Last week, I wrote a short history of the greenwashing campaign being waged by tar sands promoters, including (and especially) the Canadian and Alberta governments. It’s clear that as the battle over the future of tar sands development has intensified, so has the greenwashing necessary to promote it in the age of climate change and increasing environmental literacy. The more people know about the dangerous costs and risks associated with tar sands development, the more time, effort and money its promoters must invest in the alchemy of disingenuous propaganda.
The frustrating part for Canadians concerned with this egregious abuse and misuse of language is that there doesn’t appear to be any recourse. Tar sands supporters seem to disseminate their little black lies with impunity, and there is no way, in a democracy where free speech is sacrosanct, to stop the flood of tar sands bullshit sullying the airwaves.
Their primary argument? This is "the choice of reason".
Putting aside the fact that their word selection suggests those who oppose the pipeline are illogical or unreasonable; the ad says “some still argue Keystone should be decided on emotion rather than science and fact about Canada's responsibly developed oil sands resource”.
We completely agree. Here are a few scientific facts it forgot to mention:
This weekend, thousands of people will be out front of Barack Obama's White House to protest the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline -- a 1,879 kilometer length of pipe that will allow oil to be pumped all the way from Northern Alberta to refineries in Texas.
It isn't the XL pipeline itself that is at the heart of the matter though. It is the 500,000 barrels of Canadian tar sands crude that will be pumped through the pipe that has so many Americans upset. And it should upset Canadians too.
MCW Enterprises Ltd., a Canada-based corporation, announced on Nov. 19 that it has received all necessary permits to streamline tar sands extraction at its Asphalt Ridge plant located in Vernal, Utah starting in December.
The announcement comes just weeks after U.S. Oil Sands Company received the first ever green light to extract tar sands south in the United States.
MCW's website explains that its stake in the Asphalt Ridge is a "proven/probable resource of over 50+ million barrels of oil" and that it "is seeking other oil sands leases in Utah, which contains over 32 billion barrels of oil within 8 major deposits."
Bailey told Flahrety Financial News that he sees this first project as a crucible, or testing grounds, with the potential for more extraction to come down the road.
"This is really going to be a technology play," he stated. "I don't plan to build another Exxon out there in the desert."
Last night I had the pleasure of attending the Seattle kickoff of 350.org's Do The Math tour, which will highlight the imperative for action to keep 80 percent of the fossil fuel industries' tar sands, coal, oil and gas reserves in the ground, or the climate is toast.
Bill McKibben and a cast of guests, including Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and City Councilman Mike O'Brien, along with video appearances by Van Jones, Naomi Klein, Josh Fox and more, called on the roughly 2,000 attendees packed into Benaroya Hall to join together to encourage institutions large and small to divest all fossil fuel companies from their stock portfolios, pension funds, and other holdings.
The tour seeks to inspire citizen-led boycotts, blockades, marches on oil companies' shareholder meetings, and a new Fossil Free Campus divestment movement modeled after the anti-Apartheid movement of the 1980s.
Mayor McGinn kicked the night off with a pledge to investigate the potential for Seattle to work towards divestment of its fossil fuel holdings, which received massive applause from the audience.
Before McKibben took the stage, The UpTake's Leif Utne had the chance to interview him about the 21-day, 21-city tour that will demonstrate the magnitude of the threat fossil fuels pose to a livable planet, the opportunity Tuesday's election results pose, and a bold new strategy to hit the fossil fuel industries where it hurts.
The next time I gas up my car, I will have a lot to think about after watching the new documentary film, Delta Boys, now available for digital download release starting today at Sundance and iTunes, and on DVD at Amazon.com.
The film chronicles the plight of the people of the Niger Delta in Nigeria, the fifth largest supplier of oil to the United States. Despite the wealth generated by this oil extraction, the majority of Niger Deltans live on less than a dollar a day and lack even basic public health and sanitation services.
The film brings to light the Niger Delta people’s ongoing struggles against multinational oil corporations and one of Africa’s most corrupt governments. While most of the revenue from oil development flows to the Nigerian government in the form of royalties, in the rural Delta villages where the drilling actually takes place, there are no water or sewage systems, no schools, no hospitals, no adequate roads, and no real job opportunities outside of joining one of the rebel militias.
Meet the Delta Boys – armed rebels who zoom around the Delta in high-speed motor boats, sabotaging oil infrastructure, blackmailing the oil companies, kidnapping workers, and tapping into their pipelines to feed a lucrative but dangerous black market in oil they claim is rightfully theirs.
And we’ve talked quite a bit about coal trains. All for very good reason. But we haven’t ever delved into the growing trend of shipping oil by train. Trains are a crucial -- and growing -- part of oil industry infrastructure, so it’s worthwhile to take a step back and get some perspective on this remarkable system. Understanding oil trains will help you understand, for instance, why oil markets are paying little attention to the pipeline debates.
Let’s start with the raw numbers.
Every week, over 17,000 carloads of oil are shipped in the U.S. and Canada. With roughly 600 to 700 barrels of oil in each carload, that’s between 1.4 and 1.6 million barrels of oil on the U.S. and Canadian rails every day. And these numbers are growing fast. This chart says it all.
Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.
There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.
