Canada, faced with growing political pressure over the extraction of oil from its highly polluting tar sands, has begun courting China and other Asian countries to exploit the resource.The move comes as American firms are turning away from tar sands because of its heavy carbon footprint and damage to the landscape.
Whole Foods, the high-end organic grocery chain, and retailer Bed Bath & Beyond last week both signed up to a campaign by ForestEthics to stop US firms using oil from Canadian tar sands. The Pentagon is also scaling down its use of tar sands oil to meet a 2007 law requiring the US government to source fuels with lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Major oil companies such as Shell are also coming under shareholder pressure to pull out of the Canadian projects. Earlier this year, Shell announced it was scaling back its expansion plans for the tar sands after a revolt by shareholders. Producing oil from the Alberta tar sands causes up to five times more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude oil, according to the campaign group Greenpeace.
(content warning: Source is the ultra-warmist Guardian)
... interestingly, "world pressure" has some of our politicos quaking in their pants.
Canada risks becoming the international poster child of unsound resource development if it doesn't do a better job of developing the oilsands, says federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice.He told a Calgary business audience Monday that the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper supports continued expansion of the oilsands, but that large energy companies need to do more as Canada seeks to reach its targets under the Copenhagen climate change accord.
It is not Dirty Oil.
It is Oily Dirt.
Any fool who has touched oil sand knows this.
The oil sands are canada's golden goose. everyone knows it.
Now they are talking about a hydro project for the slave river.
So what's worse, building dams and flooding forests, or removing oil from the ground?
Al Gore's Weather (AGW):
"Exclusion of Antarctica is a convenient omission and makes a mockery of their claim, because it cooled over the period."
...-
"Not CO2 but the Sun
IPCC Corruption Included Ignoring Facts and Science
Dr. Tim Ball
Phil Jones, disgraced and dismissed Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), granted BBC reporter Roger Harrabin an interview. Why Harrabin? His reporting has shown bias on all the IPCC and CRU activities. Leaked emails showed the CRU gang used friends in the BBC and that apparently continues. Prevarication, evasion, half-truths continue in Phil Jones’ answers. Despite this there are stunning admissions from Jones. “There is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the part(s) most likely to be read by policy makers.”
It’s a deliberate strategy not just a tendency and not only in the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). Many major factors that create weather and can trigger change are ignored in the Scientific Report and computer models. A long report is necessary to itemize problems and what is omitted. The need to ‘prove’ CO2 was the primary culprit was the driving force behind all actions and it peaked in the 2007 Report.
The 2007 Intergovernmental on Climate Change (IPCC) Report says they’re 90% certain global warming of the last 50 years is due to increasing atmospheric CO2. They acknowledge that before 1950 the sun explained over 50% of the temperature increase. As the Summary for Policymakers notes, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica).”
Exclusion of Antarctica is a convenient omission and makes a mockery of their claim, because it cooled over the period."
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/20029
Come on Dan, man up! This is ridiculous!
Any moron who still believes in this "carbon footprint" SCAM "globull warming" SCAM either is certifiable crazy, MSM reporter, or a eco-whaco butt licking polititian. If you are to stupid to not understand the size of this earth.. and take into account that 72% is covered by water with trillions of square miles of nothing on either poles.. then continue down the path of financial destruction which is exactly what the Gores Puchauris and Suzukis want, Jim Prentice. This insanity is breaking governments everywhere, and the elected fools who don't understand that the cupboard is bare, need to be thrown out of office..they are a bigger threat that any 2 degrees of warmth. How stupid of anyone not to want a warmer planet if in fact it was even possible! There is no more "borrowed money" to waste on this SCAM, just explain to your children and grand children someday, as your unable to heat your home, like in Europe, how you helped slay the "globull warming dragon" you idiot believers.
Any bets that in less than 20 years we will see long trains running to the west coast filled with raw bitumen heading for a refining plant in China?
Derek
I always found it interesting that the USA would have any issue with developing the oilsands when they are still blasting the tops at whole mountain ranges to get at the coal.
I believe there is a word for this: Hypocrite.
Prentice sees the writing on the wall. It will be intense international pressure that will make Canada the poster boy of dirty oil and environmentally damaging practices, unless changes are made. Copenhagen is here to stay, so get used to it. Large oil companies are going to increasingly be under pressure from governments to clean up their act or get out or simply loose customer demand. More and more large companies are going green due to an increasingly growing demand from their customer base to be environmentally sound. The above article is music to my ears.
WOW !
Whole Foods !
So let's see . . . people who are stupid enough to spend $15 dollars for a 25g organic granola bar are now going to boycott Canadian Oil?
Well just fill yer boots there buddy, have fun with yer little protest.
How is this a bad thing? By deliberately restricting their choice of oil to more expensive sources, these consumers are driving up the price of oil arbitrarily. This is rather like a self imposed import tariff.
The end result is that the tar sands is more profitable for Canadians, and those companies that wear self imposed hair shirts are funding a higher standard of living here.
These companies, that are signing up for this, already charge a pointless premium for their goods, and can afford it. With their customers raising their input costs they will have to charge even more for their eco-sin indulgences, and this whole silly fad will peter out even faster.
By all means, if these folks want to jump off a cliff en-mass, let us have a party and relax as economic evolution takes it's course. We can buy up the assets for cheap after they finish going bankrupt.
I was browsing for American owned sailboats the other day, but I figured the price would drop a bit more and I should wait a bit longer.
It is obvious that there is a disconnect between reality and governemnt(s) policy.
As I have opined before, politicians have been intimidated by the vast propaganda campaign of the the warmongers.
Then there is the reality that US policy wags the Canadian dog. NAFTA and all that.
Nobody can deny that the intelligence services of the major nations do/did not know that AGW IS BS and that activists/bureaucrats were fabricating stuff......that the IPCC was tainted by the corruption of the UN New World Order.
Regardless that the CIA, MI5, MI6 etc knew...their political masters were subject to the reality of the biggest propaganda campaign in the history of man.
........The prepostrerous claims of environmental degradation resulting from Oil Sands extraction. There have been claims of deforested areas exceeding the area of Great Britain while in reality the area is less than the area of Greater London......Claims of pollution of the Athabasca River that in reality are less than ab initio. Mackenzie reported oil in the water centuries ago.
India finally called BS....
More will come.
Slowly but surely the truth is emerging in the MSM. The exagerations, the manipulations, the fabrications by activist bureaucrats posing as scientists have been exposed.
Meanwhile the propaganda machine rolls on implacably scarcely hindered by the scandals.
It is literally a battle for hearts and minds.
RESIST THE NEW WORLD ORDER
When the price at the pumps is higher in the US than in Canada, this self-righteous postering will be comveniently forgotten. I predict this will happen before the current American president finishes his first and only term in office. Meanwhile, time for a Canuck boycot of some US companies I see. Might be a good time to work out a free trade deal with India. DB
A dose of reality is waiting for these mutual masturbaters when the world's economies collapse under the weight of freshly printed money, truckloads of worthless CDSs, bankrupt banks and costly regulation of inconsequential things such as CO2. The bursting of the asset bubble will bring them to the level of the homeless. Then they will be grateful for the warmth provided by anything that will burn, regardless of the environmental affects.
High end whole foods stores I'm unlikely to shop in or afford to. BedsBaths and Beyond I've been in and left feeling poofy, and besides, I'm willing to bet 99% of their "stuff" came from China. Nor will I shop in ANY store that tries to pull the same crap.
T has been living in a vacuum, which is similar to the space between his ears.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1250872/Climategate-U-turn-Astonishment-scientist-centre-global-warming-email-row-admits-data-organised.html
Derek @ 10:49,
It will be a pipeline to the coast, not a train, and the plans are already being drawn up.
Take a trip on the Athabaska River and you will see naturally occurring oil and tar seeping out of the river banks and into the the river.
This has been going on long before any human walked along that ground.
The Inuk used to use natural oil tar to water proof their kayaks.
The econazis lie as much as the Lieberal Party of Canada.
The above article is music to my ears.
Look, we already know you self-flagellating lunatics love nothing more than destroying economies. Tell us why you hate plant food so much. What did trees ever do to you?
You would think that Canada would be commended for removing the oil from the oil sands(they are oil sands, not tar sands--there is a vast difference). After all, that oil leaches into the soil and the groundwater and I for one would rather have CO2 in my air and water than oil.
Whole Fools!
The Whole Carbon scam is crumbling as these sheep continue to bleet against CAPITALISM. They simply do not understand economies and would do better moving to Avatar's Pandora where they can trade their green with envy skin for sky blue hide.
However, they will not enjoy shitting in the woods with no Scott or Delsey to be found anywhere. And where will they buy their granola?
These politicians need to
1. forget about the green tax windfall they were expecting
2. stop listening to the gaia crowd ... it's all over but face saving efforts by the media who sucked and swallowed Al Gore's inconvenient load
3. continue supporting the Alberta and Saskatchewan oil sands development so we can maintain our first world civilized society.
yes an oilspill about 5 million years old. and the whole thing heading for the Arctic Ocean.
they should be happy we are cleaning it up. Of course we wont be done by the time the next iceage comes and cleans of the next layer including the oilsands plants and all traces of civilization. that is only about 60ooo years from now.
"T" get a life ...how can you sit there at your computer and complain about the environment being trashed when your computer ,your car and basically everything you own came from the environment ...your home ,your car, all of it and you have there nerve to sit there and champion the destruction of our economy . I would love to know what you do for a living probly something that is funded by big govornment or your a union worker of some sort . Your pathetic and for someone who is so concerned about the environemnt you certainly have no problem flushing your toilet or turning on your oven why don't you do your eco-fascist [pals a favor and quit your job move outi nto the midlde of nowhere and truley live off the land ...and until you and all of your other squater loser greentard buddies start doing this no-one and i mean no-one will ever take anything you say seriously .
You really are a "T"roll.
Paul in calgary
Prentice seems to still believe in AGW, carbon sequestrataion, taxing hell out of industry and US,in other words,nothing different from the Liberals!
Do you think Prentice EVER reads the E-mails we've all sent him?
No bet,Derek, the trains are probably being readied now.
So they are agonna boycott are they. How? Last time I filled the gas tank I had no idea where the feed stock came from. In fact I'm not even sure which refinery extracted the gasoline from the crude. On the other hand I can identify the stores that are participating in this nonsense and I can and will boycott them. I guess someone didn't think this whole thing through.
Removing the oil from the sand and mud requires huge quantities of natural gas to be burned. In this respect ONLY greenpeace and their fellow travellers are correct, the process is wasteful of good clean energy. So lets provide a good clean CO2 negligible solution-nuclear energy.
Its a win, win, win scenario. Alberta gets to sell the natural gas on other markets, the price of domestic consumption would reduce, lots of hot water to seperate the oil from the sand, a near zero CO2 emission and lots of electricity available to the grid.
Of course no greenpeace type or other watermelon will accept this, but it is a good economic solution.
To hell with Shell and BP let them concentrate on windmills and losing money, and nobody is forcing other corporations to buy cost efficient energy. Let them buy their 15c/kWh windmill energy when it is available 1000hrs/year and watch them disappear as surely as the dinosaurs.
The watermelons need to learn their economic lessons the hard way.
FREE THE WEST.
What "T" says is probably what many people think. Copenhagen is gone and dead, but the environmental
movement is still going strong. Any excuse to shut down oil is considered a good one - wasn't it Husky that was chased out of the Sudan by these people?
Supposedly they were replaced by Chinese and Indian interests - at any rate Husky's departure
did not lead to any improvements in the situation in the Sudan.
The death of "global warming" is merely an inconvenience. The leftists will find some other reason
to continue their destruction.
If I need anything for the Bedroom, Bathroom, or any other room, I going to go Beyond that store and look for it in another store.
Boycotts can work both ways and BBB's economic situation is going to be hurting worse than Alberta's is.
In these economic times playing politics when they should stick to selling goods is going to be a mistake BBB will regret.
BBB just opened a new store a Cross Iron Mills just north of Calgary and whenever I go to that mall and pass that store I'm going to give people about to enter it and coming out of it a little education about BBB's decision to try to ruin Alberta's economy.
Derek and Halfwise et al:
no it won't. New in situ tech like THAI and Capri produce partially cracked (iow better than crude) oil from the ground. The need for upgrading nearly disappears and it flows at room temps. Shell and petrobank are building a 4 bb$ project in SK as I type this.
The price of oil is set by world markets on a daily basis. There isn't one price for oil-sands oil and one for all other oil. If US companies don't want to buy oil extracted from the Alberta oil sands, others will. The price will be whatever the market has set at that time.
So long as the price of oil remains above a certain level, it will make economic sense to develop the sands. This development will happen whether the Conservatives or the Liberals are in power, and even more so if by some catastrophe the NDP were to win an election. The reason is simply that politicians of all stripes are addicted to collecting and spending money from taxation, and when it comes to sources of taxation, there's nothing like the oil companies.
Incidentally, someone earlier referred to the inevitability of "Copenhagen." Can anyone explain what "Copenhagen" means? I honestly haven't got a clue. It seems to mean nothing and everything, as far as I can tell.
Cascadian:
see my post above - the new in situ techs need virtually no NG to produce the oil -
http://www.petrobank.com/heavy-oil/the-thai-process/
I recall playing Monopoly while Babysitting some kids decades ago. To expedite things, I suggested that I start with all the properties and the kids could start off with all the money. They quickly agreed to those terms.
It took about 15 minutes for them to realize that they were in a world of hurt.
My point being that Canada, in a manner of sorts, has a lot of properties (water, oil, minerals, grains, hydro etc) and it's just a matter of time before the ROW realizes what those kids realized years ago.
Al Gore's Weather (AGW): Trumped.
...-
"Donald Trump Wants Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize Stripped
Billionaire real estate tycoon Donald Trump wants Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize stripped from the Global Warmingist-in-Chief.
"With the coldest winter ever recorded, with snow setting record levels up and down the coast, the Nobel committee should take the Nobel Prize back, " Trump recently told members of his Westchester, New York, country club according to the New York Post."
[...]
"Gore wants us to clean up our factories and plants in order to protect us from global warming, when China and other countries couldn't care less. It would make us totally noncompetitive in the manufacturing world, and China, Japan and India are laughing at America's stupidity."
According to the Post, the crowd of 500 stood and applauded.
I guess there weren't any liberal media members there."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2451781/posts
As an American, I'm totally disgusted with
our politicians. We criticize Canada for
it's oil production, and we won't drill on
our own soil and then we buy Canadian oil.
There's a huge oil reserve in the Bakken
Formation that covers part of both countries.
Anyone want to bet that Canadians drill their
portion first? After they do, the US will
criticize it for the usual reasons...and then
buy the oil, while leaving our fields untapped.
LOL
Excellent post, PhilM at February 15, 2010 12:09 PM.
Oz, my family has been doing just that for quite some time. Not just boycotting, but also telling them why we are boycotting.
John Lewis- It was Talisman who was chased out of Sudan. Probably the best thing that ever happened to them.
Gord Tulk- The new technologies you speak of are yet to be proven. They also represent a fairly small portion of the overall production. I have to agree with Cascadian, they need to get working on nuclear power. Ralph Klein was just being boneheaded when he decided to keep Alberta nuclear free.
A less charitable view of oil companies "cutting back oilsands investment" might infer that it suggests less spending has more to do with their bets probably being massively underwater in the carbon credit trading shell game.
PhilM 12:09, great post, that is a concept that the watermelon crowd are incapable of grasping. Their view is, if you can't confiscate it, you either regulate or tax it to death.
Too funny. As mentioned, it is impossible to boycott part of a mixture. This is no more than a marketing campaign to appease the granola crunchers that shop at Whole Foods. It's not like Whole Foods clients are likely to research the topic to discover that little nugget of knowledge. In a way, WF's is insulting their customers intelligence.
PhilM is right. The resource-shy countries can not magically create oil, gas, coal, uranium etc. under their soil. So, through various UN/EU schemes, they are attempting to do the next best thing - redistribute natural resource wealth through any means possible. If AGW/carbon trading falls through, they'll be back with Plan B,C,D...All they need to succeed are easily manipulated politicians (greed, embarrassment, guilt) in resource rich countries.
AGW Fraud: more exposure.
…-
“Now IPCC hurricane data is questioned
More trouble looms for the IPCC. The body may need to revise statements made in its Fourth Assessment Report on hurricanes and global warming. A statistical analysis of the raw data shows that the claims that global hurricane activity has increased cannot be supported.
Les Hatton once fixed weather models at the Met Office. Having studied Maths at Cambridge, he completed his PhD as metereologist: his PhD was the study of tornadoes and waterspouts. He’s a fellow of the Royal Meterological Society, currently teaches at the University of Kingston, and is well known in the software engineering community – his studies include critical systems analysis.
Hatton has released what he describes as an ‘A-level’ statistical analysis, which tests six IPCC statements against raw data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric (NOAA) Administration. He’s published all the raw data and invites criticism, but warns he is neither “a warmist nor a denialist”, but a scientist.
Hatton performed a z-test statistical analysis of the period 1999-2009 against 1946-2009 to test the six conclusions. He also ran the data ending with what the IPCC had available in 2007. He found that North Atlantic hurricane activity increased significantly, but the increase was counterbalanced by diminished activity in the East Pacific, where hurricane-strength storms are 50 per cent more prevalent. The West Pacific showed no significant change. Overall, the declines balance the increases.
“When you average the number of storms and their strength, it almost exactly balances.” This isn’t indicative of an increase in atmospheric energy manifesting itself in storms.
Even the North Atlantic increase should be treated with caution, Hatton concludes, since the period contains one anomalous year of unusually high hurricane activity – 2005 – the year Al Gore used the Katrina tragedy to advance the case for the manmade global warming theory.”
(more)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/15/hatton_on_hurricanes/
http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2010/02/15/the-debate-is-not-over/#comment-75016
More junk science. Apparently when the researchers were calculating the carbon foot print of oil they did not include the carbon produced from transporting oil from such eco and democracy loving countries as Yemen, Saudia Arabia, Iran and Venezuala. Whne the CO2 produced in transport is added in the footprint is virtually identical. Not that facts matter.
Derek @ 10:49
I'd take that bet. When you use a hot-water pipeline instead of rail, your first stage of separation is done in the pipe.
I just love how the ecologists seem to think that oil or radioactives that "naturally" poison an area are somehow good, but it's evil of us to remove them. When I was working north of the "bridge to nowhere" in the mid 90's we could estimate the depth to bitumin in an area by the dead trees. The pine trees that grow there have a primary tap root and when the tap root hits the bitumen, the tree dies. The reclaimed areas have much taller trees than can survive in the bitumen rich areas.
The Conservatives are sweating now!
If the Conservatives follow through with their threat, and that is exactly what it is, they must do so after federal election. Other than that, western support for the big "C" will wither away. Although I recognize the truth of what the Conservatives and “T” are saying, I also recognize that the only way the Conservatives can pull this off is with a majority and a BIG ASSED BONE or two. Honestly, the problem with Alberta for the Conservatives is WE DON”T WANT NO F”N BONE …we just want to be left alone. As a Canadian I support the Conservatives and concur with their analysis of the market going forward, but that said, I can’t deny the political implications. Albertans will likely learn after the fact that the Conservatives we seeing the bigger picture, but we’ll find our own solutions.
Does anyone see the "perfect storm" brewing here? Interesting times ahead I suspect for Canadian and Alberta politics. I think Saskatchewan and BC might be snoozing at the wheel when it comes to sovereignty organizationally, where Alberta could be one or two moves and a protest vote away from "Hasta la vista, baby".
Just wishful thinking.
Bed Bath and Beyond sounds like it is backing away from any oil sands ban.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bed-bath-beyond-backs-away-from-boycott/article1465569/
"Bed Bath & Beyond has not 'rejected' or otherwise 'banned' our third-party transportation providers from using fuels from Canadian tar sands," the company said in a release yesterday.
"In our communication with our providers, we incorrectly communicated a desire to limit or avoid fuels from Canadian tar sands."
The company has come under fire in Alberta, where businesses and angry consumers have taken to talk radio stations and local newspaper pages to pledge their own boycott of Bed Bath & Beyond. Whole Foods doesn't have a presence in the province.
Beth & Bath's response has done nothing to ease concerns that any money spent there won't go to supporing the eco-fascist groups so my boycott will continue.
On another note, Jim Prentice keeps playing into the eco-fascist's and needs to be replaced as environment minister. By saying the oil sands need to change their image becomes great propaganda for the World Whack-job Fund to say, "see? they are killing mother Gaia"
Dp: I was speaking with a global energy funds manager just this past Wednesday. He agreed that THai and Capri (and some other techniques will be the chosen method for almost all new In situ oilsands (and oil - in - limestone formations) projects. According to petrobank and shell and the CAPP, THAI is a proven technology. I would put it in the same stage of development as frac was 20 years ago.
Prentice announced on Saturday that Canada has committed to the United Nations that it will cut its carbon emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels over the next 10 years.
Tough Rockos for you , Jimmy.
You should read the 1867 Constitution Act which states that the resources belong to the Provinces.
You federal asshats are writing checks your a$$ can't cash.
Just keep crapping on Confederation, you'll see what Albertans can do at the polls and you won't like it.
"This is a matter of national sovereignty for Canada. We should have a Canadian, made-in-Canada climate change plan," Ignatieff said in Ottawa.
If memory serves, the Liberal Party of Canada held the exact reverse position when Stephen Harper proposed a "made-in-Canada" alternative to Kyoto.
Waiting to see what the Americans are going to do and then creating a made-in-Canada solution that takes Canada's trade position with the U.S. into account is something that doesn't occur to Ignatieff.
This guy is supposed to be the LPC's "brain trust"?
Pull-eeze.
Dave in AB @12:54 PM, it doesn't make a lick of difference to me.
These Big Box Store corporations have got to get the message that bashing capitalism has got to stop.
How dare they threaten other peoples jobs and expect to keep theirs.
Down with Bed Bath and Beyond!
It's time they went to the Great Beyond, the sooner, the better.
Good. Let the imbecile cranks from the rest of the world head for the exit while Canadians buy the stakes in projects already underway from foreign owners for a fraction of their real value.
Let "green" fools pay extra for their oil on one hand and lose money selling the oil companies on the other. That's economic darwinism at its best.
Oz,
The green(washing) stores are playing to their clients. They're the types to call the same rubbish "green" and "organic" while charging fools twice as much for it.
They're engaging in a form of advertising when they pull that crap. The people who shop in their stores think like that. Let them pay more.