Oh, Canada: The Tar Sands is a disaster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many people have heard that the Tar Sands Project in Alberta, Canada is one of the most environmentally destructive oil projects ever, but it’s hard to appreciate until you hear the details. I can’t imagine what it’s like to see in person. Just how far will we go for crude? Consider this excerpt from a telling article published in National Geographic:

“To extract each barrel of oil from a surface mine, the industry must first cut down the forest, then remove an average of two tons of peat and dirt that lie above the oil sands layer, then two tons of the sand itself. It must heat several barrels of water to strip the bitumen from the sand and upgrade it, and afterward it discharges contaminated water into tailings ponds like the one near Mildred Lake.”

Cutting down forest, moving 4 tons of earth, using lots of water which is heated by natural gas, and then finding somewhere to store all the waste water, and we still haven’t transported it (all this effort for one barrel mind you) to market!

The next phase involves the construction of the appropriately controversial “Keystone XL Pipeline,” which thankfully is drawing disapproval in the wake of the recent pipeline spill in Montana. The project is a proposed extension of existing pipelines that will carry the Tar Sands crude all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.The two pipelines are “very similar,” notes Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) International Program Director Susan Casey-Lefkowitz. The EPA also released a negative critique of the State Department’s analysis of the Pipeline, citing numerous concerns including likelihood of spills (especially as they relate to groundwater), increased refinery pollution, global warming pollution, wetlands destruction, risks associated with migratory birds

Step right up to the CarnivOIL!

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Yesterday I joined with friends from Environment Virginia at Monroe Park next to Virginia Commonwealth University to celebrate CarnivOIL, a traveling carnival for the oil industry where everything’s free (because the oil industry never has to pay!) The tongue-in-cheek event highlights the cozy relationship between the oil industry and Congress- particularly the Senate that has failed to act on climate change. The lively event attracted many VCU students who stopped to play games like “Tar the Goldfish” where you tossed tar balls into fish habitats and the “Spill-O-Rama” which measured how strong you are by how much oil you can get away with spilling. In the boxing ring, a crab battled an oil executive. A fair fight, until the referee made the crab remove his gloves so the oil exec could clobber him. A great, fun event but it highlights a sad reality. Luckily, CarnivOIL-goers know it’s time to put a stop to the fun and games and get serious. At CarnivOIL, they signed a petition calling on Senator Warner to take action and pledge to take action themselves by signing the Power Vote pledge.

More pictures after the jump. Continue reading

Anti-Corporate Activism is Climate Activism

Fossil fuel money is irreparably corrupting our politics, and to win on climate change, climate activists have to start caring as much about the pollution of our political system, as they care about the pollution of our skies. That’s why I spoke in Baltimore this past week at a MoveOn rally for Continue reading

Congress: You Have Oil on Your Hands!

On the 3 month anniversary of the catastrophic explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, an explosion that ended the lives of 11 workers and irreparably damaged the livelihoods of countless others, I was at a rally held across the street from the U.S. Capitol building.

Three Months, Three Years

July 20th will be the three month anniversary of the BP oil blowout disaster.

To call attention to this fact–to demand strong climate legislation that reduces carbon emissions and promotes clean energy–to call for getting dirty energy money out of politics, a broad coalition of 19 national, regional and state organizations (see list below) issued a call a couple of days ago for local “Congress: You’ve Got Oil on Your Hands” events around the country on July 20th. The coalition urges that actions be held in front of the offices of members of the Senate or the House who have taken a large amount of money from Big Oil or who have refused to support strong action on climate. More info on Big Oil campaign contributions can be found at http://www.followtheoilmoney.org. MoveOn.org is setting up a website operation where local organizers can register their events and get more information.

Given the continuing ecological and economic disaster unfolding in the gulf, and because the U.S. Senate will be debating and voting on offshore drilling/energy/climate legislation this month or early in August, it is right-on-time that these actions are happening. This is the time to really step up grassroots pressure on the U.S. Senate!! Continue reading

Lady Gaga and Mike Tidwell make CNN's list of intriguing people

Joining Mike and Lady Gaga on CNN’s “Friday’s Intriguing People” list is Robert Gilmer, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. Gilmer is teaching a course next semester on the Gulf Coast oil disaster dubbed “Oil and Water: The Gulf Oil Spill of 2010.” According to the Minnesota Daily, the course will address the current crisis in the Gulf of Mexico by educating students on the history and ecology of the Gulf, the makeup of the Louisiana economy and the impact of past oil spills on humans and the environment.

The class will not have textbooks but Gilmer tells CNN that “Mike Tidwell’s Bayou Farewell: The Race to Save America’s Coastal Cities will definitely be on the [reading] list.”

And that’s why CNN called Mike. Mike’s book, Bayou Farewell, which predicted in detail the Katrina hurricane disaster in 2003, will be reissued in August with a new introduction on the BP blowout tragedy. Mike told CNN that the BP disaster likely will have a bigger impact on coastal people than even Katrina did in terms of its economic and cultural disruptions.

You can read the final chapter of Bayou Farewell, which discusses the size and scope of the drilling operation in Louisiana, on our blog.

And, in case you were wondering, Lady Gaga made the list because she and President Obama are neck in neck in a race to become the first living person with more than 10 million fans on facebook.

Tidwell at TedxOilSpill

You’ve probably heard about TED. TED conferences bring together the world’s leading thinkers and doers for a series of talks, presentations and performances. A small nonprofit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading,” TED started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The newest addition to the TED repertoire are the TEDx programs, and one of them is coming to DC on Monday.

TEDxOilSpill will explore new ideas for our energy future, and how we can mitigate the current crisis in the Gulf. TEDxOilSpill will tackle the tough questions raised by the recent and ongoing environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Topics will include mitigation of the spill and the impending cleanup efforts; energy alternatives; policy and economics; as well as new technology that can help us build a self-reliant culture.

What can you expect to see? Speakers at TED events