The arguments in favor of the Enbridge-proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline often stress the economic benefits the pipeline will bring to Canada. Economists and trade organizations emphasize the advantages of increased production in the tar sands for Albertans and the jobs produced during pipeline construction for British Columbians. Another supposed economic
Continue readingAuthor: Carol Linnitt
DeSmogBlog: Enbridge Expands Ruptured Tar Sands Line to Move Bitumen East Along Trailbreaker Route
With the two year anniversary of the “Dilbit Disaster” fresh on our minds it seems improbable that Enbridge, the company responsible for the 1 million gallon spill of dilbit, or diluted bitumen, on a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, is currently pushing through a plan to expand that
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Alberta Bitumen Threatens Health of Communities Living Near Refineries in U.S., ForestEthics Reports
Toxins from refineries processing tar sands bitumen are dangerously polluting the air of local communities in the United States, according to a recent report by ForestEthics. Areas surrounding tar sands refineries – where a higher proportion of society’s vulnerable minority, aging and poor communities live – exhibit intense levels of
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go: Enbridge Looks East for Export Pipeline Route
According to Enbridge’s application for the Northern Gateway Pipeline the company expects a staggering 217% growth in tar sands production by 2035. If built, the Enbridge pipeline would provide the landlocked tar sands with a high-capacity thoroughfare to deliver diluted bitumen, or dilbit, to Asian markets. But with mounting opposition
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: B.C. Leaders Plan Mass Rally Against Enbridge Gateway Pipeline October 22
Next month, Canadians will launch one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in the country’s history. Over 80 influential leaders from across the country, representing a wide cross-section of “business, First Nations, environmental, labour, academic, medical and artistic communities…announced an upcoming mass sit-in in front of the provincial legislature
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Cleaning Up Information Pollution: TruthMarket Creates Public Market for Truth
Truth can be a fickle thing. And when it comes to contentious, polarized and ideologically driven issues – like climate science, the safety of fracking, or the feasibility of renewables – the ‘truth’ can be hard to find amidst the noise. With industry-sponsored misinformation firms like the Heartland Institute or
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Albertans Seek Pipeline Safety Investigation, Launch Spill Tipline
Picture 3.png After three major spills in Alberta occurred over the span of one month, questions are surfacing regarding the integrity of the province’s aging pipeline infrastructure. Last week, a collective of more than 50 organizations from Alberta called upon Premier Alison Redford to initiate an independent inquiry of pipeline safety.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: "Welcome to the Rest of Our Lives": Climate Crock Video on Extreme Weather Events
rex_tillerson.jpg Since January more than 40,000 hot weather temperature records have been broken in tihe U.S. while fewer than 6,000 cold records have been broken. More than 3,000 of those hot weather records were broken in June alone. Over 2.1 million acres of land across the country has burned in
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Enbridge Mismanagement Caused Kalamazoo Tragedy, Says NTSB
Picture 2.png Enbridge, the Canadian company poised to build the controversial Northern Gateway Pipeline, received a scathing assessment this week from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) after an inquiry into a 2010 pipeline rupture in Michigan revealed the company’s mismanagement of what unfolded into a “tragic and needless” disaster.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Maps Show Tar Sands Sprawl in Caribou Habitat: Could Resolve Problem with 1% of Industry Profits, says Scientist
alberta-caribou.jpg Alberta’s threatened caribou herds will stand a significantly better chance of surviving the province’s development of the Tar Sands, according to a group of scientists, if the oil and gas industry is willing to spare 1 percent of its potential development profits to make it happen. According to a
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: American Nurses Band Together to Expose Health Risks of Fracking and Fossil Fuel Energy
Picture 2.png Nurses from the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association (PSNA) are proposing they take on a more prominent role in connecting the dots between human health and fossil fuel-based energy. Their public policy proposal, “Nurses Role in Recognizing, Education and Advocating for Healthier Energy Choices,” was passed by the American
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Howarth and Ingraffea: Gas Industry Fracking Study So Biased it is ‘Almost Useless’
Picture 5.png Two of the largest gas industry lobbying bodies in the US, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and American Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), released a ‘study’ earlier this month claiming methane emissions from natural gas production to be 50 percent lower than the US Environmental Protection Agency’s 2011 estimates.
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Greenpeace Clean Energy Billboard Rejected by Pattison
Greenpeace Rejected Billboard.png After a Plains Midstream Canada pipeline spilled between 160,000 and 480,000 liters of oil into Jackson Creek near the Red Deer River in Alberta this month, premier Alison Redford called the incident “an exception.” Yet, as Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Mike Hudema reports, this spill comes
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Terror is in the Eye of the Beholder: Alberta’s Counterterrorism Unit to Protect Oil and Gas Industry
Picture 2.png In January, during the week before Canada’s federal hearing on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Harper government and Ethical Oil Institute launched an unprecedented attack on environmental organizations opposed to the pipeline and accelerated expansion of the tar sands. Resurrecting Cold War-style ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, conservative politicians like
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: EPA Shale Gas Emissions Standards: "Too Little, Too Late"
Picture 4.png The gas industry received a blow yesterday when the nonprofit group Physicians, Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE) released a joint statement by Professors Anthony Ingraffea and Robert Howarth of Cornell University. According to the release the EPA’s new emissions standards for methane and volatile organics from
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Comparing Territories: Tar Sands Blanket Caribou Habitat
Picture 3.png As the controversy surrounding Canada’s proposed wolf cull in Alberta grows, the provincial government is attempting to limit criticism directed at the country’s polluting Tar Sands – the prime driver behind the region’s rapid decline in caribou populations. Alberta’s Ministry of Sustainable Resource Development (SRD) is the government
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Unethicull Oil: What Alberta’s Wolf Cull Plan Tells Us About Canada’s Oil Addiction
Picture 5.png DeSmog recently sent a team to the tar sands region of Alberta to investigate the proposed government plan to systematically kill off the province’s wild wolf population in a supposed effort to recover dwindling caribou herds. The proposed cull has been widely criticized internationally for placing the interests
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Oil and Gas Industry Refused to Protect Caribou Habitat, Pushed for Wolf Cull Instead
Picture 6.png There’s something really wrong about the Canadian government’s recent proposal to spend millions of dollars to scapegoat Alberta's wild wolf population for the impact on caribou populations that is in fact due to industrial development wrecking wildlife habitat. (See our earlier coverage of this issue here.) It’s not just
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Cry Wolf: An Unethical Oil Story
Picture 4.png Over the last several months, Alberta has killed more than 500 wolves using aerial sharpshooters and poisoned bait in order to conceal the impact of rapid industrial development on Canada’s iconic woodland caribou. Independent scientists say that declining caribou health stems chiefly from habitat destruction caused by the encroachment
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Unethical Oil: Why Is Canada Killing Wolves and Muzzling Scientists To Protect Tar Sands Interests?
shutterstock_71225605.jpg In the latest and perhaps most astonishing display of the tar sands industry’s attacks on science and our democracy, the government of Alberta has made plans to initiate a large-scale wolf slaughter to provide cover for the destruction wrought by the industrialization of the boreal forest ecosystem. In the coming
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