After some reflection, I can think of nothing good to say about the Alberta tar sands. The best thing that most people say here is that Canada is not Saudi Arabia or Venezuela and therefore if the US is importing billions of barrels a year (4.28 in 2009), then we’re getting more (900 million) from our stable, civilized and friendly neighbors in Canada than from anywhere else. (Full disclosure: I am one-quarter Nova Scotian.)
The only problem is that the US is importing billions of barrels a year in the first place to feed its crazed appetite for gasoline. (Further disclosure: I don’t own a car, but occasionally borrow one, or rent one on vacation.) Our addiction to oil, in the immortal words of that well-known arch-environmentalist George W. Bush, is the real problem.
I make the analogy of the American appetite for cocaine, heroin and pot that feeds the Mexican drug gangs with gringo dollars. (We, of course, repatriate a good deal of that money in selling arms and ammunition to the gangs.) We are similarly enabling the unprecedented despoliation of pristine boreal forest while at the same time putting Canadians right up there with Americans as the highest emitters of CO2 per capita in the world.
Well, the “NY Times,” in the person of Libby Rosenthal, reports that the tar sands wars are heating up. She reports that the Keystone XL pipeline is under review by the State Department. Based on the track record though, namely State’s approval last August of the Alberta Clipper pipeline, Keystone XL should be smooth sailing for the tar sands folks. Any chance this’ll get a little more serious consideration for its environmental implications in the wake of the BP blowout disaster?
Well, Rosenthal further reports that 50 federal legislators have written to Secretary Clinton “…expressing concerns about the pipeline.” Their letter, dated June 23, 2010, said, among other things: “We believe that a full lifecycle assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions for tar sands would provide the Department of State with necessary information to determine whether issuing a presidential permit for the pipeline is consistent with the Administration’s clean energy and climate change priorities. Numerous scientific studies have found tar sands oil to produce much higher lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than convention oil.”
We learn also that Henry Waxman, my longtime favorite male member of the House of Representatives (Nancy Pelosi, of course, being my favorite female), has sent along two more letters, one to Secretary Clinton, the other to the project manager at State for the pipeline. His office noted that “In the letters, Chairman Waxman emphasized that this pipeline is a multi-billion dollar investment to expand our reliance on the dirtiest source of transportation fuel currently available.” That’s why I love Henry Waxman. He gets it!
Meanwhile, the Sierra Club in Canada is acting to block another new epic tar sands development. Stacy Feldman at SolveClimate has excellent coverage on the story. She writes: “Total’s open pit mine and tailings lake would be built near Fort McMurray in the Athabasca sands of Northern Alberta. The company says the operation would produce 100,000 barrels per day, mostly headed to consumers in the United States.” Natch.
Sheila Muxlow, director of the Sierra Club’s Alberta chapter, is quoted as saying “At present we’re seeing at least 11 million liters of wet tailings leached into the Athabasca River each day.”
There is definitely a gold rush quality to the tar sands and there appears to be nobody, absolutely nobody home in the government of Alberta that cares a fig about the environment or public health. Feldman further writes “A new report released on June 9 by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers forecasts massive growth. Production will leap to 2.2 million barrels per day in 2015 and 2.9 million barrels in 2020, it said, even as the industry runs into environmental opposition.”
Time for Americans and Canadians alike to get a program for gasoline addiction.
