[Vision2020] Alberta's Tar Sands and Idaho's Wilderness Gateway

Ted Moffett starbliss at gmail.com
Tue Jun 1 11:51:59 PDT 2010


Thanks for this article.  I signed the petition.

There is a small error in the sixth paragraph from the bottom... What should
read "greenhouse gas emissions" reads "green gas emissions" ("In March
federal judge Donald Malloy ruled that drilling on 38,000 acres in Eastern
Montana must be suspended until the impact of green gas emissions has been
considered.")

Some of the critics of efforts to address anthropogenic climate change
might regard this error as a truth, given the claim by some
corporations that increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 are a positive
development, given this will encourage plant growth.  I am not joking, as
can be read here: "Greening Earth Society"
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Greening_Earth_Society ...

The Obama administration has approved the Alberta Clipper pipeline to bring
Canadian tar sands product to the US (
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/tar-sands-47050805 ),
though efforts have been taken to block this project, while other pipelines
to carry this product are pending (
http://panews.com/topstories/x334295371/Tar-sand-oil-may-come-to-PA. ).
Obama appears to think that both further development of fossil fuels and
addressing climate change is a rational policy.

It is understandable that given Canada's tar sands are the largest currently
established as commercially recoverable oil deposit in North America (the US
oil shales in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado are immense, but not considered
officially commercially recoverable... not yet, just wait!
http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/publications/Pubs-NPR/40010-373.pdf
,
http://ostseis.anl.gov/guide/oilshale/ ) the US wants to secure access to
this resource, with China competing for its share.

Some argue that it is a matter of national security and economic necessity
to develop and gain access to this huge oil resource that can reduce oil
dependence on other foreign oil sources, while we work on alternative energy
sources.  But this is short sighted, given that climate change is a national
security and planetary wide risk that is increased with continued greenhouse
gas emissions, while time is running out to prevent climate change tipping
points that will be difficult to stop.  We should be in a "world-wide
mobilization at wartime speed" to cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020:
Earth Policy Institute:
http://www.earth-policy.org/datacenter/pdf/80by2020doc.pdf .  Future
generations will judge us for our greed in continuing a fossil fuel
dependent civilization while the science is compelling that this is a very
bad gamble with the future of the Earth's climate system.

We are truly living in "The Age of Stupid"

http://www.ageofstupid.net
---------------------------------------
We have no choice but to attempt to reduce human impacts on Earth's climate,
but I realistically do not think these efforts will result in a significant
lowering of greenhouse gas emissions for many decades.  The economic, social
and political pressures to continue a fossil fuel dependent world are too
powerful.  Geo-engineering Earth's climate to avoid a global catastrophe
will thus be necessary, even if risky.  Humanity is already committed,
though unintentionally, to a program of geo-engineering climate with human
greenhouse gas emissions and other human impacts.  Those who talk about the
next ice age are rather humorous.  As NASA climate scientist James Hansen
wrote in "Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate
Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity" (
http://www.stormsofmygrandchildren.com/ ) why would humanity allow another
ice age to crush our cities and nations beneath ice, when releases of a
given amount of greenhouse gases can stop this climate shift?

Humanity has unwittingly placed itself in the role of planetary manager of
climate, and there is no turning back.  However, as scientist and inventor
James Lovelock wrote, we are no more capable of being stewards of the Earth
than are goats to be gardeners.  Let's hope Lovelock is wrong:

Book review of James Lovelock's "Revenge of Gaia:"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1837861/pdf/bjpg56-390.pdf

http://www.jameslovelock.org/
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 5/31/10, nickgier at roadrunner.com <nickgier at roadrunner.com> wrote:
>
> Greetings:
>
> I'm sending out this week's radio commentary/column early because of the
> urgency of this issue. Many of you may have seen the article in the LMT, but
> I dug much deeper.  The huge equipment shown in the LMT pictures was bound
> for Billings, but a federal judge may have put a temporary stop on that
> project.  He cited the EPA's new rule about green house gases and this may
> be the key to stopping the transshipment of equipment from Lewiston, up
> Hiway 12, and through Montana to Alberta.
>
> In contrast to more progressive Montana, there is no official public input
> for Idahoans on this issue.  The people who gave testimony at the Montana
> hearings now have legal standing to file suit.  I have signed a petition
> against the shipments at www.ipetitions.com/petition/notrucksnotarsands.  I'm
> still waiting for an e-mail about the exact identity of the sponsoring
> orgnanization.
>
> I hope the people of Montana can mitigate somewhat U.S. complicity in the
> most destructive industrial extraction project in human history.
>
> Nick Gier
>
> ALBERTA'S TAR SANDS AND IDAHO'S WILDERNESS GATEWAY
>
> In April of 2008, over 1,000 ducks flying over Northern Alberta took a
> break from their migration north and landed in what they perceived was just
> another lake in the area. They never took flight again, along with other
> 10,000 other waterfowl that year. The water in many of these lakes has been
> tarred and poisoned by bitumen processing.
>
> Extracting hydrocarbons from crude oil and coal has always been a dirty
> business, but tar sands processing releases three to four times the
> greenhouse gases that conventional drilling does.  Alberta's tar sands,
> whose 175 billion barrel reserve is second only to Saudi Arabia, requires
> 220 gallons of fresh water to produce one barrel of oil. The slurry is
> cooked using natural gas, consuming in one day what it takes to heat 3
> million homes.
>
> The waste water from the plants have polluted the land and the once pure
> Athabasca River. Cancer rates are rising among the native populations there,
> and their moose meat is now laced with dangerous levels of arsenic. The
> environment group One Blue Marble reports that processing the bitumen
> releases benzene, "one of the most lethal human carcinogens, into the
> atmosphere at a rate of 100 tons per year; it could be as high as 800 tons
> per year by 2015."
>
> Canada’s Imperial Oil and Exxon-Mobil are now requesting permits from Idaho
> and Montana to move 200 loads of equipment to Alberta’s Kearle Oil
> Project.  These loads are truly oversized: 210 feet long, 30 feet tall, 24
> feet wide, and 300 tons. They require tractors on the front and the back.
>
> We can well understand why the people of Vancouver, BC and every town
> between there and Fort McMurray, Alberta do not want this super heavy
> traffic on their roads, but why should the people of Idaho and Montana agree
> to this? A quick look at the map demonstrates why the oil companies have
> chosen the southern route: the Port of Lewiston 400 miles inland, a
> virtually unobstructed Highway 12 to Missoula, and Interstates 90 and 15 to
> the Canadian border.
>
> About 70 miles of Idaho Highway 12 runs along the Lochsa River, which has
> the "wild and scenic" designation. This pristine area offers superior
> camping, fishing, and rafting opportunities.  At mile marker 124 there is a
> campground named "Wilderness Gateway." From there backpackers and mule
> trains enter the Selway-Bitterroot, the largest wilderness area outside of
> Alaska.
>
> The Idaho permits require no public input, and the Department of
> Transportation is treating this as it would any other oversized load.  All
> that its engineers have to do is to make sure that the loads have sufficient
> number of wheels so that the road and bridges are not destroyed by the
> tremendous weight.
>
> The oil companies have assured the two states that the equipment contains
> no hazardous materials, and that it will be moved at night in 50 mile
> segments. The companies have also contributed $22-26 million dollars to road
> upgrades.  In addition Idaho will receive $1,000 per load for a total of
> $200,000 in fees.
>
> The state of Montana does allow citizen input, and on April 29 hundreds of
> people showed up at a public hearing in Missoula. Those who testified now
> have legal standing to file suit in federal court to stop the shipments. In
> March federal judge Donald Malloy ruled that drilling on 38,000 acres in
> Eastern Montana must be suspended until the impact of green gas emissions
> has been considered. (Equally massive equipment for this project has now
> arrived in Lewiston and was scheduled to take the same route as the Imperial
> Oil loads.) Short of a suit, Montana activists are hoping that they can
> persuade the government to conduct a federal environmental impact statement.
>
> Today oil extraction in Northern Alberta is the largest "single point"
> source of green house gases in Canada, and experts predict that "by 2015,
> the oil sands are expected to emit more greenhouse gases than the nation of
> Denmark (pop. 5.4 million), and by 2020 the oil sands will release twice the
> amount produced currently by all the cars and trucks in Canada."
>
> Observing that "one doesn't build a railroad and run only one train on it,"
> Missoula attorney Robert Gentry believes that this is only the beginning of
> regular transshipment of oil equipment from Lewiston to Fort McMurray.  He
> says that the Port of Lewiston is expanding to accommodate this new
> business.
>
> The processed crude from these fields, doubling to 2.2 million barrels a
> day by 2015, is pumped directly into pipelines to be refined in the U.S. It
> is predicted that 40 percent of America's oil supplies will eventually come
> from what has been called the most destructive extraction industry in human
> history.
>
> On the fourth day of the shipments from Lewiston, Imperial Oil's huge loads
> will sit all day long at Wilderness Gateway. I can think of nothing more
> offensive to me as an Idahoan, who, like tens of thousands of others, loves
> this state's natural beauty.
>
> These steel behemoths will symbolize everything that is bad about
> extracting oil from and destroying Canadian wilderness and remind us of
> everything that is good about Idaho's pristine land and waters.
>
> Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31
> years.  During that time he has also fished and rafted Idaho’s rivers and
> hiked its wilderness trails.
>
>
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