Today I read in the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star a new tar sands development is on the horizon, to the production tune of 40 000 barrels a day. Astonishing. Here we sit in this nation as owners of the single largest point contributer of climate change emissions in the world, i.e. the Athaabasca Tar Sands. Currently it emits a full 1% of these gaseous pollutants. with a volume of 150 feet thick covering an area the size of Nova Scotia plus a second Cape Breton, the potential for further atmospheric damage is shocking indeed.
And where does our Federal Gov’t sit? Squarely in the hip pocket of the “öil patch”. Thus nothing is done to curb these lethal byproducts of the petroleum goliaths. For the past 15 years Canada has held on to the silver medal in per capita emissions of climate altering gases, a mere 0.1 behind the gold medallists…the United States of America.
Right. Mr Obama will clear up that little problem will he? His administration just handed over 19 billion dollars to the bankrupt auto industry. Gee whiz. What do autos run on? Where does all the plastic, apholstery and moldings come from? Even Peabody’s pet boy Sherman knows the answer. Leadership? Nowhere to be found on either side of the 49th parallel.
—timetri
This article appears in Oct 1-7, 2009.
Three cheers for the tar sands. Eco-weinies can go home.
Why can’t the tar sands be bad because of the FACTS (non-renewable, water / air polluting) instead of a THEORY (man-induced climate change)?
Well, we’re not going to burn it all at once. Maybe we could use the oil money to develop better green technologies for energy production.
I’ll bet by the time technology allows for greener extraction, the tar sands will have been scraped dry.
Fuck the environment, show me the money….