Conscious efforts to subvert or otherwise corrupt organizations and individuals who are concerned about social issues is a sadly long tradition. The environmental movement is no exception. Through many front groups, financial wranglings through contributions and outright blackmail, industries have tamed or corrupted many of the organizations who were once among their greatest critics and opponents. The corrupting influence on the politics of the environment has left us with, at times, a movement that has yet to address the needs of fighting climate change immediately-- instead, calling for the slow changing of emissions from various parts of industrial life-- and protecting the biggest contributions to their myriad organizations. When budgets and mainstream appearances with politicians become the order of the day, effective protest is muted and rendered toothless.
A different kind of climate politics is needed
Environment Minister Baird even copied his Washington mentors by holding out to the last minute and then dramatically withdrawing his objections so that the vote could be unanimous.
by Ian Angus
January 16, 2008
“We are ending up with something so watered down there was no need for 12,000 people to gather here in Bali to have a watered-down text. We could have done that by email.” —Dr. Angus Friday, Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States
Globalization is Fueling Global Warming
by Les Leopold
AlterNet (December 28 2007)
As global warming negotiations move from Bali towards a worldwide
treaty, it is important to address how global warming and global trade
work hand-in-hand.
Globalization is to global warming what warm water in the Gulf of Mexico
waters was to Hurricane Katrina. And, unless we wisely limit rapidly
accelerating global trade, we will see equally disastrous and deadly
results - worsening global warming and a continued chemical poisoning of
our world.
What is it that prevents Pembina Institute and WWF from just saying "Stop!" to the tar sands instead of just lobbying to improve their "environmental performance." Maybe it is something to do with the fact that they both receive multi-million dollar funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, whose parent companies Sun Oil/Sunoco built the first tar sands project in 1967 and who continue to refine large amounts of sythetic tar sands crude oil in Ohio and are planning to extend tar sands supply pipelines as far east as their refineries in Philadelphia.
- Tarpit Pete
January 6, 2008
Government Responsible for Sustainable Tar Sands Development
by Rachel Penner de Waal
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
Alberta's current royalty regime has likely cost the province more in lost revenue than Trudeau's National Energy Program did, according to a senior policy analyst at the Pembina Institute.
TransCanada wins bid to build natural gas pipeline out of Alaska
January 4, 2008 - 18:57
By: Jeannette Lee, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) has beat out four competitors in a bid to build a natural gas pipeline out of Alaska that would supply energy to millions of consumers throughout North America, state officials announced Friday.
Ottawa too partisan on emissions
Dec 17, 2007 04:30 AM
Ian Urquhart
Under the proposed federal emissions trading program, tar sands developers will be eligible for up to $700 million in "carbon credits" – even as they increase their greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, Ontario will get nothing for closing its coal-fired plants, thereby eliminating about half of the province's greenhouse gas emissions.
Mackenzie partners see Ottawa aid
But No Financial Pledge
Jon Harding, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2007
CALGARY - Partners in the Mackenzie Gas Project have asked Ottawa to treat their stalled megaproject like Newfoundland's Hibernia project or the Syncrude Canada Ltd. oilsands mine in Alberta, both of which got federal support.
What do you know about the largest industrial project in human history?
EDUCATIONAL ON THE TAR SANDS
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18TH
6:30 PM ROOM 2270
SFU HARBOUR CENTRE
515 WEST HASTINGS
Come learn about the Alberta Tar Sands and its impact on indigenous rights, the environment, labour rights including migrant workers, as well as its global consequences in an era of oil-dependency, the War on Terror, and an expanding corporate regime through the Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement.
The Pew has apparently launched an all-out international media blitz about the tar sands, yet their actual position on the tar sands becomes murkier day by day. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that the Pew family built the first tar sands project in 1967 and that the Pew family continues to refine large amounts of mock oil through its company Sunoco. And that Suncor is also a partner in the Canadian Boreal Initiative.
- Tarpit Pete
Green leaves, black gold
By Sheila McNulty
Financial Times London
Crude awakening
Why are environmentalists asleep at the tar sands wheel?
BY Dru Oja Jay
Alberta’s tar sands are on pace to become the largest industrial project in human history. The development will arguably become the single most environmentally destructive undertaking in Canadian history. The response from environmental groups and progressives has been meek.
Stéphane Dion told The New York Times in 2005 that, “There is no environmental minister on Earth who can stop the oil from coming out of the sand, because the money is too big.”
