Alberta Canada’s massive wildfire, which has now consumed an area larger than Hong Kong and threatens to reach the border with neighboring Saskatchewan, is another startling example that may be attributed to the ravages of global warming.

While most of the Middle East does not have large tracts of forest land, areas where forests and grasslands are located are continuously in danger of catching fire as higher than normal temperatures and “crazy heat domes” may make many parts of the Middle East unlivable by 2100.

Alberta’s wildfires, which became literally out of control after starting over a week ago, have already displaced more than 80,000 people and destroyed thousands of homes and commercial buildings. Located in the province’s well publicized Alberta Tar Sands, the big question being raised now is whether this industry, deemed to be one of the most environmentally damaging projects in North America, may be attributing to making it spread so quickly.

According to informed sources in International Business Times, the Alberta oil or tar sands account for more than 80% of Canada’s entire petroleum production. In physical terms, this amounts to more than 4.4 million barrels per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Canadian governmental and private sources now say it will take weeks to fully bring these fires under control; and this only only happen if there are substantial rains. Dry conditions and unseasonably high temperatures of 23 degrees Celsious (80 degrees Fahrenheit) are causing the fires to spread even quicker.

Oil tar sand production, involving the use of chemicals and high pressure steam to bring up the gunky oil tar from underground, has long been considered to be an environmental disaster in the making by many environmentalists; even rivaling oil production in Saudi Arabia, and seen as having a severe impact on global warming.

The photo below shows what this oil sand tar goop looks like when brought to the surface.

With events like the Alberta wildfires occurring in pristine locations like Canada, it’s not difficult to understand what is already occuring in regions like the Middle East. Mid-East area countries that do contain sizable tracts of forest land, such as Israel, Lebanon and Turkey, will undoubtedly see more occurrences of forest and brush fires on the like that Israel experienced in December, 2010; when a large section on the country’s Carmel mountain forest went up in smoke, killing more than 45 people.

We will all be watching the outcome of the Alberta wildfires; that up to now seem virtually unstoppable. As for the Middle East, the worst may yet to come, regarding global warming.

Read more on global warming, wildfires and the Alberta Tar Sands:
Crazy heat dome will mean that no one can live in the Arab Gulf by 2100
Israel’s Carmel wildfire blame goes all the way to the top
Canada Worst than Saudi Arabia, Considering Tar Sands Impact on Global Warming

Photo: Fort McMurray Wildfires, by Todd Korol/Reuters
Photo: Alberta Tar Sands crude oil, by Jonathan Hayward/ AP

The post Alberta Tar Sands wildfire and global warming appeared first on Green Prophet.

We speak to Muaz Nasir about his faith-focused environmental work in Canada and why the Muslim community can’t afford to sideline climate change

“The environment is something everyone should be concerned about as climate change, water scarcity and pollution are issues that do not discriminate based on faith:” That’s Muaz Nasir’s response to what he likes to call constructive criticism that the Muslim Ummah focus its energies on ‘bigger issues’ rather than climate change.

Personally, I can’t imagine a ‘bigger issue’ then the future of our planet but I completely accept that this realisation hasn’t quite reached the wider Muslim community. Ground-breaking policies such as the Muslim Seven Year Action Plan on Climate Change were impressive but as Nasir points out, but they failed to “develop the necessary research or resources that would push the climate agenda into the mainstream Muslim community.”

As such, any progress has been slow and the product of hard working individual campaigners rather than national policies. Read on for more about the Muslim-environmental movement in Canada, Nasir’s green Muslim website Khaleafa.com and how he getting mosques to ‘Ban the Bottle’ among other green ideas he is working to implement in the Muslim community – ideas which can spread around the world. 

Firstly, could you tell us a little about yourself, your background and what brought you to the environmental work you at Khaleafa.com?

My name is Muaz Nasir and I am the editor of the Muslim-environmental blog khaleafa.com. I would like to say that I always had a long-standing passion for everything environmental, but it was not until university that I really started to consider myself an environmentalist. Throughout my life I felt I did have a connection with the natural world. I always recycled, conserved energy, enjoyed being outdoors and and had an appreciation for farming; but I never considered myself as part of a larger movement. It was a first-year introductory course in environmental science that spurred my interest that later led me to specialize in the field in both my undergraduate and graduate studies. Since then my professional career has been predominantly in the environmental field within non-profit, private, government and institutional sectors.

How and why did you start off Khaleafa.com?

Over the years I attended many environmental events where I was asked about the Muslim perspective on environmentalism. Many wanted to know what Islam had to say about conservation, animal rights and fair trade, as well what activities the Muslim community was involved in. There were other amazing Muslim environmental websites available, however many were based in Europe or the Middle East, and did not reflect some of the challenges and issues faced in North America. So it was out of this need for discussion that Khaleafa.com was born.

What have been the responses to Khaleafa.com – have you had to face any negative reactions or had to deal with climate sceptics?

The response has been overwhelmingly positive for the most part. I try to keep my articles as neutral as possible, and encourage contributors to base their arguments on facts and to justify their opinions with reference to the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah. This allows readers to formulate their own opinions with the information provided. The articles have been well received and featured on various websites including SuhaibWebb, IslamOnline and recently Productive Muslim.

There has been some negative feedback as well, mainly in the form of constructive criticism but also from individuals who feel that Muslims should be investing their resources to deal with bigger issues facing the Ummah. While I understand the direction they are coming from, my response has been that the environment is something everyone should be concerned about as climate change, water scarcity and pollution are issues that do not discriminate based on faith. We all have a collective obligation to ensure that we leave the planet in better condition for future generations and that we do not waste the resources Allah has blessed upon us.

I understand you are based in Toronto. Could you tell us about the state of the environmental movement in the country with a special focus on its engagement with the Muslim community

The environmental movement has changed considerably over the last several years. In Canada the tar-sands have become a big driver of our economy and there have been ongoing disputes over the creation of new pipelines through sensitive habitats. This has shaped policy development at the federal level and the environmental movement has been on the defensive after the passage of new legislation. Despite this, environmentalism continues to grow within the Muslim community. Islamic organizations are installing solar panels and building community gardens. They are evaluating themselves and asking questions about the food we eat, the waste we produce and the environmental and social impacts of the products we purchase. Young Muslims have played an integral role in the development of this movement and organizations such as CivicMuslims have raised the environmental profile within the community here in Toronto.

What do you think are the barriers holding the Muslim community from fully engaging with the climate change agenda?

I think there is a general lack of awareness of the severity of climate change as well as what actions individuals can do to decrease their carbon footprint. The issue is just not on the radar of many Islamic institutions here in North America as it is in Europe. The Muslim community in Canada is fairly young, so there are understandably competing priorities, such as establishing their families and integrating into the broader society; which often takes precedence over the climate change agenda. This is beginning to change as weather patterns shift and the trends in the climate become more visible.

Proudest moments of Khaleafa so far and why?

This past Spring, Khaleafa.com launched a successful Green Khutbah Campaign to coincide with Earth Day which garnered the support of over 75 Imams/Organizations across North America, Europe and Africa. The campaign posed a challenge to Muslims to become stewards of the Earth by making changes to their daily routines and encouraged mosques, schools, universities and Islamic Institutions in North America to devote their Friday Khutbah to raise awareness on the environmental challenges facing humanity. The campaign was designed to be a local initiative, but it quickly went viral and over the course of only two weeks we had e-mails of support coming in from across the world. It was uplifting to see that one simple campaign had such a large impact globally and it renewed my commitment to the cause.

Recently, Khaleafa.com was nominated for the Brass Crescent Award for “Best New Blog.” It is humbling to be considered alongside such great writers in this category, and to be recognized for all the work we did this past year. The support from friends and family has also been amazing as well as the readers like and share the articles through Facebook. Even if we do not win, I am glad to know that the environmental message is still getting out there.

[Arwa: Polls close on the 21st of October so you can still vote for Khaleafa.com here.]

What you would change if you ruled the world for a day?

That is an ambitious question! There are many things I would like to change in the world such as alleviating world poverty, ending the destruction of our natural areas and eliminating animal cruelty, but a lot of these issues cannot be changed overnight. If I were in charge for one day I would encourage the world to live by the principles of Muhammad (SAW) such as showing respect, humility and integrity towards the environment and their dealings with their fellow man. I really do believe that fostering a closer connection to nature from a spiritual perspective can alleviate the social, environmental and ecological issues that face society today.

Any upcoming plans or projects that we can look forward to?

This fall there are plans to expand the environmental movement into mosques with the launch of the “Ban the Bottle” campaign targeting disposable water bottles in Islamic institutions. This will include providing promotional material, resources and educational tools for organizations considering alternatives to bottled water. There will also be the launch of a new series profiling Canadian mosques and will highlight some of the creative and unique environmental projects that Muslims are already engaged in.

For more on Muslim campaigners see:
What Can Islam Do for the Environment? Lots, Actually…
Host Greener Iftars at Mosque says Imam Zaid Shakir (VIDEO)
Sharing Eden – Green Teachings From Muslims, Jews and Christians
Sofiah Jamil  Talks Faith, Women and Climate Justice
London Mosques Start Beekeeping Trend – Interview
Green Muslims Top ‘Muslim 500’ List

The post Green Muslim Blogger Muaz Nasir Says Spiritual Connection With Nature Is Key (INTERVIEW) appeared first on Green Prophet.

I speak to the recently arrested environmental author Bill McKibben, who insists that campaigners need to be more confrontational about their demands (and start wearing ties)

I think it’s fairly safe to say that Bill McKibben has had an eventful couple of weeks. As well as being imprisoned for three days at the end of August for protesting against the Keystone XL Pipeline project – which NASA climate scientist James Hansen has warned could mean ‘game over’ for the planet if given the go ahead – his organisation 350.org recently launched a campaign to promote green transport and he is currently touring the UK. I spoke to him in leafy and surprisingly sunny Cambridge where he was giving a talk at the KLICE and Faraday Institute Conference on ‘Faith and The Crisis of Sustainability’.

Fossil Fuel Industry Makes ‘More Money Than God’

For more than two decades, we’ve had clear scientific evidence telling us that if we are serious about keeping the planet habitable we must to stop burning fossil fuels. Yet all these years later and we are no closer to the elusive agreement or solution we are desperately after. Copenhagen, where the last major environmental summit took place, failed to convince leading polluters to cut their emissions to the extent needed. So where are we going wrong?

Well, according to Bill McKibben the problem is pretty obvious- it’s the the fossil fuel industry. Making ‘more money than god’, McKibben insist that they have been ‘drowning out the science’ and blocking potential change. So in response, environmental campaigners need be tougher than they have been- they need to take more risks and become more confrontational. He explains that whilst community and local action is important, alone it isn’t enough to bring about the change that we need to see.

Wear A Tie And Get Arrested

As such he sees the protests (and subsequent mass arrests) outside the White House against projects such as the Keystone XL pipeline as justified and necessary. What’s more, it’s the older campaigners who have contributed more to climate change and have less to lose from a criminal record who should be taking the risks- preferably wearing a tie or a dress to highlight that they are ordinary people. As McKibben adds, fossil fuel companies that are changing the face of the planet in dangerous ways are the real ‘radicals’.

The Environment Is Not Just For White People

I was able to steal McKibben away from his adoring fans after the lecture for a quick chat on the environment and the Middle East. He told me he was quite surprised at the level of support 350.org got three years ago from the region when they joined 5,200 demonstrations in 181 countries in a day of international action on October 2009. Jordanians, Palestinian and Israeli worked together in a joint protest whilst campaigners in countries as diverse as Yemen, Egypt and Lebanon marked the event by highlighting the number 350, which is the safe level of carbon per million parts in the atmosphere.

Still, it’s clear that the movement is new and developing so McKibben advises that we give it a gentle nudge in the right direction if it strays from the green path. McKibben also points out that the diverse range of support 350.org receives illustrates that caring for the environment isn’t a white, rich person’s issue. Rather, people of all races are concerned about the future especially those who understand that it is the poor and vulnerable who are going to feel the pinch more than anyone else.

A Protest For Justice And Survival

It clear that this injustice- of poorer nations such as Bangladesh (which Mckibben has visited) having to deal with the impacts of a warming planet caused by rich nations- is what keeps McKibben going. Yes, its true that some scientists say it’s too late and some politicians say the odds are too high, he explains, but we must continue to fight to protect poorer nations such as the Maldives whose very survival is at stake.

And the way that we are going to do this, he insists, is by making our protests louder, more confrontational, more engaging and more beautiful.

:: Images via 350.org and tarsandsaction/flickr.

For more on Mckibben and environmental issues see:

Why The Middle East Should Support The Keystone XL Pipeline Protests

Interview: Bracing For A Warmer Future With Bill Mckibben

Middle East Joins 350.org’s International Climate Change Protest

Cairo’s Climate Art Of Epic Proportions

The post We Interview Bill McKibben: Be More Confrontational appeared first on Green Prophet.

Susan just pointed out her criticism of Canadians taking the moral high ground when it comes to oil from tar sands. Extracted from a heavily polluting process, Canadian lobbyists are saying that Canada’s tar sands oil is more ethical than oil from Saudi Arabia, due to the lack of women’s rights (in the western sense) over in that Arab country. Do women’s rights equate to ethics in oil?

What’s your take, Green Prophets? Take the vote!

The post Is Canada’s Tar Sand Oil More Ethical Than Saudi Oil? (POLL) appeared first on Green Prophet.

The right wing has long maintained that America should reduce its oil dependency on the Middle East. Considered the root of the last war in Iraq and a compelling reason for Gaddafi to hold on so tightly to power over Libya’s oil fields, Republicans have pushed through a series of catastrophic measures to secure their own oil supplies in the United States. But this time, some of the country’s most respected scientists and environmental activists are risking arrest to fight the latest such folly.

Fast-tracked for presidential approval by the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Panel, the $7 billion Keystone XL Pipeline poses one of the greatest dangers humanity has ever experienced. The 1500 mile pipeline would transport heavy crude oil (or bitumen) evacuated from Northern Alberta’s tar sands to Texas refineries. If burned, this heavy crude oil would release up to 82% more carbon emissions into our atmosphere than conventional oil. More emissions = more erratic climate changes = worsening quality of life for everyone. One hundred and fifty protestors have already been arrested in Washington D.C., where they are putting pressure on President Obama to make good on the promises that got him elected.

The man America elected in 2008

The man who convinced the American public while campaigning for President that he would fight to clean up the country’s appalling environmental record but has since signed off an array of ruinous coal and oil exploration projects, Obama has to approve the bill that would allow TransCanada to build a pipeline that scientists say would set off a massive carbon bomb.

Second only to China, America produces more carbon emissions than any other country (though the UAE produces more per capita.) And the American dream of having more cars than any one family needs, eating an endless supply of food shipped across the world, and wearing the fanciest clothes stitched together by poor people living in substandard conditions has encouraged many developing countries to pursue a similar model. None of this can happen without oil and most of us are completely hooked.

Oil addiction

This relentless addiction to oil has given multi-billion dollar corporations the perfect excuse to pursue increasingly-risky (and profitable) programs to supply the demand that has pushed carbon levels in our atmosphere well beyond the 350 parts per million that scientists agree is safe for earth. This addiction is also behind the devastating famine in East Africa, rising temperatures in the Middle East, and floods in Pakistan that displaced millions of people.

But if President Obama approves the Keystone XL Pipeline, we will beg to have today’s comparatively comfortable weather patterns returned to us.

World-renowned climatologist Jim Hanson explains that if Alberta’s 300 billion barrels of tar sands oil are released into the earth’s atmosphere, we are effectively signing our own death sentence. Since we share an atmosphere, President Obama has the power in his hands, right now, to decide whether we in the Middle East (and others in Europe, Africa, Antarctica, South America, and Australia) have a future. That’s a lot of pressure to put on one man.

The weight of the world

It would be an easy call if  special interest groups and the right wing weren’t holding a political gun to the President’s head. Politically, Democrats risk seeming weak on domestic security if they don’t approve this pipeline, but we’ve seen in the Middle East that environmental pressures will eventually create even more serious security risks.

Consider the economic insecurity associated with stronger hurricanes (Irene is heading for the East Coast as we go to press), more drought in Texas, an equally dry Mexico and subsequent influx of desperate immigrants. And what of the country’s nuclear power plants, two of which were shut down after yesterday’s earthquake in Virginia that was felt as far north as Toronto, Canada? Do we want another Fukushima disaster on our hands?

Oil industry people will worry about the loss of income that would result from an energy independent America, a valid concern, except China will be happy to step in and buy up all of our oil. That’s not enough to convince leaders in the Middle East to pressure Obama to make the right decision. But climate change should.

Jordan and Yemen are running out of water. Israel will rely almost exclusively on desalination in the next two years, and the UAE and other Gulf countries already do. These are just a few of the problems we have to confront as a warming planet wreaks havoc on our climate. Each year, we set new records for high temperatures in a region that is already almost unbearable during summer. Do we really want TransAmerica Pipeline, other rich oil barrens, and the American right to decide an even more miserable future for us?

1.15 Billion tons of CO2

The Guardian reports that the Australian Government released a study called the Critical Decade Report which showed that humanity has a chance of surviving if we can keep this century’s carbon emissions below 1 trillion tons. Just 20% into the decade, and we have already released 300 billion tons or 30% beyond what is sustainable (and continue to produce more oil-hungry humans at an exponential pace). In 50 years, the Keystone XL Pipeline alone is expected to release a further 1.15 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, so that Americans don’t have to pay reasonably high prices at the gas pump, eat less food, or focus their collective attention on developing renewable energy alternatives.

Bill McKibben from 350.org, who we have interviewed on Green Prophet, is behind one of the largest civil disobedience efforts to take hold of America in far too long. He and other career scientists have been arrested for blocking a road to the White House to urge President Obama to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline.

One has to think: what would cause hundreds of America’s most reserved and studious citizens to risk having a criminal record? Probably only something incredibly serious. We ought to take note, and we ought to give them our support.

More on 350.org and the fight to curtail carbon emissions:

Interview: Bracing for a Warmer Future with Bill McKibben

The Middle East’s Carbon Emissions at a Glance

Israel Plans to Combat Carbon Emissions

image via transition voice

The post Why the Middle East Should Definitely Support America’s Keystone XL Pipeline Protests appeared first on Green Prophet.

BrightSource Energy, the California based solar thermal energy company whose technology as innovated in Israel, and whose solar “star” was even touted by US President Barack Obama, is now in financial hot water again as its joint oil recovery project with giant energy company Chevron, appears to have incurred “significant cost overruns”, according to Reuters.

The oil recovery project, in which BrightSource’s patented solar thermal technology would be used to inject high pressure steam into oil wells to help Chevron soften the oil, would help pull out deeply embedded “heavy oil”. The company is incurring heavy financial losses of about $40.2 million, which company officials claim is $29.7 million more than “originally anticipated”.

BrightSouce, which in the past had its mega solar energy projects in California even shelved at one point due to environmental and other issues, seemed to be improving its energy image, following the US president’s endorsement, and the promise of over $1 billion in loan guarantees from the US government.

But the company may now have gotten itself into both financial and environmental trouble again by becoming involved in a project that smacks of similarity with the Alberta Tar Sands  project in which another Israeli founded company, Ormat Industries is involved in.

In filing the operating loss statement, BrightSource still believes that its solar generated steam technology can significantly help Enhanced Oil Recovery projects (EOR) like the one with Chevron. The companies were to extract the sticky black substance that many environmentalist attribute to the sad state of global warming and climate change that the plant earth is presently in. The EOR project was expected to go live this year, but unforeseeable engineering costs, and weather related events has seriously affected the financial forecast of the company.

For its part, BrightSource might better consider improving its solar thermal technology to create energy from solar sources instead to helping to extract more fossil based energy from the ground.

Read more on BrightSource  company projects:
Obama touts Israel developed Solar Company Bright Source
Bright Source Expands on Coyote Land in Nevada
Bright Source Gets a Billion
BrightSource Solar Energy Project in Mojave Desert Shelved

The post BrightSource-Chevron Joint Solar Project To Extract Heavy Oil, Suffers Losses appeared first on Green Prophet.

A senior economist at HSBC claimed in a recent report that the world’s oil resources are only expected to last five more decades, according to the New York Times. An earlier report from Wikileaks that Saudi Arabia’s peak oil is expected to happen much sooner than thought and desperate measures by mega oil companies corroborate this notion. In the meantime, we can expect a series of “persistent and painful” price hikes in the coming decades.“We’re confident that there are around 50 years of oil left,” Karen Ward, the British bank’s senior global economist, said in an interview on CNBC.

Rising population, particularly in China, are putting huge stresses on oil production. By 2050, HSBC estimates that an additional one billion vehicles on the roads will eat up oil reserves.

Substitutes such as bio-fuels and (heaven forbid) synthetic oils derived from coals might be able to alleviate strain, but will only become viable once oil prices top $150 a barrel.

HSBC believes that the last few decades of oil will have a tremendous impact on economic power, and that power will shift to more oil-wealthy nations. Europe, for example, is not expected to fare well.

Meanwhile, as supplies dwindle, the oil industry is pressing forward with increasingly ruinous projects such as the Canadian tar sands, arctic drilling, dangerous off-shore projects the likes of which led to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster last year, and oil shale drilling.

Referencing the end of oil and our ability to bounce back with renewables, Richard Heinberg from the Post Carbon Institute said at a recent speech to Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduates, “in my darker moments I fear that we have already waited too long and that it is already too late.”

He also said, and we agree, that he hopes that is not the case.

:: New York Times

More on oil in the Middle East:

Interview with American Oil Shale Expert Jeremy Boak

Saudi Arabia to Replace Oil with Sun Power

How Saudi Arabia Plans to Win the Food War

image via XcBiker

The post Oil Will Be A Past Relic When Today’s Babies Hit Fifty appeared first on Green Prophet.

Climate activist groups have been attacking Saudi Arabia, saying the Middle East country is playing an obstructionist role at climate change talks. According to Derek Armstrong, from Persona Corp, Canada and their tar sands projects, should be the one taking a beating at this month’s climate change talks at Copenhagen. Armstrong has written a report on Canada’s failure to safeguard nature and people from the effects of the tar sands, not to mention the climate impact. Read on for the whole story:

“You can’t go for a walk in the forest without having an impact, because you left a footprint. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go for a walk in the forest,” Brian Ferguson, CEO, Cenovus Energy Inc., a company that owns interests in the Alberta tar sands development.

In these pre-Copenhagen days, Canada has become a bit of a whipping boy over its environmental record, especially regarding the Alberta tar sands, that vast (149,000 square kilometers) bleak area where forests have been clear-cut and the earth dug up to get at the black, oil-rich dirt.

Foreign journalists, politicians and environmentalists have attacked Canada for obstructing progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and for putting profit before care of the environment. George Monbiot of the Guardian wrote: “The immediate threat to the global effort to sustain a peaceful and stable world comes not from Saudi Arabia or Iran or China. It comes from Canada. How could that be true?”

How indeed? Canada a greater threat to the world than Iran?

It is well known that Canada is one of the world’s worst polluters, on a per capita basis, far worse than China or India, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper prefers to focus on a different statistic: with an estimated 178bn
barrels of oil reserves (counting the tar sands), Canada is second only to Saudi Arabia in the amount of oil it holds.

This is what he means when he says that Canada is destined to be an “energy superpower.” And despite falling oil prices due to reduced demand since 2008, and a rash of suspended or canceled oil recovery projects, the potential is there for hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenue and millions of man-hours of employment.

This will depend to a degree on rising prices for oil—it is vastly more costly to extract a barrel of oil from tar sands than to pump it out of the ground—but no government could turn its back on that kind of potential wealth.

For this reason, according to Brian Ferguson of Cenovus Energy Inc., the entity created by EnCana Corp. to take care of its tar sands development, the governments of Alberta and Canada need to do more to defend their work against the environmentalist lobby and to educate Canadians about the importance of the resource for energy security and economic benefits. And at the Copenhagen conference, Harper has to make sure that world leaders and others understand the whole story, “not just sort of one side.”

Carbon Capture and Storage: the prime minister’s best defence

Part of that story will undoubtedly be Carbon Capture and Storage. The prime minister will certainly play the CCS card at Copenhagen to show that Canada is a “leading” player in the fight to clean up the environment, and he will point to the just-announced Alberta Carbon Trunk Line, the world’s largest carbon capture and storage pipeline, in Alberta.

The 240-kilometer pipeline will capture emissions and pump them underground, with the capacity to
transport 14.6 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. This, officials say, is the equivalent of the emissions created by 2.6 million cars in a year. The line will form the backbone for a future network of
carbon capture projects, with new oil companies connecting to the network as needed.

This latest announcement comes a month or so after the two governments announced a carbon capture system to be developed with Royal Dutch Shell and a similar system at a coal-fired plant owned by TransAlta Corp. A fourth project is to be announced December 2, worth another $200 million. All together, the carbon capture projects represent about $2 billion in funding, proving, according to the government of Canada, that they are serious about this.

Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt declared that CCS technology was Canada’s “best chance to capture emissions.” It remains to be seen whether the systems will work. They have not been tested and the technology is new.

More importantly, there’s no guarantee the projects will actually go ahead. Even if they do, none will be operational until 2015 at the earliest. They will have no impact for at least five more years on Canada’s steadily rising emissions.

Tailing ponds: are they safe?

While the tar sands are seen as a major contributor to the problem of global climate change, what is not as likely to come up in Copenhagen is the effects of the exploitation of the tar sands on the environment and people in the immediate vicinity.

The most visible element of this local issue is the tailing ponds created to hold the massive amounts of spent water needed for the process of extracting oil from the sands.

As of June, 2008, according to a report entitled Watered Down: Overcoming Federal Inaction on the Impact of Oil Sands Development to Water Resources, 720 million cubic metres of toxic water sat in these tailing ponds, covering an area of 130 square kilometers. If these ponds are breached, or their toxic water seeps into ground and surface water, the results could be catastrophic for humans and wildlife.

There have already been wildlife kills, most prominently the deaths of over one thousand migrating waterfowl that landed in a pond. Of even greater concern is the effects of all this toxic water on the First Nations people who depend on the Athabasca River from which the water is diverted in the first place. There is mounting evidence that the people of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, are dying in unusually high numbers of rare cancers. Fish caught in the river are showing tumours and other abnormalities.

Environment Canada says it is investigating whether the tailing ponds are in fact contaminating ground water, and Shell Canada, says all is well, with “no measurable effect on groundwater or river water.”

A Suncor spokesman assures us that the tailing ponds were designed by experts to prevent leaking, so they must be safe. Experts can’t be wrong, can they? Meanwhile, the Alberta Energy and Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) released rules in 2009 regulating the recovery of solid materials from the tailing ponds and requiring companies to submit management plans by September 30, 2009. Directive 074 of these rules concerns the removal of fine mineral solids from the water and the disposal of these solids in specially designated areas.

According to the authors of Watered Down, Harper’s government is failing to enforce existing laws protecting land, forests, water, fish, birds and wildlife and needs to take a much more active role in protecting the
environment from potential disaster.

They recommend that the government

• Establish enforceable standards under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act for key toxic substances created by oil sands activity.
• Lead a process to create a water-sharing agreement between itself and Alberta, the
Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, and Aboriginal governments.
• Establish strict, enforceable, and protective limits on water withdrawals [from the Athabasca River].
• Conduct a comprehensive peer-reviewed assessment of the health impacts of industrial oil sands development on the residents of First Nations and Métis communities.
• Require the completion of a comprehensive cumulative effects assessment and establish binding limits that protect the natural environment based on that assessment.
• Identify and protect the habitat of listed species at risk in the region affected by oil sands activity.
• Implement the Migratory Birds Act and prosecute bird deaths on tailings ponds.
• Assume the leadership responsibility for monitoring the environmental impacts of oil sands development.
• Institutionalize proactive measures requiring oil sands operators to pay for the environmental damage caused to water resources.
• Set and adopt absolute targets for greenhouse gas reductions.

Quite a list when you consider that, according to the oil companies, there’s no problem at all.

Stephen Harper likes to talk about setting “realistic” goals for carbon emissions, goals that are achievable, not just fine-sounding. Most reasonable people would accept that approach. Better to promise something
you can do than promise something you can’t, provided that you intend to make good on the promise.

Yes, Canada is a bigger country to get around in than little England, so we use more energy for transportation; a colder country than Spain, so we need more heating oil; more dependent on fossil
fuel energy than Iceland. Canada is a developed country with huge infrastructure needs and certainly no politician would dare do anything that would threaten our standard of living.

These realities can’t be denied, but they can’t be used as excuses any longer to do nothing. Considering that
Canada’s emissions have steadily risen since it signed the Kyoto accord, an accord Stephen Harper repudiated from day one, it is time for Canada to finally do something—anything—to clean the tar off its face.

::Official Wire

The post Canada Worse Than Saudi Arabia, Considering Tar Sands Impact on Global Warming appeared first on Green Prophet.