May 10 2016 - Opposition to Kinder Morgan is not limited to British Columbia. In fact, the effort by First Nations, municipalities, and environmental groups to stop the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to the Pacific coast is just one part of a rising tide of resistance to the corporate behemoth that bills itself as “the largest energy infrastructure company in North America.”
A raging wildfire in Northern Alberta has dealt oil sands operators another complication: local shortages of diluent, the light oil needed to get Canada’s heavy crude flowing.
Statoil ASA said Monday that it shut its Leismer oil-sands plant south of Fort McMurray after diluent deliveries were cut off. Husky Energy Inc. also cited a shortage on May 4 when it cut its Sunrise oil sands site’s output by 20,000 barrels a day.
Blazes in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Video still from Youtube footage posted by Jason Edmondson.
Some time ago, the environmentalist “Break Free” movement planned a number of protest actions around the world during the first two weeks of May. The protests have a simple and basic message: burning fossil fuels is unsafe and those resources must be left in the ground.
Politicians are reluctant to mention the role of global warming in the destruction of Canada’s oil sands capital.
The Fort McMurray fire disaster brings out the eloquence in Canada’s politicians. They talk movingly – and I think sincerely – about the devastation wreaked on the inhabitants of the northern Alberta city.
They praise the generosity of those Canadians who help. They put partisanship on ice. In one memorable instance last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau crossed the Commons floor to hug Rona Ambrose, the teary-eyed interim Conservative leader.
What's turning northern forests into tinder? Biggest reason is climate change, but that’s not all
A sudden shift in the wind at a critical time of day was all it took to send a wildfire out of control through Fort McMurray, forcing more than 80,000 people out of their homes in what has become the biggest natural disaster in Canadian history.
Earlier this week, Darby Allen, the regional fire chief for the area, minced no words when he was asked what might happen now that more than 1,600 homes have been destroyed.
Crystal Lameman is a member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, a single mother of two, and the treaty co-ordinator and communications manager for Intergovernmental Affairs and Industry Relations in the Beaver Lake Cree Nation.
I was one of the first to sign the Leap Manifesto, and I helped write it.
Recent proposals to use B.C. hydropower as a substitute for coal power in Alberta should be viewed in light of new research showing that in the long-term, B.C. has little energy to spare, and that any substitute power would in fact be originating from the United States.