study that has biologists across the North relieved.
Those scientists were shaken by a 2009 survey on the traditional calving grounds of the Beverly herd, which ranges over a huge swath of tundra from northern Saskatchewan to the Arctic coast. A herd that once numbered 276,000 animals seemed to have completely disappeared, the most dramatic and chilling example of a general decline in barren-ground caribou.
But Nagy's research -- and consultation with the communities that live with the animals -- concludes differently. "
Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20111120/herd-of-saskatchewan-caribou-located-111120/#ixzz1eJmMIR3S
It goes to the credibility of the green movement.
I work in the territories, they guys there knew the caribou were there, if several hundred thousand had died, there would have been a few more bones laying around.
None of the locals I work with ever fell for the scam, they knew the caribous were still there.
What is obscene, however, is the attempt to block the pipeline and perpetuate the American dependence on Middle Eastern oil, especially when it’s being done in the name of “environmentalism.”
The actual area of mineable oil sands is 1860 square mile the disturbed area is 266 square miles. Companies secure their reclamation with irrevocable letters of credit. 900 million dollars last time I checked. Much of the land not certified is nearing completion; however the industry is holding back on the final steps, before the certification can be finalized. Water usage is another area of interest, the oil sands operators are licensed for 2.2% of the Athabasca’s annual flow. They have historically used half of this. Tailings ponds are a concern, that’s why the new dry tailings process has already eliminated the construction of 5 new ponds by Suncor.
The EU fuel directive is a joke. It signaled out the oil sands while allowing the dirtier European fuels exemptions. Ironically the gold standard of fuel directives was the California directive. On October 11 the story came to light that SAGD and THAI production would be allowed into California. A lack of California heavy, long acknowledged as dirtier than oil sands production, was known to be running out. Again it seems, more about protectionism less about environmental protection. Ecojustice is hardly an unbiased view of oil let alone of oil sands.
Kudos to Europeans to slap Alberta oil execs stooge in Ottawa, Stephen Hubris, by banning oil from tar sands.
The switch from open pit mining to SAGD is well documented. The three large mines at Syncrude/Suncor/Albian Sands still do exist but its relatively inefficient way of doing things as most of what you dig up is sand which you have to extract out and return back. The operation of these heavy hauler trucks and big shovels constitutes a good chunk of the CO2 problems. There are no more open pit mines going forward. In SAGD you use steam, driven into horizontal wells, to basically wash out the bitumen underground which is then sucked up.
They used to refine bitumen to crude oil by extracting the excess carbon in a process known as coking, which resulted in huge piles of coke dust being left behind that is turned into synthetic coal. That excess coal is not worth anywhere near its weight as crude oil, and it can't be piped out like oil, it has to be shipped in bulk by train and that is also a major CO2 component. They now use a process called HydroCracking to drive externally generated Hydrogen into the bitumen to sweeten it into crude. This stops the excess coke problem, and dramatically improves the value brought out of the ground.
However, you have to provide a path out of The Carbon Economy (controlled by Exxon (aka Standard Oil) that even The Tar Sands will follow.
Here is how you do it.
You promote the release of The Hydrogen Economy which leaves The Carbon Economy with no legs to stand on.
Three examples.
This pollution free 11.2 MW Fuel Cell Park became operational in South Korea recently and can supply POLLUTION FREE free power to 20K homes just from a 1 acre of land footprint: http://tinyurl.com/6skgw9h .
This outfit in the U.S. puts up Hydrogen Gas Plants and sells the Hydrogen Gas, by pipeline, to all of the Gulf Coast Oil Refineries in the U.S. which they use to try and reduce the POLLUTION from their coking processes: http://tinyurl.com/6umyf7f .
Mercedes Benz is PRODUCTION READY with their Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric vehicle technology but The Oil Cartel will not install Hydrogen Gas pumps on their lots. Here is one of their cars that drove 33,000 pollution and trouble free kilometers this past summer and was found nudging a "oil jack": http://tinyurl.com/6nxrcq2 .
So, there you have it.
You have the Fuel Cell Electric Generation Plant that runs the Hydrogen Production Plant that supplies the Hydrogen gas for that car, ALL POLLUTION FREE AND ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY.
The Tar Sands is eliminated in the process and the caribou herds and avian life lives as nature intended.
If you really believe in what you're saying and you truely want the end to oil extraction, you will recycle your cell phone, computer and tv. You will also recycle your living room furniture as well as any drapes and blinds that cover your windows. You might want to do that after you have seperated your clothes between 100% natural and synthetic as you will have precious little if anything to wear. Remember to stay away from your PETA friends as all you will have left to wear is what was ripped from some animals skin...... while out and about walking to work as you will give up your car and any form of public transportation that contributes to the continuation of oil production. Once you get to work...assuming that you do work, make sure you tell your boss that you are not comfortable sitting on the synthetic chairs or walking on the synthetic carpet or tile..
Failure to do so is nothing more than being a hypocrite and not being true to your beliefs.
Hell, going plastic gave rise to The Corporate State of America because they made so much money in not having to use GLASS containers to ship product because of the WEIGHT and SPACE required by glass. Just stuff everything in plastics and save billions over time.
I hope you get down daily on your "synthetic rug" and pray to the Rockefeller Oil Gods from John D. right down to present day David for granting you all these plastics/synthetic fibers.
Say, I hope those BLUE coveralls don't have synthetic fabric fiber or asbestos fiber in them!
It might surprise you, that David Rockefeller, over at The Pratt House (NY) was the major mover and shaker to SEED all those oil and gas synthetics into food distribution and get them right into your house as a population control measure.
The renewable hemp fiber can replace everything that oil synthetics do now, but you obviously would end up trying to smoke it!
If we reduced our use of oil for fuel, the use consumed in materials and goods would be a small percentage compared to fuel consumption. At the same time, we will be learning how to make materials and goods without petrochemicals. It will take a while -- but since there is not going to be a complete change with energy or manufactured goods all at one time, as in the picture you're trying to paint, everything will be fine.
The transition can and must take place. But, it's not going to be all at once -- and with only one approach.
And where are you going to get enough of it?
And the invasion of Afghanistan discovered trillions in minerals in them thar Afghan mountains, so I am sure there is a vein or two in there also.
And with all the cars and trucks and buses around the globe, the palladium in those catalytic converters can easily be re-cycled.
But that metal is not needed.
The next generation of stationary and mobile fuel cells will use solid-oxide fuel cells whose membrane(s) is made from ceramics.
Bloom Energy is using solid-oxide fuel cells for their energy servers now being used by these corporations: http://bloomenergy.com/customers/ . Just click on each logo to see the summary of what size of stacks they are using.
And if the San Jose Shark complex is using them, then, when they build the new Edmonton hockey rink, they should use them also.
Still dumping 17 megatons of C02 a year into the atmosphere?
How much do all the oil sands operations combined emit?
http://haldimand.cioc.ca/record/SIM0342
"By the end of 2014, Nanticoke will no longer be using coal as a fuel and over the next few years will be exploring alternative fuels such as gas and biomass"
So, when are the tar sands being phased out?
Is that like a computer model?
You're comparing the extraction of the tar sands oil with the generation of a coal-powered plant.
The tar sands oil will be emitting even more CO2 once turned into a fuel and burned (don't forget the CO2 emissions caused by the processing, as well).
Show you work, show us how oil produces more C02 than oil.
Firstly, we are talking about an area the size of Toronto, which will be systematically restored to a pristine condition, at the end of the cycle. Secondly, there is now more production from SAGD operations, than from open pit mining. The whole oilsands operation is a fraction of 1 % of the boreal forest in Canada.
We are still not seeing the same rabid opposition to coal fired power plants which pump out 40 times the CO 2 emissions. It's all about the oilsands. What a hare brained way of looking at the world. Get a sense of perspective, why don't you !!
cmon.
Fossil fuels are a dead end. The writing is on the wall and it is outside of your window. We are killing ourselves and you argue about oil OR coal.
C'mon...you can do better than that...lol.
The vast majority of the oil is far too deep to mine, that is why they are using SAGD and other processes.
And the reclaimed land isn't on Mars, you can go see it any time you want.
Please tell me you're not a climate skeptic to boot?
He was a founding member of grenpeace, and he seems to think the oil sands are alright.