Tag Archives: tar sands

Tar Sands for the week (May 20, 2014).

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Tar Sands. On that, I want to talk about the anti-war movement of the time before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the time between the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in various parts of the United States and the ultimate invasion of the completely uninvolved sovereign state of Iraq, quite literally millions upon millions of people flooded the streets of the imperialist countries that stood to gain the most from just such an invasion. Perhaps tens of millions were mobilized in the UK alone; Canada, later to lead the invasion and overthrow of Haiti as a “sorry” to the United States war plans, played a peripheral role.

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Tar Sands for the week (May 13, 2014).

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First off, my apologies for not posting for two weeks, travel and other commitments did not allow for the weekly blog. Here, once again, is a weekly tar sands stream of thoughts.

–Macdonald

**

Well, it seems that two weeks off for travel has left wide open new tar sands stories. Such is the nature of this struggle. But that’s it, perhaps in another way. While the overall popular sentiment against tar sands in particular– along with fracking, mountain top removal and climate change itself– the demands have not grown much with the breadth of sentiment. This is, of course, not true of those who are resisting on a democratic, open and community level– fracking has been brought to attention by those who seek more than public relations. But as far as the struggle against tar sands as led by the structures of NGO’s we have repetition of failed demands. Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of Enbridge Gateway and big money organizing in BC. Continue reading →

Tar Sands for the week (April 22, 2014)

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One of the major ways in which social control is manifested most often in today’s decaying North American society is through marketing of supposed activist campaigns. Taking on the appearance of grassroots organizing, the centralized, top down nature of the “campaign” will seek to do two main functions: Usurp the role of the grassroots organizing that had previously taken place, and create and act out a narrative.

Much has been said of the first previously, but the second is perhaps more insidious. The recent example of– I’ve written this often enough I’m thinking it’s time to cut and paste– the Keystone XL being punted down the field by the Obama administration is a case in point. Capital has done what capital is wont to do; Centralized campaigning under a public relations exercise led by middle class climate scientist Bill McKibben publicly has declared that Keystone XL is a make or break point for the climate in the US.

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Tar Sands for the week (April 15, 2014).

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It seems everyone has their own way of interpreting the latest projections from the IPCC on climate change. The main points are repeated, restated, and as climate campaigners like to note– unambiguous rejection of fossil fuels. Indeed, as projected in many quarters before the fact, the emissions we are dealing with have been speeding up. These are all new, damning facts.

There are other projections as well. The level of energy-change required to deal with the climate crisis is spelled out, painstakingly, in both terms of reductions in emissions but not without replacing the level of fossil fuel energy with wind, solar and other renewables.

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Tar Sands for the week (April 8, 2014).

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Tar Sands. They may be the most destructive project in the history of humanity. Yes, all these megprojects combined together also create the largest project in the history of industrial developments– the Gigaproject. By linking projected developments associated with tar sands in northern Alberta all the way through to the North Slope in Alaska, possible connections to all three major oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and possibly even including Mexico itself via pipelines– oddly enough– that dip into and then back out of Mexico, taking bitumen on a little tour through territory captured through a different spate of violence during prior centuries.

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Tar Sands for the week (April 1, 2014).

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The funny thing about the construction of “debates” where none ought to exist is how “normal” they can seem. The tar sands are far from an exception to this often rule that emerges from manufactured consent. Take just the basic tone of a few articles that have come out in the press recently, nothing at all new, as it regards the supposed “results” of another report turned into greenwash by industry. The story is basically the same as before: Doctors and people recount the obvious, the Alberta medical examiner reports attempt to exonerate the province and by extension, the tar sands.

There is nothing new here– but the underlying story, of course, is that this may make the tar sands a “good idea,” if only economically. Really?

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Tar Sands for the week (Mar 25, 2014)

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A few years ago, I was living in the same Burnaby located apartment that I am now. I went outside and started to walk up the street to go to a local store, I certainly don’t remember which one at this time. When I got to the street adjoining the front of my apartment building the entire neighbourhood smelled of gas. It was a propane-like retching odour that went in my nostrils and quickly made me feel ill. Later that same day, parts of the road were cordoned off, and by the following day pipelines under the road were dug up, serviced in some manner and the smell of the gas went away.

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Tar Sands for the week (Mar 18, 2014).

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We do have a situation where the problems in the climate are not accidents. They are crimes. All apologies to the prison abolitionists reading this, but crimes mean there are also criminals. With criminals, that means perpetration has taken place… and thus, if what happened is against the interests of human beings, then for those human beings at least, the perpetrators are enemies.

Why do I say all of that? Simply because we hear it said often– the environmental movement doesn’t have enemies anymore, just “potential partners.” This is supposed to come from the belief that corporations can and will make the needed adjustments to allow life to continue. This conveniently avoids noticing that they not only created the problems in the first place, they approach environmentalists as enemies– even the ones who are, in point of real fact, actually their best allies.

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Doubling Tar Sands production for Imperial War

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The Geopolitical Outlook of Giant New Pipelines

Doubling Tar Sands production for Imperial War

by MACDONALD STAINSBY

The continuation of the North American master plan for energy continues unabated. The newest pipeline– along with the corridor pipeline through Toronto to Montréal and the Atlantic Coast in Maine that Line 9 is a component part of–could facilitate the doubling of tar sands crude available to distribute daily in a short number of years. Well over a million barrels a day (1.1 according to the proposals) alone would flow through the “Energy East” pipeline to a Saint John terminal –including the refinery owned by Irving, the traditional oligarchy that believe they own large sections of the Maritimes.

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Tar Sands for the week (Mar 11, 2014).

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I know it isn’t supposed to be like this. An engaged public, demanding action on climate in general and the stopping of new infrastructure for tar sands “oil” in particular, has been more than clear. In BC, opposition to the largest pipeline proposed (between 5-600 thousands barrels of oil a day– more than two giant mines worth) has been given near guaranteed approval, even with the knowledge that it means corporations and oil and gas have established near-total control over the decisions about development within the country. Continue reading →