What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; Act II, Scene ii, Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare The Athabasca tar sands have always been, are now, and will always be known as… the Athabasca tar sands. Why? Because the tar
Continue readingTag: Athabasca Tar Sands
The Disaffected Lib: Harper, You Punk, Man Up!
Those goddamned self-righteous Tories like nothing better than to preach responsibility except when they get a chance to dodge it themselves. And, when a chance does arise, they’ll use their full bag of tricks – secrecy, deception, manipulation, fear mongering – to get really stuck into their dodge. And so
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: World Bank, Countries Must Value Their Natural Capital
Hey, Steve Harper, are you listening? The World Bank is calling. They want Canada, and every other country, to start putting values, okay price tags, on all their natural capital. Forests, peatlands, coasts, water, wildlife – everything should be costed out. That way you can do a bit of math
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Our Perverted Petro-Prime Minister and His Big Oil Pals Caught Again
Are Harper and his ilk just born liars? Can their warped, Born Again brains even recognize truth? Courtesy of The Tyee, the latest Northern Gateway pipeline outrage. It now turns out that pipeline is designed to carry 60% more toxic sludge bitumen than claimed that could translate into many hundreds
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Another Tar Sands Fantasy Challenged
To hear Big Oil and its political minions tell it, the Athabasca Tar Sands will be restored to their pristine state once the black sludge is finally gone. This stands right up there with their promise, lo these many years, that they’re going to capture their carbon emissions and bury
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: In Defence of Dalton
Weighing the respective merits of the Athabasca Tar Sands and Canadian manufacturing is a hot button issue. Ontario premier McGuinty found that out when he state, quite rightly, that one of the impacts of the Athabasca bitumen is to strengthen the Canadian dollar which, in turn, undermines competitiveness in the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Dead Wolves of Athabasca
The next victims of Steve Harper’s bitumen fetish are to be thousands of grey or timber wolves. Harper passed a death sentence on them, slaughtering one species supposedly to take himself off the hook for endangering another. Expanding Tar Sands production is contributing to the decline of caribou herds. Harper’s
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Harper’s Dirty Little Tar Sands Warning
Steve Harper has been warned – the Athabasca Tar Sands pose a “significant environmental and financial risk” to Alberta. That warning came in a secret report prepared for Wayne Routers, the clerk of the Privy Council Office, the federal government’s top civil servant. The industry has suggested that a shift
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Tar Sands – Environmentally Inconsequential
University of Victoria professor Andrew Weaver has supposedly dropped a bombshell – the Athabasca Tar Sands are inconsequential to the problem of global warming. Or that is at least what the reporter who crafted the story wants you to believe. I have linked to the story from the Globe &
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Tutu Targets Tar Sands
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and seven other Nobel laureates have written British prime minister David Cameron warning that Athabasca Tar Sands bitumen “threatens the health of the planet.” The group is urging the UK to support European moves to classify Athabasca bitumen as highly polluting. Last November, the Guardian revealed that
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Are the Petro-Pols Setting Canada Up For a Crash?
Michael Ignatieff referred to it as the “beating heart of the Canadian economy in the 21st century.” Prime ministers, Liberal and Conservative alike, have dared to dream of Canada as a global “energy superpower.” Stephen Harper has led the charge as no other, championing high-risk pipeline projects to the American
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Could Bring the Tar Sands to Heel and Cost Canadians a Gazillion Dollars
A Saudi prince once quipped, “the Stone Age didn’t end because they ran out of stones.” His point was that the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil. He is right. There are a number of factors that will render oil energy unviable well before
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Can Someone Explain This to Me?
At the heart of much of the opposition to the Athabasca Tar Sands is that it exports dangerous contaminants that put entire ecosystems at risk. We export a semi-refined product bearing significant quantities of abrasives, corrosives, heavy metals and other toxins. We export this product to places where it is
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Don’t Get Caught Holding the Bag on Fossil Fuels
The expected global drive to curb carbon emissions could create a fossil fuel bubble collapse. A coalition of prominent UK investors, politicians and scientists has warned the Bank of England that massive reserves of coal, oil and gas could turn into sub-prime assets. In an open letter on Thursday, they
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Hypocrisy of the Petro-State
“It is a pitiless, one-sided, mechanical view of the world, which elevates the rights of property over everything else, meaning that those who possess the most property end up with great power over others. Dressed up as freedom, it is a formula for oppression and bondage. It does nothing to
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Harper’s Diabolical Christmas Gift to Big Oil – Selling Out Canadian Workers
Any doubt that the federal government has turned Canada into a petro-state beholden to Big Oil can be put to rest by this chilling account from yesterday’s G&M. The Alberta Oil Patch appears to have persuaded Ottawa to let them fill Tar Sands jobs with Third World labour. Alberta is
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: WTF? China is Driving Canada’s Purchase of the F-35?
If you have any doubt about how feeble Canada’s corporate media have become you need only read the PostMedia scribe Matthew Fisher’s article proclaiming that “Canada will buy F-35 joint strike fighter, no matter the cost.“ This joker has the critical thinking skills of a 6-year old at Christmas. Who
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Tar Sands "Bosses" Convicted of Ecocide in Mock Trial
No one was actually charged or convicted of anything. That’s because the crimes contested in the mock trial this week in Britain’s Supreme Court aren’t on the books – not yet at least.The trial was a means to demonstrate the proposed crime …
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: US State Department Declares Keystone Pipeline Low Risk
TransCanada Corp’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline to move Athabasca Tar Sands bitumen to Gulf Coast refiners cleared a big hurdle today. The US State Department reported the venture poses “no significant impacts to most resources” so long as…
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The New York Times Slams Athabasaca Bitumen
The New York Times has thrown its full editorial weight against the Keystone XL pipeline proposal and the Athabasca Tar Sands that underlies it.We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive…
Continue reading