Northern Gateway pipeline in Canada approved
Source: BBC
A non-binding resolution in Kitimat - one end of the proposed pipeline - saw a majority of residents vote against the project
Canada has conditionally approved a pipeline to bring oil from the Alberta oil sands to the country's Pacific coast over heavy criticism.
The 1,177-km (731 miles) pipeline project, known as the Northern Gateway, is expected to transport 525,000 barrels a day to Asia-bound tankers.
Mr Harper has said diversifying Canada's oil sands production is essential, especially after President Barack Obama has delayed a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring crude to the Gulf of Mexico.
The northern Alberta region has the world's third largest oil reserves, with 170 billion barrels of proven reserves, and 97% of its oil exports currently go to the US.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27896552
canuckledragger
(1,632 posts)Or our health once the inevitable spill happens.
He only cares who the highest bidder is he can sell our natural resources off to.
The North American governments will never meaningfully adopt any alternative, renewable energy sources on the large scale, so it's up to us individually to adopt measures on the small scale and reduce centralized energy dependence.
If the demand isn't there, neither are the profits and the power that goes with it.
hopemountain
(3,919 posts)and household by household, business by business, install and utilize non oil dependent energy sources. just like our ancestors did with windmills, water wheels, solar panels/solar ovens. not only can we do it, we must do it because corporatists and corporatists controlled government sure as hell will not. they do not, as you say, give a shit about any one of us.
delrem
(9,688 posts)The first step is creating a sustainable culture person by person, in the soul.
It's happening.
But the next step has to be political/electoral, and we MUST get over the idea that we can choose our political parties/persuasions in the same way as we can choose our favorite media pundits, entertainers, and etc., as if political rectitude is nothing you can't buy at some _Shoppers Discount and Savings_ store. As if it could come in a package with the right colored bow wrapping it.
We MUST take our politics back from the corporatocracy, or a better descriptive, the plutocracy. We MUST be more than passive consumers.
Thespian2
(2,741 posts)the bastard Harper wants to turn Canada into the USA. His role model is George W. Bush, the war criminal who allowed Dick the Prick Cheney to destroy Iraq.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Of course they need it to keep up with their pollution spewing industries that spread to neighboring South Korea and Japan.
delrem
(9,688 posts)After all, this is CANADIAN tar that's at issue (to say nothing of CANADIAN coal).
China, I hear, has woken to the problem. Has Canada? Not likely. There's money to be made.
Oh yes, where exactly did "fracking" first become a major industry solution?
This isn't a time for jingoism.
eta: The Koch bros. are, of course, major tarsands players, and yes, the pipeline thru' the US will be built because you've got a tweedledum/tweedledee unity of political parties on economic/military/foreign-policy issues, coupled with a corporate monopolist press.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Yes, I think Canada is complicit for the pipeline. China is going to get oil whether or not the pipeline is built, so the pollution is their own problem. While China has taken steps to invest in clean energy, smog and dust pollute not only their country, but the countries around them.
Here in South Korea we get heavy doses of it in the spring and fall called "yellow dust" because it travels across the ocean with the sand from the desert and makes the sky look yellow. So does parts of Russia and Japan (although not as bad). Environmentally speaking, the pollution from China is killing people.
You might actually stop and take a look at the issue before jumping to conclusions about it being nationalism, because it isn't.
For anyone interested, the threat is bad enough that it is monitored for military personal for health reasons. The link provides the current yellow dust levels:
http://www.korea.amedd.army.mil/webapp/yellowSand/Default.asp
Yellow Dust:
Shanghai on April 3, 2007 recorded an air quality index of 500.[3] In the US, a 300 is considered "Hazardous" and anything over 200 is "Unhealthy". Desertification has intensified in China, as 1,740,000 km² of land is "dry", it disrupts the lives of 400 million people and causes direct economic losses of 54 billion yuan ($7 billion) a year, SFA figures show.[4] These figures probably vastly underestimate, as they just take into account direct effects, without including medical, pollution, and other secondary effects, as well as effects to neighboring nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Dust
delrem
(9,688 posts)So you don't think the $billion$ tar sands project, which includes the entire infrastructure of the project including means of delivery for the end product, has anything to do with the pollution generated by the project?
It must be sweet to be able to think like that.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Russia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, places in South America. What I'm saying is they will buy the oil no matter where it comes from. The demand is there and will continue to be there until the world pull it's collective head of their asses and does something about it. The Tar Sands project adds capacity to the market, I'm not so sure in the end that those who wanted it will be happy with the results both environmentally and economically.
Again, it's not about nationalism as you tried hard to make it out to be. It's about the damage being done by China NOW to people in their country and other countries. Please feel free to come visit in Seoul in the spring for about a week or 10 days. I'll drop you off somewhere and let you walk around for awhile and breathe the air so you can see for yourself.
delrem
(9,688 posts)After all, the topic IS the Alberta tar-sands (bitumen), which has to be washed down with obnoxious chemical liquifiers to flow through a pipeline at all, and I say it's also about the Canadian voter who collectively elected Stephen Harper (Reform/Conservative Party) with his entire Reform Party history to a majority gov't, giving Stephen Harper the defining and deciding power.
You might have a hate on for China. OK, that's fair enough. But the primary destination for Alberta tar-sands raw product is through the USA. My bet is that the full US route will be built (it is already well under way), just as Northern Gateway will be built, because there are already $billions$ invested over several years and the project is totally established, politically.
I'm from B.C. and of an age where I can remember controversies w.r.t. "raw logs" being shipped across the Pacific, rather than being finished over here. The deciding factor, of course, was and is that it is much *easier* to pillage the natural resources of Canada, than it is to harvest them wisely, and that those who've taken this easier route use their money and political clout to make the pillaging even easier and more instantly profitable for themselves, the winners. It's the exact same scenario with Alberta's "dirty oil".
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I dislike China for many reasons, but the pollution they cause is a FACT. It is also a FACT that their pollution causes damage to other nations in the region. It's not even disputable.
My point was about China's pollution.
YOU made it into a nationalism issue, not me.
I never said I agree with the pipeline.
delrem
(9,688 posts)bye.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Apparently the entire "Pacific Rim" is very unhealthy due to pollution. All of our manufacturing jobs that went over there are causing the entire area to become toxic. Sorry for your woes. My fear is that if TPP passes, we will
1, have no legal recourse with respect to the pollution
2. Re-patriate some of those jobs, at pennies on the dollar and including the pollution
delrem
(9,688 posts)it gave its blessing to extreme right wing economic and foreign policy.
And we've got it - we've got a political leader who is to the right of George W. Bush.
I'm Canadian.
There's no way Canadians didn't know what they were doing when they cast their ballots for this extreme "Reform Party" leadership. I hold Canadians as a whole to blame, not just those who voted "aye", but also those (myself included) who've been asleep at the switch, who've been too damn lazy, complacent, and selfish to do even a token bit of work to fight these fascists (oh yes, these types, "Reform" is very much "Tea", are in their very bones fascist and intent on deepening fascist rule).
It's a terrible terrible thing that we Canadians caused to happen and the damage has only begun.
ancianita
(35,813 posts)LiberalLovinLug
(14,154 posts)This is only a predictable ruling. It means nothing. A Conservative PM, from Alberta, who muzzled scientists and their findings, took away funding abilities of environmental groups (if whatever they did could in any way be interpreted by Harper as "political" .
As a BCer, be assured, THEY WILL NOT PASS through our Province.
Northern Gateway is already inundating our airwaves with a horde of commercials to try and sway us over. This will go on for years. There are at least 5 different court cases, and the First Nations are not going to stand for it going through their lands.
As an artist, I am set to make some big statements.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)unlike Keystone XL.
But hope you guys can get rid of Harper and Company before this thing gets built.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)laden with unrefined, and unrecoverable dilbit, I think the toxic fallout could affect coastal areas from Washington to Alaska.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)thecytron
(49 posts)The opposition parties spent no time to rally the troops in preparation for the upcoming 2015 Federal election.
The Liberals, the NDPs, the Greens, all stands up to free us from the Harper insanity syndrome.
Would they delivered on the promise to cancel this mad, mad, mad project, if anyone was to be elected?
Personally, I'm not holding my breath!
Keep up the fight!!!