Stupid to the Last Drop by William Marsden. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2007.

I assume that when author William Marsden came up with the title for his book, he thought that “Greedy, Self-interested, Irresponsible, Exploitive, Suicidal, Environmentally-devastating and Just Plain Crazy to the Last Drop” would be a bit too long, although all those adjectives could surely be applied to Tar Sands projects. On the other hand, his subtitle of How Alberta is bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (and Doesn’t Seem to Care) does run on impressively. It’s hard to argue with him.

It’s impossible to hear anything about global warming, environmental disasters or the end of cheap oil without also hearing about Alberta’s tar sands. I decided it was time I learned a bit more about the topic, and Marsden’s book offers a good, readable introduction. He looks at some of the history to the development, how oil is extracted, and provides some of the relevant facts and figures. His first-person interviews of people impacted by the tar sands in various ways, from employees and managers out at Fort McMurray to First Nations residents in Fort Chipewyan, lends the book a human face.

The strangest thing about the tar sands is the way in which the people of Alberta have been complicit in their own sell-out. If you have a supply of a product that everyone in the world wants, it pretty much follows that you can name your price. And when extracting that product is going to devastate the very land you live in, pretty much forever and ever, you better be building up one hell of a reserve for the future. Instead of that, Albertans have sat by while their government sold off their one-time resource to the lowest bidder.

Compare Alberta’s situation to that of Norway. Alberta’s Heritage Fund, begun in 1976, contained only $15.4 billion 30 years later in 2006. Norway didn’t begin receiving oil revenue until 1996, and just ten years later Norway’s fund contained nearly $306 billion. In addition to charging much higher royalties than Alberta does, Norway ensures that a state-owned company controls more than 50 percent of North Sea oil production. And that doesn’t even address the government subsidies and tax breaks Albertans happily dish out to oil companies. For this boondoggle, Albertans rewarded the Ralph Klein government by re-electing them several times. Incredible!

Consider the spectacle of citizens of this oil-rich province having to stage demonstrations just to get adequate health care. Last weekend, the Globe and Mail reported that hundreds of Albertans held just such a demonstration in front of Premier Ed Stelmach’s riding office in Fort Saskatchewan to protest the shortfalls and poor management of Alberta’s health-care system.

The aspect of the tar sands projects that I found most disturbing relates to the devastation of the watershed. The prairies are naturally dry. Alberta’s rivers are fed by a network of streams that have their source in the snowpacks and glaciers of the Rocky Mountains. With climate change, glaciers are receding and there is evidence that suggests precipitation will decline in the future. Somehow, Albertans have been convinced that oil is the most valuable of liquids. Of course, that’s silly. Water is the most valuable of liquids, regardless of how many dollars a barrel of oil may fetch. You can live without oil. You can’t live without water. Alberta has about 70% of the irrigated farmland in Canada. Yet the province has failed to protect wetlands and water supplies. The flow of the South Saskatchewan River has been reduced by 84% since the early 1900s.

The extraction of oil from the Tar Sands requires huge amounts of water, from 2 to 6 barrels for every barrel of oil produced. The water is mostly drawn from the Athabaska River. The water cannot be returned to the river, however, because the mining process poisons the water. Instead, huge tailing lakes of contaminated waste water are held behind one of the worlds’ largest dam systems, second only to China’s Three Gorges project. The effects of the resulting contamination, as water leaks into the Athabaska watershed, isn’t well understood because the government deals with problems in a “shoot-the-messenger” way, with severe cut-backs to the Environmental department, thus limiting investigation of problems. And that doesn’t even get into the problem of private wells poisoned by coal bed methane (CBM) drilling.

The prevailing Albertan view has reached other Canadians in the form of an Imperial Oil exectuive’s son and climate-change denier, Stephen Harper. I can’t stand the Conservative Party’s attack ad campaign and enjoyed this parody, produced by Environmental Defense. Watch it here.

So, I’m reading some articles on the recent climate change rabble coming out of New York and I see at least two, count’em two, articles in a week from Calgary journalist Don Martin (a regular read of mine) on climate change…. here and here. Even more, I read that the U.S., despite the hard talk on the oil sands, approves a pipeline from Alberta to Wisconsin. Superior Wisconsin to be exact. What’s in Superior Wisconsin? Ya… Lake Superior. Now, I guess I never put my mind to the idea of oil tankers in Lake Superior but I’m not surprised that it goes on in the Great Lakes.  Not surprised but it definitely scares the crap out me. Can you imagine? An oil spill in the gitchee gumee? Absolutely devastating. Read more about Lake Superior here.

And to boot, I’m no fan of oil sands oil either. I bet I’ll like it less if it washes up on my beach. Past that, literally, is the Soo and St. Mary’s River. The river’s polluted enough already between the heavy industry and the municipal sewage. Navigating the rocky bottom of the river is white-knuckle at the best of times… ever more when you’re carrying a load that would stop a local ecosystem in its tracks.

Something tells me that this is a bad idea. The fresh water, the salmon runs, the whitefish, plus all mammals in the surrounding ecosystems. It would be a disaster as bad as any oil spill we’ve seen on the big oceans. This lake chews ships up…. worse than oceans given how shallow and rocky some parts are. An oil sands spill in largest freshwater lake? How’s that for headline news. I think I’ll start taking some water quality records for my shoreline this fall. Like all good environmental lawsuits… a good baseline is invaluable. You can read more about Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper pipeline here and here and here.

Rainforest Action Network drops Seventy-Foot Banner Over Niagara Falls to Welcome Prime Minister Harper to the U.S.
Canadian Tar Sands Oil Undermines North America’s Clean Energy Future
See more photos here.
update: video below, and climber interview here.

Before dawn this morning, a small team of climate and Native Rights activists rappelled from the US observation deck at Niagara Falls. Dangling hundreds of feet above the ground, they sent a special welcome message to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ahead of his first official visit to the White House to push dirty Tar Sands oil.

Not that he’s feeling so welcome anyway. Obama limited the meeting to just one hour. While some have called it a slap in the face, Aides say Harper will turn the other cheek. “The economy, and the clean-energy dialogue,” one aide told the Globe and Mail, “will dominate the discussions.” Obama needed to dodge controversy over oil imports from Canada’s tar sands in the midst of the Climate Legislation debate. Harper needed a story to go with his photo-op.

During Harper’s first official trip to meet Obama in the U.S., the two leaders are expected to discuss climate change and energy policy ahead of the upcoming G20 Summit. Canada supplies 19% of U.S. oil imports, more than half of which now comes from the tar sands, making the region the largest single source of U.S. oil imports. The expansion of the tar sands will strip mine an area the size of Florida. Complete with skyrocketing rates of cancer (by 400%!) for First Nations communities living downstream, broken treaties, toxic belching lakes so large you can see them from outer space, churning up ancient boreal forest, destroyed air and water quality, the tar sands have been called the most destructive project on Earth.

Tomorrow’s visit to the U.S. by Prime Minister Harper is the latest attempt by Canadian Federal and Provincial officials to lock in subsidies for 22 new and expanded refinery projects and oil pipelines crisscrossing 28 states, which would transport and process the dirty tar sands oil. Many are concerned that Prime Minister Harper wants to protect the tar sands oil industry from climate regulation, even though it is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

“Climate change, one of the biggest security threats of our time, is something Canada and the United States face together. Extracting tar sands oil, which sends three times more climate-changing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than conventional oil, puts us all at risk,” said Eriel Deranger a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and Rainforest Action Network’s Tar Sands Campaigner in Alberta.

As this oil spills into the U.S., communities living near oil refineries face increased air and water pollution, which contains 11 times more sulfur and nickel and five times more lead than conventional oil.

Opposition to tar sands oil has been rising on both sides of the border. Just last month, four Native American and environmental groups sued Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Deputy Secretary James Steinberg and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over Enbridge Energy’s Alberta Clipper pipeline. If built, the 1,375 mile pipeline would pump 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Northern Alberta to Midwestern refineries. On the Canadian, Native activists escalated pressure on the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) for their funding of the tar sands a few weeks ago.

Canada has no regulations to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and the federal government’s climate change plan would allow total pollution from the tar sands to increase almost 70 percent by 2020. Tar sands oil production is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and was recently cited as one of the most important reasons Canada will miss its Kyoto targets by over 30%.

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) used to be the centerpiece of Harper’s pitch. Global warming pollution from coal and tar sands “can be solved by technology,” declared Obama. Not to be outdone, Harper’s office announced that “A strengthened U.S.-Canada partnership on carbon sequestration will help accelerate private sector investment in commercial scale, near-zero-carbon coal facilities to promote climate and energy security.”

Half a year and billions of wasted tax dollars later, though, CCS is still a pipe dream. FutureGen, North America’s supposed proving ground for the unproven technology, can’t keep private investors to save it’s life. Two of its biggest private backers, Southern Co. and AEP, jumped ship last June. Around the same time, sponsors lowered the goal-post on the project to just 60% less carbon. So much for near-zero-carbon facility. Projects promised in the tar sands are fairing even worse.

No matter. Harper is back, hat in hand, looking for legislative handouts to an industry destined to ruin the climate.

So here’s our welcome to you, Prime Minister Harper. Now, please, go home.

And take your dirty tar sands with you.

Rainforest Action Network drops Seventy-Foot Banner Over Niagara Falls to Welcome Prime Minister Harper to the U.S.
Canadian Tar Sands Oil Undermines North America’s Clean Energy Future
See more photos here.
update: video below, and climber interview here.

Before dawn this morning, a small team of climate and Native Rights activists rappelled from the US observation deck at Niagara Falls. Dangling hundreds of feet above the ground, they sent a special welcome message to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper ahead of his first official visit to the White House to push dirty Tar Sands oil.

Not that he’s feeling so welcome anyway. Obama limited the meeting to just one hour. While some have called it a slap in the face, Aides say Harper will turn the other cheek. “The economy, and the clean-energy dialogue,” one aide told the Globe and Mail, “will dominate the discussions.” Obama needed to dodge controversy over oil imports from Canada’s tar sands in the midst of the Climate Legislation debate. Harper needed a story to go with his photo-op.

During Harper’s first official trip to meet Obama in the U.S., the two leaders are expected to discuss climate change and energy policy ahead of the upcoming G20 Summit. Canada supplies 19% of U.S. oil imports, more than half of which now comes from the tar sands, making the region the largest single source of U.S. oil imports. The expansion of the tar sands will strip mine an area the size of Florida. Complete with skyrocketing rates of cancer (by 400%!) for First Nations communities living downstream, broken treaties, toxic belching lakes so large you can see them from outer space, churning up ancient boreal forest, destroyed air and water quality, the tar sands have been called the most destructive project on Earth.

Tomorrow’s visit to the U.S. by Prime Minister Harper is the latest attempt by Canadian Federal and Provincial officials to lock in subsidies for 22 new and expanded refinery projects and oil pipelines crisscrossing 28 states, which would transport and process the dirty tar sands oil. Many are concerned that Prime Minister Harper wants to protect the tar sands oil industry from climate regulation, even though it is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

“Climate change, one of the biggest security threats of our time, is something Canada and the United States face together. Extracting tar sands oil, which sends three times more climate-changing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than conventional oil, puts us all at risk,” said Eriel Deranger a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and Rainforest Action Network’s Tar Sands Campaigner in Alberta.

As this oil spills into the U.S., communities living near oil refineries face increased air and water pollution, which contains 11 times more sulfur and nickel and five times more lead than conventional oil.

Opposition to tar sands oil has been rising on both sides of the border. Just last month, four Native American and environmental groups sued Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Deputy Secretary James Steinberg and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over Enbridge Energy’s Alberta Clipper pipeline. If built, the 1,375 mile pipeline would pump 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Northern Alberta to Midwestern refineries. On the Canadian, Native activists escalated pressure on the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) for their funding of the tar sands a few weeks ago.

Canada has no regulations to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and the federal government’s climate change plan would allow total pollution from the tar sands to increase almost 70 percent by 2020. Tar sands oil production is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and was recently cited as one of the most important reasons Canada will miss its Kyoto targets by over 30%.

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) used to be the centerpiece of Harper’s pitch. Global warming pollution from coal and tar sands “can be solved by technology,” declared Obama. Not to be outdone, Harper’s office announced that “A strengthened U.S.-Canada partnership on carbon sequestration will help accelerate private sector investment in commercial scale, near-zero-carbon coal facilities to promote climate and energy security.”

Half a year and billions of wasted tax dollars later, though, CCS is still a pipe dream. FutureGen, North America’s supposed proving ground for the unproven technology, can’t keep private investors to save it’s life. Two of its biggest private backers, Southern Co. and AEP, jumped ship last June. Around the same time, sponsors lowered the goal-post on the project to just 60% less carbon. So much for near-zero-carbon facility. Projects promised in the tar sands are fairing even worse.

No matter. Harper is back, hat in hand, looking for legislative handouts to an industry destined to ruin the climate.

So here’s our welcome to you, Prime Minister Harper. Now, please, go home.

And take your dirty tar sands with you.

Below in quotes is an excerpt from Sustainability And More

——————————————————————–
“Most oil companies have hardly begun to factor in the externalities that are currently imposed on the environment.”

Canada’s indigenous communities are also concerned with water quality in former wetlands now featuring tailings ponds up to 50 square kilometres in size which can be seen from outer space. Only 5-10% of waste water is judged sufficiently non-toxic to be returned to waterways.“
——————————————————————–

Why will the international community not open it’s eyes and see that regardless of the temperature and weather changes we are seeing now and regardless of whether or not “Global Warming” is a fact, human actions are having devastating effects on the planet?

With the exception of some small countries in Europe like Denmark and Switzerland, leading the way in sustainability, the planets governments are doing nothing to correct poor decisions made in the past. And it certainly doesn’t help that until the disaster that ends life as we know it on Earth occurs, there will just never be the support necessary to force government to change.

And there isn’t any financial gain in doing so. Clean energy is more expensive than the existing methods. Why not just keep collecting the oil in the Alberta Tar Sands? What a horrible mess! But of course it’s making the governments money, and what makes money must continue.

But of course, we have come up with an alternative idea here or there, like wind energy, which is entirely sustainable. However, citizens all over the country where trial windmills have sprung up, are angry about the “eyesore.” When will the health of the planet and it’s people, animals and ecosystem become more important than the wealth or the backyard view of the individual? I don’t give a damn if you think those windmills are ugly. Deal with it!

Big gas guzzling cars are ugly, 5000 square foot houses, absolute monstrosities, are ugly, human nature is ugly. Get over the occasional windmill and deal with it.

You want to see something else that’s ugly? Take a look at the tar sands! That’s ugly, and it covers roughly 50 000 square miles. Yes, you read that right. All I can say is it’s not ghosts or goblins that are in my nightmares, and every Canadian should be able to say the same.

Don’t even get me started on the attempts at drilling for oil in the Arctic, or in the protected regions in Alaska. When will we think of what’s best for the collective instead of the politicians and the wealthy?

Yesterday, indigenous rights activists coordinated a major action at the Royal Bank of Canada’s Headquarters in Toronto, to appeal to Mrs. Janet Nixon, the wife of RBC CEO Gordon Nixon, to lend her strong and influential voice to those fighting to protect Canada’s clean water and respect Indigenous rights by pushing RBC to stop bankrolling the tar sands.

See the full post here.

I originally posted this on itsgettinghotinhere. We’re still reeling from our success yesterday.

During rush-hour commute this morning, two Indigenous Canadian women – Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, and Heather Milton-Lightening – scaled flagpoles in front of the main entrance of Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC’s) headquarters in Toronto, dropping a banner reading “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon.com” – appealing to the bank to pull its massive investments in Alberta tar sands projects. Supported by RAN, the Ruckus Society, and their Indigenous People’s Power Project, they were joined by dozens of Toronto RAN activists, swarming entrances to ensure every RBC employee heard our appeal Mrs. Janet Nixon, the wife of RBC CEO Gordon Nixon, to lend her strong and influential voice to those fighting to protect Canada’s clean water and respect Indigenous rights by pushing RBC to stop bankrolling the tar sands. They handed out flyers, held banners, and even circled the building on bikes with “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon.com” flags.

RBC is the ATM of the Tar Sands.

They are a leading investor in what has been called the dirtiest project on Earth and is one of the greatest social and ecological injustices of our time. Unless they’re stopped by grassroots pressure, oil companies will transform a boreal forest the size of Florida into an industrial sacrifice zone – complete with lakes full of toxic waste that are so big that you can see them from outer space. Tar sands projects poison First Nations Communities, pollute precious water resources, kill wildlife, and are the single biggest contributor to global warming from Canada.

At the same time as the banner was being unfurled, thousands of RAN supporters and allies began emailing a video to key RBC executives – in which RAN’s Michael Brune appeals to Mrs. Nixon to help RBC offer leadership by withdrawing its funding for the tar sands. (If you haven’t participated in this online action yet, it’s not too late! Click here to view the video and email it to RBC executives.)

You can also view the video on YouTube (be sure to go to PleaseHelpUsMrsNixon.com and take action when you’re done watching):

Check out ongoing news coverage that is just starting, from Bloomberg, CBC, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Canadian Press, Daily Kos, Financial Post, Canada.com, Brandon Sun, Stockhouse, KBS Radio, New Brunswick Business Journal, AM 1150, Canadian Business, Vancouver Sun, and much more.

See lots of photos of the action here.

The banner was up for over two hours, and a large crowd of people gathered to watch. Several RBC executives also joined us, watching in embarrassment. In the end, the police let the two climbers go without making any arrests; the climbers were given citations.

This action is also the culmination of a month-long guerrilla wheatpasting campaign by RAN Toronto, who have covered the city with hundreds of posters bearing the message “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon” – leaving people in Toronto wondering what these posters are all about. (But in case Janet Nixon herself was unsure who she was being asked to help, we had a letter from RAN delivered to her home address yesterday.)

While Janet Nixon is the wife of RBC’s CEO, we are appealing her today because she is also a committed environmentalist, and has been instrumental in shaping RBC’s Blue Water Project. But while pledging $50 million to help fight water pollution over the next ten years, RBC has loaned $2.3 billion to tar sands companies in the last two years alone.

We stand at a cross roads. Does RBC want to help lead our country by investing in clean renewable energy? Or continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel of dirty oil at a cost far too high? Tar sands oil expansion is devastating the regional environment, contaminating Canada’s precious water supply, endangering wildlife, threatening First Nations’ health and preventing Canada from meeting its climate commitments. Indigenous First Nations communities downstream have experienced polluted water, water reductions in rivers and aquifers, increased cancer, and declines in wildlife population that threaten to destroy their traditional ways of life.

RBC has a critical role to play in investing in Canada’s clean energy future. RBC must require clients to provide evidence of free, prior and informed consent from First Nations on projects affecting their communities, as the first step of a phase-out of financing and advisory services to all tar sands projects which have adverse impacts on the environment. The bank must develop an action plan to reduce ‘financed emissions’ related to all lending activities that impact the climate.

We know that Mrs. Nixon cares deeply about clean water, and so we’re appealing directly to her to help us push RBC to make a meaningful commitment to clean water, by ending its financing of the tar sands – rather than giving fistfuls of cash to Big Oil’s dirtiest project ever, while donating its spare change to clean water projects.

Mrs. Nixon, will you help us? (And Mr. Nixon: if you want to help us stop the tar sands too, there’s no need to wait for your wife to take the lead.)

UPDATE: action video here.

During rush-hour commute this morning, two Indigenous Canadian women – Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, and Heather Milton-Lightening – scaled flagpoles in front of the main entrance of Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC’s) headquarters in Toronto, dropping a banner reading “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon.com” – appealing to the bank to pull its massive investments in Alberta tar sands projects. Supported by RAN, the Ruckus Society, and their Indigenous People’s Power Project, they were joined by dozens of Toronto RAN activists, swarming entrances to ensure every RBC employee heard our appeal Mrs. Janet Nixon, the wife of RBC CEO Gordon Nixon, to lend her strong and influential voice to those fighting to protect Canada’s clean water and respect Indigenous rights by pushing RBC to stop bankrolling the tar sands. They handed out flyers, held banners, and even circled the building on bikes with “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon.com” flags.

RBC is the ATM of the Tar Sands.

They are a leading investor in what has been called the dirtiest project on Earth and is one of the greatest social and ecological injustices of our time. Unless they’re stopped by grassroots pressure, oil companies will transform a boreal forest the size of Florida into an industrial sacrifice zone – complete with lakes full of toxic waste that are so big that you can see them from outer space. Tar sands projects poison First Nations Communities, pollute precious water resources, kill wildlife, and are the single biggest contributor to global warming from Canada.

At the same time as the banner was being unfurled, thousands of RAN supporters and allies began emailing a video to key RBC executives – in which RAN’s Michael Brune appeals to Mrs. Nixon to help RBC offer leadership by withdrawing its funding for the tar sands. (If you haven’t participated in this online action yet, it’s not too late! Click here to view the video and email it to RBC executives.)

You can also view the video on YouTube (be sure to go to PleaseHelpUsMrsNixon.com and take action when you’re done watching):

Check out ongoing news coverage that is just starting, from Bloomberg, CBC, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, Canadian Press, Daily Kos, Financial Post, Canada.com, Brandon Sun, Stockhouse, KBS Radio, New Brunswick Business Journal, AM 1150, Canadian Business, Vancouver Sun, and much more.

See lots of photos of the action here.

The banner was up for over two hours, and a large crowd of people gathered to watch. Several RBC executives also joined us, watching in embarrassment. In the end, the police let the two climbers go without making any arrests; the climbers were given citations.

This action is also the culmination of a month-long guerrilla wheatpasting campaign by RAN Toronto, who have covered the city with hundreds of posters bearing the message “Please Help Us Mrs. Nixon” – leaving people in Toronto wondering what these posters are all about. (But in case Janet Nixon herself was unsure who she was being asked to help, we had a letter from RAN delivered to her home address yesterday.)

While Janet Nixon is the wife of RBC’s CEO, we are appealing her today because she is also a committed environmentalist, and has been instrumental in shaping RBC’s Blue Water Project. But while pledging $50 million to help fight water pollution over the next ten years, RBC has loaned $2.3 billion to tar sands companies in the last two years alone.

We stand at a cross roads. Does RBC want to help lead our country by investing in clean renewable energy? Or continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel of dirty oil at a cost far too high? Tar sands oil expansion is devastating the regional environment, contaminating Canada’s precious water supply, endangering wildlife, threatening First Nations’ health and preventing Canada from meeting its climate commitments. Indigenous First Nations communities downstream have experienced polluted water, water reductions in rivers and aquifers, increased cancer, and declines in wildlife population that threaten to destroy their traditional ways of life.

RBC has a critical role to play in investing in Canada’s clean energy future. RBC must require clients to provide evidence of free, prior and informed consent from First Nations on projects affecting their communities, as the first step of a phase-out of financing and advisory services to all tar sands projects which have adverse impacts on the environment. The bank must develop an action plan to reduce ‘financed emissions’ related to all lending activities that impact the climate.

We know that Mrs. Nixon cares deeply about clean water, and so we’re appealing directly to her to help us push RBC to make a meaningful commitment to clean water, by ending its financing of the tar sands – rather than giving fistfuls of cash to Big Oil’s dirtiest project ever, while donating its spare change to clean water projects.

Mrs. Nixon, will you help us? (And Mr. Nixon: if you want to help us stop the tar sands too, there’s no need to wait for your wife to take the lead.)

Hi there. Recently Rainforest Action Network teamed up with two of the most prolific independent rock bands on the planet, Propagandhi & Strike Anywhere, the organization Substance, with help from Indigenous Environmental Network to do a tour of the midwest US and Canada to educate, organize, and mobilize people to take action against the Tar Sands dirty oil expansion. While on tour we made a small series of two minute webisodes called the Freedom From Oil Tour Diaries. Wanted to share them here. Below are the two most recent ones – the grand finale, and an interview with Clayton Thomas Muller. Below the cut is the whole series in order! See adventures, organizing, behind the scenes rocking, me breaking my neck, band interviews and more.

Episode 1 – Freedom From Oil: Tar Sands Resistance Tour

Episode 2 – Detroit: I do mind driving

Episode 3 – Crossing the border into Canada

Episode 4 – Political ranting on stage with the bands

Episode 5 – Montreal, organizing in French!

Episode 6 – Interview with Propagandhi about the tour and the Tar Sands

Episode 7 – Ben Powless from Indigenous Environmental network

Episode 8 – Josh nearly breaks his neck crowdsurfing

Episode 9 – Clayton Thomas-Muller from IEN tells us whats up with the Tar Sands

Episode 10 – THE END! Chrissy Swain from Grassy Narrows! Plug in! Get involved!

Ironocally when we arrived in Athens, our host Abby had been working on this great drawling of Kali and her roomate John was writing a report on her… Anyway, the black beast has been running pretty well. We seemed to be loosing a little coolant somewhere so a rather easy DIY gasket placement in the thermostat housing seemed to do the trick (thanks Kearin for spotting that for us). We have been running on grease from Philadelphia to Charlottesville to Asheville, Athens and about halfway to the meditation center in Jesup, GA. Unfortunately in Asheville, Blue Ridge Bio-Diesel has the waste veggie oil market monopolized, so no luck collecting there, and only a few gallons discovered in Athens. Luckily diesel prices seemed to have dropped to about 2.25 a gallon down here. I think our best luck is going to be in more populated suburban areas and hopefully we can stock up in Florida.

Found these 2 cubies of oil on our way home the other night on out way home. Turn out they are about 1/4 filled with food chunks and sludge. No good, refund please.

After a day or two of me hitting up a few places around the neighborhood and having no luck, I took Amy out with me to see if she could do some smoothing to get us some fuel. We hit up all Asian restaurant, most of them told us that they have a person that picks up their oil already. We explained that we we’re looking to take just a little to use in our truck and that we would take it for free, whatever they could offer. Still no luck, just confused faces when explaining that our truck runs on their used, dirty kitchen grease. So just as were heading back home, we decide to check out a place that I asked a couple of days before. This time we went out back, there were some folks from the kitchen hanging around. When we inquired about there grease they said “Go right ahead!” So… we’re like “awesome!”

Now again this is our first time collecting and using the filtration system so we had a couple of slight set backs…

So we power the pump with the battery, We have a 10 to 5 micron filter in the filtration system and a 5 to 1 micron sock filter in the tank. Amy drops the hose in the barrel and we start pumping… and it pumps… and immediately notice grease spilling out of the top of the filtration system. I stop the pump… tighten the heck out of the screws to keep oil from spilling out, and we’re good… Well almost…

Filtering thru the second 5 to 1 micron filter into the tank is taking a long time as expected. Well, its taking a little longer than expected, too long. So we need to come up with a different plan. That plan is to pump the 10 to 5 micron oil into buckets… Go home and switch out filters from the pump to a 5 to 1 and then into the tank fromt the buckets. The only thing is that we only have 1 – 2 gallon bucket with us (without a lid). So without leaving totally empty handed. I fill the bucket up…

Now, I have a full 2 gallon bucket of grease in the back of a HUGE Chevy Suburban, sans lid. I tell Amy to drive home (luckily right around the corner), VERY SLOW! It turns out no matter how slow we drive it will not effect the bumpiness in the back of a truck this big. So needless to say we had a little spillage, maybe more than a little. But luckily, halfway home I found a plastic bag to cover it.

So after we return home, I decided to slowly filter the 2 gallons, now 1.75 gallons into the tank thru the 5 to 1 sock filter. That took a while…

So we were a little unprepared but we were able to figure out a system that will work better for us to use in the future. Hopefully it will go a little smoother next time… Stay tuned!

 Chris Arsenault

www.ipsnews.net, February 20, 2009

VANCOUVER, Feb 20 (IPS) – On his first foreign visit as U.S. president, Barack Obama’s rhetoric of “hope” and “change” came face to face with the hard, divisive policy realities of climate change from Canada’s tar sands, a growing insurgency in Afghanistan and the sputtering world economy.

Some 2,500 spectators lined the streets of Ottawa to watch the president’s motorcade make its way to Parliament Hill, a marked contrast to the thousands of protestors who greeted former President George W. Bush during his last Canadian visit. While the Canadian public catches Obama fever, environmentalists and some aboriginal groups say they’ve been left in the cold by his energy policies.

“Obama must ask Canada to clean up its tar sands and to respect the rights of our aboriginal First Nations,” said Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipweyan First Nation, a community near the Alberta tar sands, the world’s largest energy project.

While promising to press ahead with “carbon reduction technologies,” Obama did not mention the tar sands directly during his visit. Extracting oil from the tar sands creates three times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude.

At the press conference following closed door meetings between President Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and their aides, the two leaders promised a “clean energy dialogue” focusing on plans to trap carbon dioxide underground and improvements to North America’s electricity grid.

Standing in front of Canadian and U.S. flags, as the pomp and circumstance of international diplomacy dictates, Obama called climate change and the need to develop clean energy sources “the most pressing challenges of our time.”

The Natural Resources Defence Council dubs tar sands crude, “the world’s dirtiest oil.” Canada is the largest foreign supplier of oil to the U.S., sending more than 1.2 million barrels per day to its southern neighbour.

Trade between the two countries is worth more than 1.6 billion dollars per day, making it the world’s largest trading relationship. In addition to energy and the environment, the two leaders discussed bailsouts for North America’s auto industry and the general economic downturn.

“How we produce and use energy is fundamental for our economic recovery and also for our security and our planet,” said Obama at the press conference.

Prior to Obama’s Canadian visit, aboriginal and environmental groups placed a full-page add in the newspaper USA Today, stating that the tar sands “stands in the way of a new energy economy.” The day before the presidential visit, activists from Greenpeace scaled a bridge in Ottawa to hang a banner reading: “Climate Leaders Don’t Buy Tar Sands.”

During his election campaign, Obama vowed to end the U.S.’s addiction to “dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive” oil. His campaign’s energy guru, Jason Grumet, said greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s tar sands were “unacceptably high.”

In an apparent about-face from his campaign promises, Obama refused to characterise tar sands crude as “dirty oil” in a pre-summit interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. While acknowledging that the sands creates “a big carbon footprint,” Obama argued that technologies, including a plan from Alberta’s provincial government to store carbon dioxide underground, could solve the problem.

The idea of sequestering and storing greenhouse gases underground, known as carbon capture, has yet to be implemented at any tar sands operations and critics are sceptical that it can work. The tar sands are Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. Presently, tar sands oil extraction pumps 29.5 million tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every year, equivalent to the exhaust from more than 5 million cars.

Even if carbon capture technology does prove to be effective, the sands create a host of other environmental challenges, water depletion being the most significant. Producing one barrel of tar sands oil requires at least three barrels of water; there is enough toxic water in tar sands tailings ponds to fill 2.2 million Olympic sized swimming pools.

“The devastation of our homelands in this short period of time is perplexing to my people since it is only a fraction of the time that these impacts have occurred compared to the thousands of years we have inhabited these lands,” said George Poitras, former chief of the Mikisew Cree, another aboriginal community close to the tar sands.

In addition to energy and the economy, Obama and Harper also discussed the increasing violence in Afghanistan, where Obama has pledged to send 17,000 more U.S. troops as part of a “surge.” Canada currently has 2,500 combat troops stationed around Kandahar who are set to leave in 2011.

Obama stated explicitly that he was not requesting more troops or money from Canada for the Afghan occupation.

A chorus of military leaders, including a top German general and Britain’s ambassador in Kabul, have stated that the war cannot be won.

Please watch this film produced by the Council of Canadians on Canada’s (Tar Sands) Mordor.

This isn’t a Canadian issue. It’s a global catastrophe.

Action Alerts:
Tell President Obama to say no to Tar Sands Oil.

Sign the Petition: Green jobs, yes we can. Tar Sands,  no we can’t.

Related Posts:
Canada: Tar Sands Earth Destroyers
Canada is the pusher and the United States is the junkie

An alert from Dogwood Initiative

For 37 years the northern coastal waters of British Columbia have been protected from oil tanker traffic. This ban is now under threat.

Plans to build pipelines and a supertanker port in BC to service the Alberta Tar Sands are moving forward with support from the BC and Canadian Governments.

But there is still time to save our coast.

Join the thousands of Canadians who are standing up for wildlife and for one of the last intact eco-systems on the planet by signing the No Tankers petition.

WATCH these four short but informative videos and learn what is at stake.

Tankers and Tar Sands art 1: Our Abundant Coast

Tankers and Tar Sands Part 2: Albertan Ambitions

Tankers and Tar Sands Part 3: A Spill to Remember

Tankers and Tar Sands Part Four: Modeling a BC Spill

Sign the Petition

Join the Loonie Project

Related Tipping Point Blog Posts
Canada: Tar Sands Earth Destroyers
Canada is the pusher and the United States is the junkie

The title of this post is an apt description from Grist Magazine of the relationship that fuels the Tar Sands filth in Alberta, Canada.

Grist has just published a good article on the Tar Sands project with some illuminating photos.  Please check it out.

And most importantly, I would ask all Americans to stand up to stop this project. As the junkies you can say NO and break the habit. This dirty oil is for YOU and you don’t NEED it.. so please just say NO to Canada’s dirty oil.

Forest Ethics has posted an Action Alert so that you can send a letter to President Obama asking him to say NO TO DIRTY TAR SANDS OIL.

Together we can do it. Canada only gets away with this because it thinks you aren’t paying attention. This isn’t a Canadian issue. It is a global disaster.

America, time to kick the dirty oil habit!

Please click here to take action.

Learn 10 facts about the Tar Sands

Related Post
Canada: Tar Sands Earth Destroyers

For those who know Canada only for blocking action on climate change,  or for pillaging Africa through death causing mining operations, or for its fame as the marine mammal slaughter capital of the world, don’t forget to add Canada’s notoriety for creating “the most destructive project on earth” known as the Alberta Tar Sands. Let me introduce you to the subject  if indeed you have missed the news about this monstrous project.

Google Earth satellite image of an Alberta Tar Sands Project

First, I did a Google Earth search on a tar sand operation in Alberta, Canada, and it took about five seconds to find one. That’s the Athabasca river running through it. I remember dipping my toes into the rushing water of this mighty river once when hiking in the Rockies, watching my feet turn blue from the coldness.

Athabasca River: Copyright Pembina Institute from www.OilSandsWatch.org.

The old growth boreal forest in the region is home to lynx and caribou and is the breeding ground for millions of songbirds and waterfowl.

What is a tar sand?
From Wikipedia
Tar sands are naturally occurring mixtures of sand or clay, water and an extremely dense and viscous form of petroleum called bitumen. They are found in large amounts in many countries throughout the world, but are found in extremely large quantities in Canada and Venezuela. They have only recently been considered to be part of the world’s oil reserves, as higher oil prices and new technology enable them to be profitably extracted and upgraded to usable products.

The Athabasca Tar Sands is thought to be about the size of Florida and is also said to be the dirtiest and most destructive project on earth. The environmental consequences are devastating.

The United States consumes more oil per capita than any other country in the world, absorbing two-thirds of global oil production. (Have a look too at the report I’ve posted at the end for the impact of the Iraq War.) This June 4th 2008 report from Environmental Defence tells us that the U.S. is now shifting most new refining to the dirtier tar sands oil from Canada and as a consequence increasing global warming emissions by three times in the extraction process and creating the equivalent of 16 new refineries in the United States.

For a comprehensive report from Environmental Defence, click here:
tarsands_thereport1

Please explore the links, find out more, learn and get involved in the campaigns to stop these projects and prevent these two nations from completely ruining the planet and killing all the wildlife.

For an education by video, visit this page from oilsandswatch.org

and watch Canada’s Mordor from the Council of Canadians.

Meanwhile a few photos…

Tar Sands tailing ponds: Copyright Pembina Institute from www.OilSandsWatch.org.

landscape transformed: Copyright Pembina Institute from www.OilSandsWatch.org.

Another tailing pond: Copyright Pembina Institute from www.OilSandsWatch.org.

Oil Mining: Copyright Pembina Institute from www.OilSandsWatch.org.

Links of Interest
Oilsandwatch
Environmental Defence
Oil Change International
Nature’s Voice
Pembina Institute

Explore Alberta!