This Oil Sands Campaign Could Show Up Anywhere in Alberta
Tags: alberta oil sands, alberta tar sands, arctic front, Canada, global warming blog, Kevin Grandia, polar bears, stelmach, Arctic Front
So we FINALLY got our Arctic Front polar bear outfits and they have already been deployed to unknown regions throughout Alberta.
I mean these guys could show up anywhere. Keep an eye out here for any "politician-polar bear interfaces" that are expected to occur very soon.
You can also check out our "Arctic Front" Flickr photo section here for updated event photos.
Will you be stressing that the tar sands 'development' should be stopped for the sake of polar bears?
A lot of people already seem to think that global warming is only a problem in the arctic. Often it seems that only polar bears are affected.
To be frank, there isn't going to be much societal change for the sake of arctic wildlife.
While polar bear popultions are no doubt important we're focusing on the environmental effects of the tar sands with "polar bears" as our messenger.
It certainly is a tragedy that we are killing off the polar bears, and it's great that you're taking a stand against the tar sands, but please try to stress impacts of the tar sands outside of the arctic to counterbalance the tacit--if not explicit (as you are the "arctic front", after all)-- message you'll be giving off to the effect that the consequences of tar sands extraction are only a problem in the arctic. That message already has been drilled into people's heads, so it won't take much for people to bring those views to your campaign.
Thanks for the insight Toban, I agree with your analysis.
Why do you persist in calling Athabasca the "oil" sands. It's bitumen, a form of tar, that must be refined, at considerable energy and evironmental cost, to produce a synthetic oil. If it was indeed oil, much of the problem wouldn't exist. Please, "oil sands" is a PR term, in effect a greenwashing of Athabasca. You should know better than to fall for that.
Thanks I've heard this point made many times. Looking at opinion research, people do not react any differently to the term oil sands versus tar sands.
Past that, looking at google search volumes for both the terms - a lot of people search for the term "oil sands" while very few if any search for "tar sands." So as far as reaching an audience through google (a top referrer for us), it makes more sense to target for a term people are searching for.
If they actually were oil sands, world "peak oil" also wouldn't be such a problem.
That shower photo scares the crap out of me!
Keith Farnish
http://www.theearthblog.org
http://www.unsuitablog.com
Who's in that thing?
Fern Mackenzie
"For whatever reason, I think this one's hilarious"
AAARGH!!!! NOOOOO!!!!!! That's two skeptic memes rolled into one! :)
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Frank Bi, http://globaldumbing.tk
That choking sound?
Where are you guys coming from??? The polar bear numbers are not in decline! Ask the Inuit, there are more polar bears now than there have been for decades. An official count was done over 1 year ago, why did you ignore it?
Tar is man-made. The Oilsands contain Bitumen, clay, sand and water. These are all naturally occurring. The oil that is extracted from the bitumen is oil, it is not "synthetic", thus the term Oilsands is obviously the correct term. I don't think you are hurting anyone's feelings when you call it the "tarsands", people seem to think that it is a derogatory term. It isn't, it is just incorrect.