Tar-Sands

By Agence France-Presse TransCanada Corp announced Monday it would go ahead with construction of part of its Keystone XL oil pipeline that does not require US presidential approval, a stretch from the state of Oklahoma to the US Gulf Coast. The company also said it will resubmit its proposal for the entirety of the pipeline from Canada that was rejected last month by US President Barack Obama, a move that sparked an election-year row over energy policy and the environment. ...

By Dahr Jamail, Al Jazeera Oil touches nearly every single aspect of the lives of those in the industrialised world. Most of our food, clothing, electronics, hygiene products and transportation simply would not exist without this resource. There is a reason why oil giants such as ExxonMobile, BP, Total and Royal Dutch Shell, year in and year out, generate more profit than most other companies on the planet. Our current global economy is based on continual growth, and that growth depends on cheap energy. ...

By TEDxVictoria What does environmental devastation actually look like? At TEDxVictoria, photographer Garth Lenz shares shocking photos of the Alberta Tar Sands mining project – and the beautiful (and vital) ecosystems under threat. For almost twenty years, Garth’s photography of threatened wilderness regions, devastation, and the impacts on indigenous peoples, has appeared in the world’s leading publications. His recent images from the boreal region of Canada have helped lead to significant victories and large new protected areas in the Northwest Territories, Quebec, and Ontario. Garth’s major touring exhibit on the Tar Sands premiered on Los Angeles in 2011 and recently appeared in New York. Garth is a Fellow of the International League Of Conservation Photographers. ...

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times 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? ...

By Matthew Arco / The Portland Daily Sun Environmental groups fearing that talks to pump “incredibly destructive” crude oil from Canada to Greater Portland are once again resurfacing, are opposing the project even before one is officially put in writing. The Natural Resources Council of Maine is planning to join three other environmental groups in Portland this week to educate the public of the dangers of “tar sands” traveling from western Canada to South Portland, said Dylan Voorhees, the council’s clean energy director. ...

By Jeremy Symons / National Wildlife Federation The toll of tar sands development has been largely hidden hundreds of miles to the North. Canadian forests once provided the last undisturbed refuge in North America for migrating songbirds, ducks and geese, and the vast stretches of wilderness in northern Alberta have been ideal for wild wolves and caribou that have thrived in balance with nations of native Canadians for countless generations. But that was all before oil companies moved in and took control of the Albertan government. ...

Aboriginal groups in the Canadian Pacific province of British Columbia said on Thursday they had formed a united front to oppose all exports of crude oil from the Alberta tar sands through their territories. The declaration is another political blow to the Canadian energy sector and Canada’s right-of-center Conservative government after Washington decided last month to delay approving a pipeline carrying oil sands crude to the Gulf Coast. It adds to the uncertainty over Enbridge Inc’s planned C$5.5 billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline, which would move 525,000 barrels a day of tar sands-derived oil 1,177 km (731 miles) to the Pacific port of Kitimat, British Columbia. ...