Two Articles on Dangers of Tar Sands Expansion
Friends of the Earth reports the successful development of the controversial oil sands in Canada has prompted oil companies to invest in similar operations elswhere, including Russia, Venezuela, the Congo, and Madagascar.
But the dramatic impact of oil sands expansion should give the companies involved and their investors pause, cautions a new report commissioned by Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups, and authored by the financial risk management group RiskMetrics
Imagine an Oil Rig Blowout in the Arctic. Oil Drilling There Must Be Prevented.
Two items:
Press Release from the World Wildlife Federation: All Drilling Must Be Halted in Arctic Pending Full Investigation of Gulf of Mexico Blowout; Despite calls for drilling “time-out,” Shell still set to begin exploratory drilling in Arctic on July 1 -
PARIS, May 5, 2010 (IPS) – The disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has given increased urgency to the fifth Global Oceans Conference taking place here at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
Iceland Volcano’s Eruption Sends Quick Wake-up Call on “Peak Oil”
What does an erupting volcano in Iceland have to do with our future oil supply running out?
A lot, if you consider only the effect the recent grounding of planes all over the world has had on food supply. When oil runs out, as it will, food delivery will be drastically curtailed, and the disruption caused by the April 15 eruption of the Iceland volcano demonstrates just what this might mean. Airline won’t be back to normal until volcanic activity subsides, and in the meantime vegetables grown in Kenya are rotting; undelivered roses are being ground up for compost. Kenyan flower growers are losing $2 million a day. Food producers have in Southern Spain have also been effected, as well as the electronics and pharmaceutical industries, who rely on overnight delivery for many of their products.
Has a “Convergance of Catastrophes” Already Begun?
James Howard Kunstler examines the critical importance of oil in our global economy and then anticipates the cascade of catastrophic consequences when – not if – supply fails to meet demand. After a century of profligate use of this energy-dense resource, he contends that we are within a decade of experiencing an oil shortage: for transportation, industry, heating, plastics, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals and all the countless products essential to our modern lives. In other words, our energy-devouring civilization has been accelerating entropy.
A Message from James Hansen on Hope of Cutting Global Carbon Emissions
Is it feasible to phase out coal and avoid use of unconventional fossil fuels? Yes, but only if governments face up to the truth: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, their use will continue and even increase on a global basis. Fossil fuels are cheapest because they are not made to pay for their effects on human health, the environment, and future climate.
Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue.
Relevant today, James Howard Kuntsler’s 2006 Public Testimony at the Vancouver Planning Commission
The Kuntsler session was an eye opener for many at the time and is
still worth watching just to get a feel of what impacts are now
affecting all we take for granted in our current lifestyle and
economic predicament. We cannot continue in our current mode of
linear planning.
Three-Quarters of World’s Coal and Oil Cannot Be Used
“To avoid dangerous climate change, we will have to limit the total amount of carbon we inject into the atmosphere, not just the emission rate in any given year,” said Myles Allen from the physics department at Oxford University. “It took us 250 years to burn the first half trillion, and on current projections we’ll burn the next half trillion in less than 40 years.”
Peak Oil: A Dark Look Into Our Future
Blind Spot is a documentary that illustrates the current energy crisis that our way of life is facing. Whatever the measures of greed, wishful thinking, neglect or ignorance, we have put ourselves at a crossroad which offers two paths, both with dire consequences. If we continue to burn fossil fuels we will choke the life out of the planet and if we don’t our way of life will collapse.
Barack Obama to meet with Canada’s PM about Alberta Tar Sands
Canadian environmental groups are now demanding that Obama rejects special treatment for oil sands under any deal. “The integrity of such a system would be entirely compromised should it somehow give a ‘pass’ to the production of high carbon oil from the tar sands, which many believe is the intent of the overture,” said the letter, which was signed by a half-dozen groups, including the David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute and the Sierra Club of Canada.
