Energy Onslaught

Canada’s energy industry has an agenda that is at odds with our Kyoto commitments and will profoundly impact our environment.  Dirty oil, nuclear power plants and large scale industrial hydro projects are affecting our forests, water, animals, and lives.

Currently, Canada is home to the second largest reserves of oil in the world.  However, most of that oil is located in the Alberta Tar Sands and the extraction methods are anything but environmentally-friendly.  Oil production from the Tar Sands has increased over the years and is expected to produce at least 3 million barrels of oil a day by 2018.  Meanwhile, each barrel of oil requires up to 5 barrels of water.  In addition, it is estimated that the production of oil from the Tar Sands is up to 300 times more dirty than the production of conventional oil.  With growing energy demands in the U.S., more and more of our oil is being produced to be shipped down south.

Nuclear...
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Campaigns

Caribou Commons
Green Energy
Mackenzie Wild
Protecting Marine Areas from the Threat of Oil and Gas Development
Tar Sands
Oil Sands Independent Toxins Report
2 Sep, 2010   |   Excerpted from the report: "We show that the oil sands industry releases the 13 elements considered priority pollutants (PPE) under the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act, via air and water, to the Athabasca River and its watershed. In the 2008 snowpack, all PPE except selenium were greater near oil sands developments than at more remote sites. Bitumen upgraders...
Renner Dismisses Oilsands Toxins Report
1 Sep, 2010   |   EDMONTON — Alberta's environment minister disputed the conclusions of a controversial oilsands study Tuesday, saying it's likely that increased toxins in the Athabasca River are due to natural causes. But Rob Renner admitted he hadn't read the paper and could point to no peer-reviewed data or studies to back up his assertion. "My scientists are telling me that the...
Canada Tar Sands Industry Ignoring Toxic River Pollution
1 Sep, 2010   |   Canada's rapidly expanding tar sands industry is causing the toxic pollution of its rivers, but the government of Alberta continues to deny there is a problem. A two-year study of the Athabasca River by ecologists at the University of Alberta found levels of arsenic, copper, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel, silver and zinc far in excess of national guidelines downstream from industrial...
Alberta Government gives cash to anti-oilsands documentary
1 Sep, 2010   |   The province's Culture Minister admits the makers of the movie Dirty Oil, which will make it's Calgary debut later this month, were given a grant worth almost $55,000. Lindsay Blackett tells 660News the decision to approve the subsidy is now a little difficult to swallow. Blackett says the movie did meet the necessary criteria to receive the money through the province's...
New Study Links Tar Sands to Carcinogens
31 Aug, 2010   |   A new study led by University of Alberta ecologist Dr. David Schindler and published in the renowned Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences makes some alarming conclusions about the water near the tar sands. After monitoring 60 sites along the Athabasca River and its tributaries, Dr. Schindler concluded the tar sands have added carcinogenic toxins to the area environment....
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