Tar Sands

People Seize Their Power, Challenge Enbridge

June 25, 2014 Staff, www.occupyriverwest.com Organize! Democracy, Energy, Pipelines, Tar Sands

Enbridge knew that the residents of Jefferson County, Wisconsin, were starting to catch on to the dangers of their proposed Line 61 tar sands pipeline expansion. So, in an attempt to create positive PR, Enbridge called for an event Tuesday night at the local Fort Community Credit Union called “Coffee and Conversation” in order to answer questions about the project. Enbridge set the agenda as well as the scope of the hearing, so nobody knew what to expect from the meeting. . . It became apparent that the company plan was to field questions from individual residents instead of holding a full group hearing. Enbridge clearly wanted to avoid a group encounter with concerned citizens. That’s when the people of Jefferson decided to take democracy into their own hands. Several of those frustrated by the company’s format for the evening started setting up chairs that were stacked on a wall in the room. Enbridge officials seemed perplexed as people started grabbing chairs and setting them into the room. At one point the lead Enbridge spokeswoman tried to tell those setting up chairs to move them to the back of the room . . . .

Women Of Action Against Violent Extraction Shuts Down Tar Sands Mine Construction

June 23, 2014 Peaceful Uprising, www.youtube.com Resist! Direct Action, Environment, Extraction, Tar Sands

Women of Action Against Violent Extraction joined the fight against tar sands development on the Colorado Plateau. The group used direct action June 16 to stop the lone bulldozer beginning construction on the US Oil Sands project. Deliveries of more and larger construction equipment are imminent. U.S. Oil Sands has leased and intends to destroy 32,000 acres of the East Tavaputs Plateau starting at PR Springs where a permanent protest vigil has been established by Peaceful Uprising, Utah Tar Sands Resistance and Canyon Country Rising Tide. WAAVE released the following statement regarding their action: "Development of tar sands and oil shale on the Colorado Plateau is a violent and dangerous act requiring a bold defense. The Colorado River system, which provides water to 40 million people in the US, Mexico and many indigenous nations, is already over-tapped and tainted by numerous industrial poisons. Dirty energy kills millions world over at the site of mines, refineries, and in downstream communities. Moreover, extreme extraction like tar sands strip mining threatens our hope for a livable planet."

The Final Tar Sands Healing Walk

June 17, 2014 Jonathan, www.onerivernews.ca Resist! Healing Walk, Indigenous Rights, Protest, Religion, Tar Sands

The fifth and final Healing Walk represents a milestone for local communities affected by Oilsands development. The final Healing Walk does not mean the problems faced have been solved, rather organizers say they have achieved the goals set out from the original Healing Walk, and it is time to move forward. The Healing Walk has successfully let local communities know they have support in facing the rapid industrialization of their home territories, as well as raised local and international awareness, and brought people together to pray for the land. Organizers feel it is time to support communities both in and now beyond the Athabasca. The Healing Walk this year will help move discussions forward and will include planning for events in new communities next summer, and planning on how to support more communities. Co-organizers R.A.V.E.N trust say, “While this may be the final Healing Walk in Fort McMurray, it is the beginning of the next stage of the journey.” They ask that as many people as possible please come and join help plan for the future.

2014 Vancouver Convergence To Protect Sacred Water

June 7, 2014 UBCIC, www.facebook.com Resist! Canada, Indigenous Rights, Protest, Tar Sands

2014 Vancouver Convergence To Protect Sacred Water From Tar Sands On June 8th, 2014--UN World Oceans Day--, there will be a march from Sunset Beach and rally at Vanier Park to protect sacred water from tar sands! The Harper Government is days away from announcing their decision on Enbridge's Northern Gateway Project. Join us to support all First Nations and all Peoples who will stand against pipelines to protect our coast, our waters and our future. Support the future of all of our children and grandchildren. We are all #SacredWaterWarriors Pass on the word. The Harper Government is days away from announcing their decision on Enbridge's Northern Gateway Project. Join us to support all First Nations and all Peoples who will stand against pipelines to protect our coast, our waters and our future. We are all #SacredWaterWarriors Pass on the word.

Mass Protest In Utah Over Tar Sands

June 7, 2014 EnviroNews DC, www.environews.tv Resist! Environment, Protest, Tar Sands, Utah

Even before Tom Weis made his call for people to show up at the site of U.S. Oil Sands tar sands development, Utah’s own Utah Tar Sands Resistance (UTSR) has been holding campouts at PR Springs to bring attention to the problem, accountability to the process and opportunities for people to learn about the beauty and wonder of nature that exists in the Eastern Utah environment. UTSR has ramped up its presence in PR Springs with a “permanent protest vigil.”The summer of protest will be punctuated by campouts for anyone who feels like he or she has a stake in the tar sands development and what it means for climate justice and health in the Uintah Basin. “This issue really does impact us all,” says Jessica Lee, one of the organizers at UTSR. The weekend of June 20, 2014 will feature an intergenerational campout specifically geared toward children and families. Lee describe last year’s intergenerational campout as a success and says she was surprised at what the children were able to learn over the course of a couple of days. The weekend of June 27 will concentrate on showing solidarity for the 5th annual and final Healing Walk, a protest against the Athabascan Tar Sands operation and the damage that it is doing to the environment and the people in the area. According to Lee, there will be discussions drawing connections will “for this global fossil fuel infrastructure.”

Activists Crash Corporate Beach Party

June 7, 2014 Rachel Bye Butler, www.treehugger.com Resist! Light Brigade, Protest, Tar Sands

"No Tar Sands!" That's the message the activist light brigade delivered to attendees of the Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego this week when they crashed the corporate beach party -- via kayak flotilla. You read that right: light brigade via kayak flotilla. The activists weren't invited to the corporate beach party at the conference, but they came anyway because the message is so important. America's biggest corporations are also America's biggest consumers of oil -- meaning that unless they institute policies to avoid the dirtiest sources of oil, they're also the largest consumers of fuel derived from tar sands. Mining, refining, and transportation of tar sands -- one of the dirtiest and most destructive sources of oil on the planet -- is an environmental and human catastrophe. But some companies, it seems, have not yet gotten the memo. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, as owner/operators of some of the largest private carrier vehicle fleets in North America -- with more than 100,000 cars and trucks combined -- haven't yet made the commitment to do the right thing and say no to tar sands.

Final ‘Tar Sands Healing Walk’ Simply A New Beginning

May 30, 2014 Derek Leahy, www.desmog.ca Strategize! Canada, Healing Walk, Tar Sands, Water

Organizers of the Tar Sands Healing Walk, a 14-kilometre spiritual walk through lands impacted by oilsands (also called tar sands) extraction in northern Alberta, have announced this year’s Healing Walk on June 28th will be the last. “It was a difficult decision to make,” admits Jesse Cardinal, co-organizer of the Healing Walk. “We felt the original goals of the healing walk of letting local communities know that they had support for the issues of mass industry in the territory and gaining further attention of the issues of tar sands development in a way that was non-aggressive were achieved.” “Our work will continue in the territory, with the people and communities, but, will look different, so I wouldn’t really call it an end, as a new beginning,” Cardinal told DeSmog Canada. Cardinal is a member of the Kikino Metis Settlement in northeastern Alberta. The Healing Walk is the only grassroots event to bring people face to face with Canada’s oilsands, one of the largest oil reserves and industrial projects in the world.

Permanent Protest Setup At Proposed Tar Sands Strip Mine

May 30, 2014 Peaceful Uprising, www.peacefuluprising.org Resist! Protest, Tar Sands, Utah

Last weekend, tar sands resistLast weekend, tar sands resisters new and old gathered in the Book Cliffs of so-called Eastern Utah, at PR Springs, site of the first proposed tar sands mine in the United States. This gathering marked nearly three years of observation, law suits, and direct action against the project, and signaled the beginning of a permanent protest vigil inside the boundaries of public lands leased for strip mining. U.S. Oil Sands, of Calgary, Alberta, has leased over 32,000 acres of land traditionally inhabited by Ute and Shoshone people. The land is now managed by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), and sits just outside the Northern Ute Ouray Reservation. The company has yet to begin full-scale production, and has spent the last year procuring their permits from the Department of Water Quality, wrangling $80 million from fly-by-night investors, and hiring Kellogg Brown & Root LLC (KBR) for project and construction management.

Canada Is Mistreating Environmental Journalists

May 25, 2014 Emily Atkin, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Canada, Energy, Environment, Media, Tar Sands

There are logical reasons why impeding environmental journalists could be in Canada’s interest. The tar sands are the third largest oil reserve in the world, and production is currently accelerating so quickly that the government predicts capital investments will reach $218 billion over the next 25 years. Part of that investment could come from the Keystone XL pipeline, the controversial proposal that, if approved, would bring up to 830,000 barrels of Canadian crude oil per day down to refineries in the U.S. So it makes sense that Canadian officials may want to prevent environmental perspectives on Fort McMurray’s vast tar sands reserves, which have replaced thousands of acres of boreal forest with massive refineries and sprawling mining sites — shiny, black excavated deserts that sit next to glowing white ponds of chemical waste. A small portion of boreal forest remains, but it doesn’t do much to cover the scars.

New Environmentalists Take Bold Action – It’s Working

May 25, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.alternet.org Educate! Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Tar Sands

No longer dominated by the traditional “Big Green” groups that were taking big donations from corporate polluters, the new environmental movement is broader, more assertive and more creative. With extreme energy extraction and climate change bearing down on the world, environmental justice advocates are taking bold actions to stop extreme energy extraction and create new solutions to save the planet. These ‘fresh greens’ often work locally, but also connect through national and international actions. The recent national climate assessment explains why the movement is deepening, broadening and getting more militant. The nation’s experts concluded that climate change is impacting us in serious ways right now.

Tar Sands Resistance Is Brewing In Québec

May 23, 2014 Jon Milton, www.rabble.ca Resist! Canada, Protest, Tar Sands

The area in Northern Alberta known as the Tar sands has been the subject of a raging debate over the past years. On the one hand, the business community claims the exploitation of the region's unconventional oil reserves to be Canada's most effective engine of economic growth and job creation; that further exploitation will allow for the country to become self-reliant in energy and end its dependence on foreign oil. The other side of the debate is often dismissed as being made up of environmentalists who care more for nature than their fellow human beings. Yet, everywhere that the debate has raged, the caricature of the environmentalist hippie has proven itself to be a straw-man. Québec, where a debate is currently in the works over TransCanada's proposed Energy East pipeline, is no exception. That prospective pipeline -- the largest planned in North America -- would pass directly through the city of Montreal and Québec's agricultural heartland: the Lower St Lawrence. I am currently taking part in a 700km march across Québec to protest Energy East, organized by concerned citizens who oppose the pipeline. It began on May 10 in Cacouna -- where TransCanada hopes to buy a public port and convert it into an export station for the Tar Sands -- and will end on June 14 in Kanehsatake.

Defend Our Climate, Defend Our Communities Actions

May 11, 2014 Staff, www.defendourclimate Resist! Climate Change, Energy, environme, Fracking, Tar Sands

There are numerous coal, fracking and tar sands development projects being pushed by government and industry in Canada including 6 pipelines: Energy East, Line 9, and the Great Lakes pipelines cross most of Canada's population's drinking water on their way to the East Coast; Kinder Morgan and Enbridge Northern Gateway will dramatically increase oil tanker traffic on British Columbia's coast, and Keystone XL runs from Saskatchewan through the heartland of the US. Not only do they carry heavy highly corrosive bitumen mixed with toxic chemicals that will have devastating health and environmental impacts in the event of a spill, they are projects that lock us into a fossil fuel dependent, dead-end economy while enabling tar sands growth that will destabilize our planet's climate.

Environmentalists Barred Again From Oilsands Hearings

May 7, 2014 Bob Weber, www.metronews.ca Resist! Canada, Environment, Tar Sands

The Alberta government has again barred environmental groups from hearings on an oilsands proposal in what conservationists say is a pattern of restricting public input on resource development. The move to deny standing to the Oilsands Environmental Coalition at hearings on a proposed new development by Southern Pacific Resource Corp. comes after a similar decision last fall was overturned by a judge. The judge urged the government to err on the side of openness when it decides who has the right to speak. “The government hasn’t learned its lesson from last time,” Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute, one of the groups in the coalition, said Tuesday. The institute is a non-profit think-tank focused on energy and climate change issues. Dyer said the coalition plans to appeal the second ruling. Alberta Environment first denied the coalition standing to present its concerns about the development on the MacKay River in northern Alberta in 2012. The project would expand an existing steam-assisted gravity drainage project to extract an additional 24,000 barrels of bitumen daily.

Tar Sands From Alberta Flowing To The Gulf Of Mexico

May 6, 2014 Steve Horn, www.desmogblog.com Educate! Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Tar Sands

TransCanada admitted for the first time that tar sands oil is now flowing through Keystone XL's southern leg, now rebranded the Gulf Coast Pipeline Project. The company confirmed the pipeline activity in its 2014 quarter one earnings call. Asked by Argus Media reporter Iris Kuo how much of thecurrent 530,000 barrels per day of oil flowing from the Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas pipeline is tar sands (“heavy crude,” in industry lingo), TransCanada CEO Russ Girling confirmed what many had already suspected. The Keystone Pipeline System — of which Keystone XL's northern leg is phase four of four phases — is and always has been slated to carry Alberta's tar sands to targeted markets. So the announcement is far from a shocker. More perplexing is why it took so long for the company to tell the public that tar sands oil now flows through the half of the pipeline approved via a March 2012 Executive Order by President Barack Obama.

Indigenous Lawsuits Could Paralyze The Tar Sands

May 6, 2014 Michael Toledano, www.vice.com Resist! Indigenous Rights, Tar Sands

Whether it calls the program “responsible resource development” or strives to become an “energy superpower,” Canada is digging up vast swathes of the earth and selling them as quickly as possible at the expense of the environment and aboriginal rights. In many of the treaty territories and unsurrendered First Nations across Canada, the constitutionally protected rights of indigenous people—including the right to hunt, fish, trap, and be consulted with and accommodated when new development is planned—are being increasingly overstepped by rapid industrial growth. After a frenzy of environmental de-regulation, undertaken by the fraudulently elected Harper Government at the request of oil lobbyists, indigenous rights remain as a last line of legal defence for the environment in Canada. “This is not an Indian problem anymore. If you breathe air and drink water, it’s about you,” said Crystal Lameman, a member of the Beaver Lake Cree. Her band is suing for an injunction in their traditional territories, which, if granted, could prohibit a third of planned oil sands development from moving forward without their consent. Theirs is one of the largest lawsuits of what the Canadian Press calls 2014’s “aboriginal legal onslaught” against the tar sands.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources