Smack! That's gonna' leave a mark ;-)

Small difference? That's a *huge* percentage relative to how much effect we could have on the world's emissions if we sent the entire country back to the stone age.

I always thought that the Alberta gov't has sold the tar sands wrong.

If the tar sands exist throughout the north country naturally, then aren't the oil companies simply cleaning up the world's largest oil spill?

Of course if there was Saud "light sweet crude" in our back yard the % difference would be larger.

But there isn't.

R. Ed Neck;

You are so right. If man, through a huge pipeline leak, put the oil where it is it would be an ecological disaster that environmentalists would spare no expence to remove. But since Gaia put it there, the offence to nature is any attempt to remove it.

Just curious,

Is the reason that there is only an 18% difference in GHG emissions between "clean" and "dirty" because the "dirty" producers strive for ultraefficiency/economics of scale in order to be competitive?

If so (and I expect that this has a major hand in it) then this is a wonderful example of the market unintentionally self-regulating CO2 emissions.

Old army lne:

"My mind's made up. Don't confuse me with facts."

And Albertans don't stone, whip and otherwise butcher women, unbelievers and others not related to the premier!!!

Is that including the "carbon footprint" of transporting oil from Saudi Arabia?

(Not that CO2 matters anyways)

Bakken oilfield,solution in our back yard look it up.Also look up Nikola Tesla.

And Albertans don't stone, whip and otherwise butcher women, unbelievers and others not related to the premier!!!
Posted by: RW

Apparently you've never read any of the comments posted on the CBC website!

Best and worst comparisions - handy for benchmarking, but not something on which you want to base policy.

This slidepack (pdf), by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, is instructive.

http://www.capp.ca/getdoc.aspx?DocID=140411&dt=PDF

18% of a quarter? WTF kind of clarification is that?!!! Spit it out man! You mean half of f- all, say so!

See, this kind of thing is what gets us in trouble. Liberal voters just say "Duh?!!" when they hear something like that.

They need a pretty rainbow unicorn painted on it before they understand. Oil sands gooood, Arab oil baaaad, m'kay?

BTW, since when are we supposed to be concerned about GHGs? Its a fable, remember?

You don't win a war by leaving half of your fronts undefended, Phantom.

I wish people would stop speaking about CO2 as though it were a poison. I don't care how much CO2 something spews. CO2 is not a poison!

Edward Teach True..but funny!

The looters don't care about facts.

THis is the way it should be. Suzuki & Moola in the same headline. At last, at last, the truth.

By David Suzuki and Faisal Moola, Citizen SpecialJuly 15,

http://www.bourque.org/

It's not CO2, it's the soot.
See Watts Up With That.

The GHG balance is even moe in favor of the oil sands when you consider that the worlds largest source of light crude is the Nigerian delta, where they flare off most of the attendant natural gas, as they have no viable way to get it to a market.

Sorry Kate, I was a trifle cranky last night.

However!

One does not win battles by ceding ground to the enemy. Even having the conversation about GHGs is losing ground. "Green house gases" admits the Warmie argument, thereafter you're quibbling about less or more.

There -are- no "green house gases". It isn't warming out. The proper response to the Greenie/Warmie whingifying about "dirty tar sands oil" is what that guy did in Oz the other day. You yell "PROVE IT!!!" right up in their face, and then watch 'em freak out.

Say, maybe I'm still kinda cranky. :)

I'm talking about the ground being conceded in the attacks on oil sands development.

The debate takes as accepted premise that this source is "dirty oil" compared to conventional extraction.

Having the facts in hand is important _regardless_ of where you stand on the impact of GHG's on climate.

who gives a rats ass. without the damn oil people will freeze to death. oh, that fits with the green program.