The Canadian government and its vested oil interests should have realized that in a year that produced the Arab Spring and the Occupy movements, business as usual is no longer good enough. Just last month the head of the International Energy Agency, an institution renowned for its promotion of fossil fuels, said to governments in Durban:
The door to achieving our objectives is rapidly closing, and while I strongly urge an agreement on emissions, I have a simple message for the participants in these talks: Don't wait for a global deal. Act now. You can and should implement robust policies that will give your citizens affordable, reliable access to energy in a sustainable way.
Canada's tar sands could be the poster child for the kind of unsustainable high-carbon lock-in projects the IEA warned us about. The battle to stop the Keystone XL pipeline that would transport bitumen from Alberta's tar sands to the oil refineries of Texas was one of the hardest fought climate campaigns in the last year.
Opposition to the pipeline was strong and visible, particularly in Washington, D.C. and the state of Nebraska, and President Obama responded to the pressure by sending the decision back to the drawing board.
The Keystone delay should have been a wake-up call for Ottawa, but no. Without missing a beat, the Canadian government and the oil lobby have turned their sights to another proposed pipeline, known as the Northern Gateway, which would carry raw bitumen across the pristine and ecologically sensitive Great Bear Rainforest to the marine port of Kitimat in British Columbia. From there, it would be transferred to super tankers through narrow straights for transport onward to Asia.
As hearings on Northern Gateway got underway last week, an open letter from Canada's Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver showed just how tone deaf to public concern the government has become. In it he accused "environmental and other radical groups" and "jet-setting celebrities" of working at the behest of foreign special-interest groups to undermine Canada's national economic interests.
This allegation comes from the same Canadian government which last month withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol and, as was uncovered by The Guardian, soliciting the UK for assistance in stopping the EU's Fuel Quality Directive. (The directive uses scientific fact to classify fuels, and tar sands has been found to be an unconventional fuel with disproportionately high greenhouse gas emissions. This would put it at a disadvantage in the European energy market.)
For the most part, Canadian media appears to be have treated this offensive (double entendre intended) strategy as a red herring. The oil sector in Canada, like in most places, is swimming in foreign investment and record profits and is not afraid to spend those profits to ensure business as usual continues to serve its narrow self-interests -- even in the face of dire warnings coming from 'radicals' like the International Energy Agency.
My favorite rebuttal was this tongue-in-cheek response by Tabatha Southey in the Globe and Mail:
Mr. Oliver's addition of the threat of "jet-setting celebrities" is a charmingly anachronistic touch, as if the rest of us still travel by boat or biplane. Unless of course he means actual jet-setting celebrities, from the age of the jet set. They are mostly dead now. Does the minister fear that Canada's industries are under attack by Zombie Sammy Davis Jr.? ... Are we meant to believe that the environmental groups' massive outcry against the Keystone XL pipeline (which apparently led U.S. President Barack Obama to delay the project) was an elaborately staged ploy? That environmentalists defeated the Keystone pipeline that their secret masters wanted, because it would have brought oil to the United States, only so that later they would have the credibility to defeat the Gateway pipeline their secret masters oppose, because it threatens to take Canadian oil elsewhere?
The fact is Canada certainly has had no qualms about using its own "foreign influence" to try to affect the U.S. Keystone XL pipeline regulatory process. TransCanada, the company behind Keystone, spent $1.5 million on lobbyists to influence Washington, even more in states bordering the pipeline route, and on an expensive advertising campaign in Washington DC to boot.
The fight over Canada's tar sands is far from over, in Canada and abroad. In Europe, the Netherlands has reportedly joined the UK in fighting to weaken the European Fuel Directive. Other countries will need to hold the line.
In the US, Congress has imposed a deadline of 21 February for the Obama Administration to decide on Keystone. The American Petroleum Institute (API) has openly threatened "electoral consequences" if the president fails to approve it and has launched an advertising campaign to show this is no empty threat. State Department officials have said a fast decision means a negative decision, and we need to hold them to their words.
In the meantime, a new study has mapped the extent of the money flowing from the oil and gas industry to members of Congress -- an extraordinary conflict of interest which can only lead to the further erosion of public trust in our elected representatives.
As for Northern Gateway, massive and growing opposition amongst the First Nations of Alberta and British Columbia (PDF) could well turn out to be the Achilles' heel in the well-oiled tar sands machine.
Sadly, when it comes to oil interests the Canadian government is not only backing the wrong horse, it will undoubtedly continue to demonize anyone (including its own citizens) who question the wisdom of its plan to take as much out of the ground wherever it is, in whatever form it is in as quickly as possible.
As we have observed over the last few years at the UN climate negotiations, Canada is a nation that acts more like a single minded petrol state than one that is constructively contributing to the challenge of preventing catastrophic climate change.
As citizens around the world increasingly take action in the face of government failure to address the threat of climate change, corporations and governments will have two choices -- continue to pour time and money into the kind of polarization tactics that alienate the public, or invest that time and money into working with all stakeholders to find solutions the scientists tell us we are running out of time to find.
At the end of the day there are no winners in a world that has warmed 3 to 4 degrees. Even the children and grandchildren of recalcitrant elected leaders and oil company executives will not escape the harsh realities of dangerous climate change.
Follow Kelly Rigg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kellyrigg
Hassan Arif: Has the West Forgotten the Middle East?
In April 2003, a gas explosion leveled a strip mall in Etobicoke, Ontario and killed seven people. Also in 2003, almost a million litres of tar sands oil leaked from a burst pipeline in Minnesota. In order to stop the oil from entering the Mississippi River, Enbridge set the oil on fire, creating a sulfuric black cloud a kilometre and a half high and eight kilometres wide. In November 2007, a pipeline exploded in Minnesota, killing two workers and sending a fireball 30 metres into the air.
Enbridge’s biggest oil spill over the last decade happened on July 25, 2010, when more than three million litres of oil gushed from a ruptured pipeline into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan near Battle Creek. While local residents were subjected to toxic fumes and rescue crews tried to clean off oil-soaked wildlife, Governor Jennifer Granholm called Enbridge’s response “anemic” and residents and politicians accused the company of not acting quickly enough to contain the spill. Sixty percent of local residents experienced health problems after the spill...
Yesterday’s leak was a reminder that spills happen. At stake in the decision facing the hearings is whether we’re willing to accept a spill in the Great Bear Rainforest, wild salmon rivers and coastline that supports a diverse array of ocean life and provides a livelihood for communities.
The fight continues in BC against "Enbridge Northern Gateway"
"Just as the hearings for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline kicked off in Kitimat, B.C., the company found itself dealing with an unfortunately-timed accident. One of Enbridge’s natural gas pipelines – called Stingray – sprung a leak about 100 km off the coast of Louisiana.
Talk about a headache. Enbridge is busy trying to convince First Nations communities, regulators and others along the proposed route for Northern Gateway that a leak is unlikely. If built, the pipeline would carry tar sands through pristine forests and across valuable salmon rivers, and an oil spill could devastate fisheries and water that communities rely on.
The problem is that yesterday’s Stingray leak wasn’t an anomaly. Spills are a disturbingly frequent occurrence along pipelines. Patrick Daniel, CEO of Enbridge, often touts concern about pipeline safety and claims that their objective is to have zero oil spills, but the numbers tell a different story. Between 1999 and 2009, Enbridge racked up 713 spills, which equals more than one per week..."
http://environmentaldefence.ca/blog/enbridge-stung-stingray-start-hearings
And for the next year:
Hundreds pack Northern Gateway pipeline hearing
More than 4,300 individuals and groups have signed up to speak at the hearings, which are being conducted by a federal review panel and are expected to last until 2013.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/01/10/bc-northern-gateway-enbridge-kitimat.html
Lone speaker praises Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline plans
In an interview, King said when he realized he was the lone supporter who would speak at the opening of the public hearings he considered staying home.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Lone+speaker+praises+Enbridge+Northern+Gateway+pipeline+plans/5980680/story.html
See Moving Beyond Oil at www.aesopinstitute.org
This and other Cheap Green energy is likely to cost-competitively eliminate the pipeline before it can be completed.
The Introduction to that website will explain why superseding fossil fuels may take place much more rapidly than might be imagined.
Stephen Harper and a few of his Conservative buddies are taking a stroll when they come upon a little girl carrying a basket with a blanket over it near the Parliament building in Ottawa.
Curious, Prime Minister Stephen Harper asks the girl, 'What's in the basket?'
She replies, 'New baby kittens,' and she opens the basket to show him.
'How nice,' says Harper. 'What kind are they?' The little girl says, 'Conservatives.'
Harper smiles, pats the little girl on the head and continues on.
Three weeks later, Harper is taking another stroll, this time with his wife. They see the little girl again with the same basket. Harper says, 'Watch this, Laureen; it's really cute.' They approach the little girl. He greets the little girl and says 'how are the kittens doing, and she says, 'Fine.' Then he asks the little girl, 'And can you tell us what kind of kittens they are?'
She replies, 'Liberals.'
Abashed, Harper says, 'But three weeks ago you said they were Conservatives!'
'I know,' she says. 'But now their eyes are open.'
I have seen the first and it is good information.
The second is new to me...I will go take a look.
Thank You
Last July, 819,000 gallons of heavy crude spewed into the Kalamazoo River.
In September, 21,000 gallons spilled in Romeoville, Ill.
And earlier this month, between 23,000 and 31,000 gallons seeped into the Yellowstone River in Montana.
They are some of the oil spills in the past year that have led lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to look into updating safety regulations on an aging pipeline infrastructure in the United States.
But what continues to be debated is whether there should be different regulations for the various types of oil that are shipped, including diluted bitumen, which was flowing through these three pipelines when they ruptured.
Currently under U.S. regulation, diluted bitumen, which is a heavy oil sands or tar sands diluted with a natural gas condensate, is treated the same as other kinds of oil.
Environmental groups have said that this kind of oil is inherently more corrosive and increases the chances that a pipeline will leak...."
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/07/kalamazoo_river_oil_spill_puts.html
It NEVER WAS
99.999999999999999% of Americans will get nothing from the Keystone pipeline but the taxpayers will be on the hook for any damages that it causes.
"tree huggers"
"smoke pot"
"live on love"
"nature lovers"
"come to your senses"
Attack the messengers; no facts, only cartoon character buzz words
Once again, marginalize those who stand in the way of temporary profits gained at the expense of permanent environmental destruction.