Tar Sands

Lost in the heated arguments over Kinder Morgan's proposed Trans Mountain pipeline is this simple fact: more than a quarter of the bitumen flowing through it will end up as pollution spilling into our oceans — one way or the other.

All the bitumen that doesn't spill from pipelines or tankers gets burned, ending up as carbon pollution dumped into our environment. Over one quarter ends up in the oceans, acidifying them for millennia to come.

[Editor's Note: It is well known that other indigenous peoples are leading the no pipeline movement and support an oil tanker moratorium on BC's coast.]

A First Nations’ led $17-billion oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast has put in motion a back-up plan to site its terminal across the border

February 6, 

https://globalnews.ca/news/4000125/suncor-union-outcry-automation-oilsands-jobs/

Nov 27, 2017 - Arguably the most important thing to your future that's happened lately is the international effort to confront climate change, but much of the public is unaware and uninterested, and news coverage is puny or nonexistent.

Canada's largest national park – established 95 years ago to protect the last herds of northern bison – is deteriorating and faces significant threats from climate change and industrial development, says an international agency that monitors world heritage sites.

The International Union on the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is based in Switzerland and was established in 1948 to encourage conservation and natural diversity, released a World Heritage Outlook report this week that examines the condition of ecologically important sites around the globe.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna helped bring more than 25 new governments on board for a Canadian and British push to power past coal on Thursday at international climate change talks.

EDMONTON — The Canadian government says it lacked the scientific evidence to determine if oilsands tailings ponds were leaking into waterways and hurting fish.

But the government says it continues to work on methods to determine if chemicals associated with bitumen in groundwater are natural, or the result of industry.

The government has provided a response to a call from the environmental arm of NAFTA to explain what Canada is doing to stop oilsands tailings ponds from leaking into Alberta waterways.

The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) has approved a tailings management plan from oilsands giant Suncor, despite the plan relying on “newly patented, unproven technology” that will require decades of monitoring.