The key to understanding the dilemma is to realize that Tar Sand, bitumen, is just a part of Alberta’s oil history. The province has also produced a vast amount of conventional crude oil. It’s actually produced and exported a good deal more conventional crude oil than Norway. That brings us
Continue readingTag: bitumen
The Disaffected Lib: A Closer Look at Oil and Climate Change.
Stephen Harper will not be pleased. The Carnegie Endowment is fingering his cherished Tar Sands. Not all oil is created equal. Sweet crude, of the Saudi sort, comes out of the ground almost ready to use. It’s pumped out of the ground easily, free of most contaminants (sulphur, water, sand,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Harper’s Bitumen Policy – Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
The Harper government has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid the public learning just what’s in bitumen and the risk that stuff poses to our rivers, our lakes, our groundwater supply and our oceans. Mum’s the word. Two things we’ve learned about Harper by now. He’s secretive and pathologically dishonest.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Whether You Support Pipelines or Not, Here’s Something We Can Surely Agree On.
No secret I’m opposed to both Kinder Morgan and Northern Gateway. A sizeable majority of British Columbians are of the same mind but a significant minority supports the pipeline initiatives. In situations like this it can be helpful to seek out areas of agreement, common ground. Here’s an idea we
Continue readingLeft Over: The Emperor’s (ap)Prentice Magically Transforms First Nations Support
Jim Prentice says many Alberta First Nations are behind new pipeline projects ‘Amongst the strongest allies that Alberta has at the table are the First Nations of this province’ CBC News Posted: Sep 16, 2014 9:25 PM MT Last Updated: Sep 17, 2014 6:20 AM MT Great that you
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Tar Sands Refinery Cries "Uncle" on Climate Change – Seeks Taxpayer Bailout
The Delaware City Refining Company doesn’t just refine oil, it refines bitumen from the Tar Sands. The company, however, is intensely aware of the dangers of climate change, so much so in fact that it’s seeking tax dollars to protect its refinery from “tidal encroachment” – another way of saying
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Big by-election in Fort McMurray? Never mind that! As goes Macleod, so goes Alberta…
Fort McMurray, before the Bitumen Boom. Things have changed. Below: Conservative Fort McMurray-Athabasca candidate David Yurdiga, Liberal candidate Kyle Harrietha, NDP candidate Lori McDaniel, former Conservative MP Brian Jean. If the good people of Fort McMurray climb out of bed this morning and decide to elect a Liberal to represent
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: It’s the Climate, Stupid!
Not two weeks since the federal government’s long-anticipated approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline, the magnitude of the obstacles faced by the project are becoming clearer by the day. There is widespread public hostility — both in Kitimat, envisioned as the pipeline’s end location, as well as across British Columbia
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: It is not ‘Miller Time’ Dan, Green Up or Brown Out!
Richard ‘Hub’ Hughes- Here is disappointing post from former NDP Premier Dan Miller. It reads like the flashback that it is. Time will tell whether Miller’s missive will be embraced, rejected or ignored by the new BC NDP opposition leader, John Horgan. Dan Miller: How will we pay
Continue readingCould Alberta go green?
With 50 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than Ontario, Alberta is Canada’s pollution province. And that makes us think of the tar sands. But it’s more than bitumen. Alberta’s electrical power generation, heavily dependent on coal, produces almost as much greenhouse gas as the tar sands. The province gets
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Super Industrial BC
Richard ‘Hub’ Hughes-Positively Political Rafe Mair is back in the saddle and zoning in on issues of significance to all British Columbians. Mair is calling out to BC NDP Leader John Horgan to stand up to the powerful oil and gas corporations, in part because if he won’t, who will?
Continue readingLeft Over: Dirty Oil Wars…..This is Just the Beginning
http://montrealsimon.blogspot.ca/2014/05/stephen-harper-and-final-battle-for.html Here in BC, we appreciate any and all support for this issue..but where is the rest of the country on all the damage this MonsterCon has caused? They can’t all be the drooling knuckle-draggers of Ford Nation, but I have to wonder if it isn’t already too late…the
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Charge Protestors With Terrorism And Throw Them in Prison!
Richard Hughes-Political Blogger This compelling video landed in my inbox this morning courtesy of a Cowichan Bay activist. It claims that a Canadian corporation Trans Canada Pipeline, the force behind Keystone XL pipeline is training FBI and local law enforcement agencies on how to charge legal protestors with terrorism. They say that
Continue readingLeft Over: Opposition to a Pipeline, any Pipeline? Say it Ain’t So…
Pipeline push-back: What’s behind the rising opposition to Canada’s big oil pipelines Climate change debate behind animosity toward Northern Gateway and Keystone XL By Janet Davison, CBC News Posted: Apr 29, 2014 5:00 AM ET This headline is profoundly stupid..it is blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain why we are opposed..just
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Residents of Peace River, AB wrestle with authorities over bitumen fumes
Fumes from these bitumen storage tanks are allegedly driving Alberta families from their homes. Read this Feb. 20th VICE article that provides a local look inside our Jan. 28th Reported Elsewhere story about the state of northern Alberta families vacating their homes from bitumen fumes emitted by Baytex Energy storage tanks. The Labrecques,
Continue readingSupporting Keystone is supporting the Kochs
Criticism of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline focuses, understandably, on the threat it poses to the environment, both in its construction and in its enabling more production from the tar sands. Too often overlooked is the political mischief that approval will contribute to. According to an article in the CCPA
Continue readingcalgaryliberal.com: Ten phrases that need to die in 2014.
All lists start with a bottle of scotch, a dash of politics, and a bit of pent up frustration. This is one of those lists. 1). “____ should resign.” Be it Ford, Harper, Dave Hancock, or others, we’ve had calls for politicians to resign from across the country (at a
Continue readingProducing the wrong oil?
The Joint Review Panel has ruled on the viability of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and the result is as expected. The panel, established by the National Energy Board and the federal environment minister, has determined that the pipeline, which would carry bitumen from Alberta’s tar sands to the B.C.
Continue readingAlberta Diary: ‘Ethical Cannabis’: Is it time to make … ‘The Case for B.C. Bud’?
Who would’ve thought we’d find a suitable reference to Riders Nation and Ethical Cannabis in one photograph? But courtesy the Calgary Sun, there it is! Note the hat, bottom right. Just saying. Below: Some guy standing in front of Rob Ford’s office. Those of us who don’t regularly wear melons
Continue reading