Macleans - "Alberta Stands Accused" - Already, Fish From The Athabasca Smell Like Gasoline

[hatrack]

Left unfettered, Alberta's energy sector will, by the end of this century, transform the southern part of the province into a desert and its north into a treeless, toxic swamp. Driven both by global warming and oil and gas developments, temperatures in Alberta will soar by as much as eight degrees. The Athabasca River will slow to a trickle, parching the remainder of the province's forests and encouraging them to burst into flame, generating vast quantities of CO2. "They're going to be the architects of their own destruction," says journalist William Marsden, whose new book outlines the environmental threats posed by Alberta's energy industry.

Even now, fish pulled from the Athabasca downstream of the oil sands taste of gasoline and smell of burning galoshes in the fry pan. The landscape is perforated by more than 300,000 oil and gas wells. Water in some areas to the south can be set alight with a match, likely due to coal-bed methane developments. Doctors administering to Aboriginal communities not far from the oil sands report high rates of thyroid conditions and rare diseases such as cancer of the bile duct. Some from those communities have been employed at the oil sands raking in the carcasses of ducks floating on vast pools of rotten water, the by-product of the sands' oil-extraction methods.

Such are the claims contained in Marsden's upcoming Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn't Seem to Care), which presents a scenario almost too frightening to contemplate and suggests Alberta may already be too far gone for redemption -- indeed, that it is environmentally doomed. "When you start digging up an area equivalent to the state of Florida, when you start carpet-bombing your province with oil and gas wells, and at the same time, you've got global warming drying up the glaciers and your rivers -- you're kind of looking at a doomsday scenario," he says. "It sounds bizarre, but it's an absolute possibility that they could be literally destroying themselves."

Marsden argues Alberta's political leadership has consistently neglected -- in an almost willful, pathological way -- to curb the destruction wrought by industry. Former premier Ralph Klein for years rejected placing controls on Alberta's energy sector and, according to Marsden, ordered the dismantling of oversight bodies that might have monitored the degradation, the extent of which remains somewhat unclear today as a result. Marsden charges the province with marginalizing scientists who sound warnings on the environment, quoting Rod Love, Klein's long-time chief of staff, dismissing them as "flakes."

EDIT

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20071008_110103_110103&source=srch&page=1

[poopfuel]

1. Yep. More significant in terms of environmental damage

than any biofuel can come close to being. Production of biofuels couldn't even approximate this kind of damage and pollution.

And then there are the stories out now saying, Oh, Gosh, it turns out GAS PRICES were the reason for higher food costs more than ethanol ever was. But the damage was done. Good old American journalism. Shoot first, make corrections later.

People screaming about the "evil biofuels" better turn their guns on Big Oil because this tar sand stuff is what they have in mind for us for the next xx years.
Dirty, filthy polluting crud. All so we can drive forever from exurb to suburb.

Thanks, oil companies. You and your kind should be hauled off to prison.

[GliderGuider]

2. Why not turn your guns on both biofuels AND big oil?

Look at the deforestation, habitat destruction and CO2 release that's happening in Indonesia and Malaysia as they burn forests to put in palm oil plantations. That's at least as destructive as tar sands development. There are no good guys in the liquid fuel end of the energy business.

[poopfuel]

7. no, it is not anywhere NEAR as destructive

The abuses in other countries in biofuels are being dealt with on an international level. Most deforestation is happening in our world because of cows and meat.
I don't see anyone paying attention to tar sands in a big way. Big Oil is MUCH more powerful here and is scrambling to maintain its profits without concern for the environment. Same as it ever was..

You have written support for jatropha and self sufficiency in Mali. Great. This is what I have been trying to tell people about.
This is the kind of thing that is in the book, Alcohol Can Be a Gas. I suggest you look at it. There are excerpts online.
There is such a thing as sustainable, permaculture ethanol. There is such a thing as good guys who want to do biofuels right.
I see no such people in the oil industry.

Me, I'm going to start an energy cooperative running cars on pure ethanol. No exhaust, no pollution.
Then I'm going to get farms upstate to cooperate in building an ethanol manufacturing plant, smaller scale.
I intend for this plant to be produced sustainably. It's cheaper AND less destructive.

And it certainly beats using gasoline, a toxic garbage product. Thom Hartmann said yesterday that in progressive Oregon, the percentage of gasoline that contains benzene is 35%. They don't allow that much benzene in L.A.

Big Oil's gift to our children. I say the focus should be on them and only them. In the book, we talk about how they lied, cheated and blackmailed ethanol out of business in the early years. Basically, they'll do that again and again.

I could go on but I have work to do.

[applegrove]

3. That sounds like an all to likely scenario.

[bananas]

4. No, they TASTE like gasoline, they SMELL like burning galoshes when cooking.

"taste of gasoline and smell of burning galoshes in the fry pan"

[hatrack]

5. Of course, taste and smell ARE intimately related . . .

:toast:

[ramapo]

6. It was such a beautiful place

Saw it in the late '70s. Always wanted to go back...not so sure now.