tar sands

By Lori Waller
Briarpatch Magazine
June/July 2008

Fort Chipewyan, a tiny northern Alberta hamlet perched on the shores of Lake Athabasca, is historically notable as the location of the province’s oldest European settlement, a trading post opened by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1788.

Mention Fort Chipewyan today, though, and what’s likely to come to mind for most Albertans is not the 18th century fur trade, but cancer.

The community’s residents, mostly indigenous Cree, Dene (Chipewyan) and Métis, are dying in alarming numbers from a variety of cancers and autoimmune disorders such as lupus and Graves’ disease. The situation was first exposed in 2006 when the town’s doctor, John O’Connor, went public with his findings that in this small community of 1,000, he had diagnosed at least three cases of a rare bile duct cancer that normally afflicts only one out of 100,000 Canadians.

Before going to the media, O’Connor had been trying for two years to convince the provincial authorities that something was very wrong in Fort Chipewyan. To this day, the province has taken little action, dismissing O’Connor’s concerns with a brief statistical report that found the rate of cancer in the hamlet, although 30 per cent higher than the rate for Alberta as a whole, was not statistically significant enough to be considered “elevated.” The report was heavily criticized by academics such as ecologist Kevin P. Timoney for its questionable statistical methodology and lack of peer review.

Many suspect that Fort Chipewyan’s health problems have something to do with the fact that it sits less than 200 kilometres downriver from the biggest industrial project on Earth-the wringing of oil from Alberta’s tar sands. It’s an endeavour that threatens to devastate not only the people of Fort Chipewyan, but dozens of indigenous communities throughout northern Alberta-and perhaps Canada’s entire Northwest.

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…back after a summer hiatus that raged out of control.

The B-List is your monthly media supplement of 7 recommended readings from beyond the Briarpatch.

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1. Canada’s Highway to Hell

The world’s last (and dirtiest) oil boom is under way in the boreal forests of Alberta. It’s destroying a wilderness the size of Florida.

By Andrew Nikiforuk
OnEarth Magazine
Fall 2007

To capture just one barrel of oil from this geologic pudding requires brute force. Great machines mow down trees (and all their supporting creatures such as boreal songbirds and woodland caribou), roll up acres of muskeg, drain entire wetlands, and reroute rivers. Next, for each barrel, workers must scoop up two tons of sand and wash the stuff in hot water. Even then the bitumen requires substantial upgrading to remove engine-clogging impurities. It costs more than 10 times as much to produce a flowing barrel of oil in this way than it does to produce a barrel of Saudi light oil. The entire process is fueled by natural gas, and the energy consumed is awesome: Every 24 hours the industry burns enough natural gas to heat four million American homes in order to produce one million barrels of oil.

http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/07fal/alberta1.asp

Also: Check out The Dominion’s special issue on the tar sands here:

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/issue/48

2. The Business Press & Me: A case of unrequited love

Finance journalists have attacked my book, but I remain devoted to their papers. After all, they supplied the facts I used.

By Naomi Klein
The Guardian
October 25, 2007

On a recent visit to Calgary, Alberta, I was taken aback to see my book on disaster capitalism selling briskly at the airport. Calgary is ground zero of North America’s oil and gas boom, where business suits and cowboy hats are the de facto uniform. I had a sudden sinking feeling: did Calgary’s business class think The Shock Doctrine was a how-to guide - a manual for making millions from catastrophe? Were they hoping for tips on landing no-bid contracts if the US bombs Iran?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2198483,00.html

Plus:

Read The Tyee’s review of Klein’s best-selling new book, The Shock Doctrine

http://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/09/11/ShockTherapy/

Double-plus:

Watch the short film by Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men, inspired by the book.

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film

3. Neocons on a Cruise

What Conservatives Say When They Think We Aren’t Listening

By Johann Hari
The Independent
July 18, 2007

I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. “Is he your only child?” I ask. “Yes,” she says. “Do you have a child back in England?” she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. “You’d better start,” she says. “The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they’ll have the whole of Europe.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/57001

4. The Environmental Keynesian Alternative

By Susan George
September 11, 2007

The only feasible way out of the ecological crisis is a new, environmental Keynesianism, bringing together government, corporations and citizens. The problem is to convince politicians that ecological transformation and environmental practices can pay off politically.

http://www.globalnetwork4justice.org/story.php?c_id=313

5. Introduction to Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines

By Richard Heinberg
MuseLetter #185
September 2007

The subtitle of this book, “Waking Up to the Century of Declines,” reflects my impression that even those of us who have been thinking about resource depletion for many years are still just beginning to awaken to its full implications. And if we are all in various stages of waking up to the problem, we are also waking up from the cultural trance of denial in which we are all embedded.

http://www.richardheinberg.com/museletter/185

6. Reasons Not to Glow

On Not Jumping Out of The Frying Pan Into The Eternal Fires

By Rebecca Solnit
Orion Magazine
July/August 2007

Chances are good, gentle reader, that you are going to have to sit next to someone in the coming year who will assert that nuclear power is the solution to climate change. What will you tell them?

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/316

7. Our Grand Ayatollah

Tom d’Aquino rules Canada’s fate. What does he want?

By Murray Dobbin
TheTyee.ca
September 12, 2007

We have come so far down the road of corporate domination of the public policy process that it is now simply taken for granted by both the Liberal and Conservative governments that Mr. d’Aquino will check out the budget and give it his blessing — or instructions on how that blessing can be achieved. This is not to say that he always gets everything he wants. He just gets everything he wants most of the time. He was particularly annoyed, for example, during the Chretien years because Chretien refused to increase military spending.

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/09/12/Ayatollah/

This month’s B-List compiled by Dave Oswald Mitchell

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