On this we can agree: as the mysteriously funded industry apologists say today in the Vancouver Sun, every Canadian has a stake in the Alberta tar sands.
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Former Imperial Oil scientist, Clement Bowman is one of the chemical engineers who helped unlock the commercial potential of Canada's oil sands and he's now saying that the Canadian government must urgently take the necessary steps to clean up the huge environmental impacts of the oil sands projects.
Unless they're solved, a number of us feel the oil sands have almost hit a wall," says Brown.
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Environmental Defence has released a report calling the Alberta Oil Sands the most destructive project on Earth.
Few Canadians know that Canada is home to one of the world's largest dams and it is built to hold toxic waste from just one Tar Sands operation," Rick Smith, the executive director of Environmental Defence.
And according to the report this is just the beginning. Approvals have already been given that will double the size of existing operations and Canada's leaders have been talking with the US government to grow oil sands operations in a "short time span."
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Andrew Nikiforuk, writing today in the Globe and Mail, offers this analysis on the Alberta government's abdication of responsibility when it comes to managing its tar sands bounty.
Thanks to Mr. Stelmach's baby-steps approach to carbon pollution, the world's largest energy project will continue to be the country's largest growing source of ice-melting and water-evaporating gases for years to come."
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Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach announced a "climate change plan" today that involves tripling oil production and waiting until 2020 before even beginning to curtail CO2 emissions.
"It would be very difficult to bring in real reductions, immediate reductions, without devastating the economy and the quality of life of Albertans," Stelmach told reporters, without explaining why it is necessary to multiply Alberta's current $73 billion US in fossil fuel exports in order to avoid "devastating the economy."
But the most offensive part of Premier Stelmach's political spin is the attempts that he, his Energy minister and his private-sector stalking horses are making to shift responsibility for action onto consumers.
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Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach was in Washington, DC today hyping his province's vast reserves of oil-soaked tar sand. Not everyone was applauding Stelmach, and rightly so.
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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.
Although all public relations professionals are bound by a duty to not knowingly mislead the public, some have executed comprehensive campaigns of misinformation on behalf of industry clients on issues ranging from tobacco and asbestos to seat belts.
Lately, these fringe players have turned their efforts to creating confusion about climate change. This PR campaign could not be accomplished without the compliance of media as well as the assent and participation of leaders in government and business.
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