Pollution creating acid oceans. Frack the Pipeline: How You Can Help Stop the Tar Sands — Video by Josh Fox. "From Henry David Thoreau, to Susan B. Anthony, to Gandhi, to King, to you. " Oscar-nominated director Josh Fox on how you can help stop the disastrous development of the Canadian tar sands. posted Aug 19, 2011 Video courtesy of StopKeystoneXL Toxic waste water is stored in ponds so large they can be seen from space. Over the coming weeks, thousands will risk arrest at a White House sit-in to protest the Keystone XL Pipeline project, one of many planned pipelines to take the oil produced from the Canadian tar sands to refineries in the United States.
Josh Fox, Oscar-nominated director of the documentary Gasland, makes a video appeal to "fracktivists" and anyone else who wishes to prevent the devastation of that will accompany the production and transportation of tar sand oil. Interested? " Comment on this articleHow to add a comment – Commenting Policy. Summary of Issues - About the Tar Sands - Draw the Line at Tar Sands.
The tar sands in northern Alberta have emerged as Canada’s fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas pollution and are also poisoning the water, polluting the air, and destroying the land. Oil companies are aggressively developing the tar sands and are striving to increase production by 150 percent between 2010 and 2035. There are two ways that oil is extracted from the tar sands: open pit mines and in situ, or drilling, sites.
With surface mining, the area is first cleared of trees, then the muskeg is drained of water and removed and then the underlying clay, silt and gravel is removed to expose the tar sands deposit. Large shovels excavate the tar sands and load it in giant trucks that transport it to an extraction plant where heat and water separate the bitumen from the sand. In situ extraction is performed by drilling several wells into the tar sands deposit, using steam to heat and separate the bitumen, and then pumping the bitumen to the surface. Impacts. Tar sands action | Midwest Power Shift. Tar Sands vs. Clean Water: Eating the Earth for Cars.
The tar sands production center in northern Alberta in Canada is one of the clearest signs that the easy-to-get oil is on the wane. Tar sands are a low grade hydrocarbon deposit that requires enormous energy input to process and convert it into something resembling petroleum. They are not technically petroleum, but a sludge that can be turned into oil if washed and cooked with steam (which is not an abundant natural resource in the boreal forest of northern Alberta, especially during the Canadian winter). Turning tar sands into oil requires almost as much energy input as they contain at the end of the processing – so they are barely a “source” of energy. To date, vast quantities of natural gas have been used to make the steam to process the tar sands to create something resembling petroleum, but natural gas has its own supply problems that make dedicating gas to tar production difficult to maintain. Tar sands extraction causes enormous ecological destruction.
For additional reading: Tar Sands Action. Aboriginal rights | Tar Sands Watch. Aboriginal rights Many aboriginal groups are being left out of the process and run over in the race for development of the tar sands. First Nations in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories have claimed that traditional lands are being destroyed for tar sands exploration and extraction, and First Nations are not being included, or properly compensated for their lost and destroyed lands and water supplies. In particular, the planned construction of the MacKenzie Gas Project to provide more natural gas from the High Arctic to fuel the Alberta tar sands development has serious implications for Aboriginal peoples, especially the Dehcho First Nation, who have not yet negotiated a land claim settlement with the federal government. The government views their land as a resource bonanza for oil, gas, and subsurface minerals, and intends to extinguish their Aboriginal rights to the land mass over which 40 percent of the proposed gas pipeline will pass.
Victory (for now) on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline! Remember that massive tar sands pipeline that so many people were concerned enough about that they were willing to risk getting arrested over in both Canada and the US? Well, Stephen Harper may have thought it was a “no brainer”, but it looks like President Obama is having second thoughts. The US State Department just announced that they are making Transcanada, the company that wants to build it, start over. And they were explicit in stating that when they come forward with a new plan, they will look at it in light of its impacts on the climate.
We think that’s a great idea because the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (and other proposed new tar sands pipelines like Enbridge’s Northern Gateway proposal to build a pipeline across the Rockies to the BC coast) would increase toxic tar sands development and come at an unacceptable cost to people and the climate. This decision could protect a water source that provides safe drinking water for 3 million people.