I COPIED THIS ALSO : FACT #1: The Alberta oil sands have a huge carbon footprint. To illustrate, a Honda Accord burning tar sands gasoline has the same climate impact as a Chevy Suburban using conventional gasoline.1 FACT #2: The Alberta oil sands produce lakes of toxic sludge. A 2013 report concluded that an accident related to the failure of one of the oil sands tailings ponds could have catastrophic impact in the aquatic ecosystem of the Mackenzie River Basin due to the size of these lakes and their proximity to the Athabasca River. Also, according to documents from the Canadian government, the tailings ponds are leaking into and contaminating Alberta groundwater. FACT #3: In April, 2008 a flock of migrating ducks landed on a tar sands toxic lake and died. The owner of the toxic tailings lake, a tar sands company Syncrude, was fined $3 million in 2010 for the duck deaths. According to the CBC, “Syncrude lawyer Jack Marshall told the court that the company apologizes for the incident and recognizes it must do much better when it comes to protecting wildlife.” FACT #4: The Alberta tar sands are holding Canada back on climate change action. Canada would be on track to reduce climate pollution over the next decade if not for the planned expansion of the tar sands industry. Instead Canadian emissions are predicted to increase.4 FACT #5: The toxic tailing lakes are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. The toxic lakes in Northern Alberta span 176 square kilometers and can be seen from space. FACT #6: Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil. In 2004, oil sands production surpassed 160 000 cubic metres (one million barrels) per day; by 2015, oil sands production is expected to more than double to about 340 000 cubic metres (2.2 million barrels) per day. FACT #7: The oil sands operations are the fastest growing source of heat-trapping greenhouse gas in Canada. By 2020 the oil sands will release twice the amount produced currently by all the cars and trucks in Canada. FACT #8: Fully exploiting the tar sands could release more climate pollution than the USA and China combined – or EU plus China combined – have released in all their history. It could surpass all the oil ever burned by humanity.8 FACT #9: Emissions from the Alberta Oil Sands have increased some 267 percent between 1990 and 2011, according to Environment Canada, although per-barrel emissions have gone down a reported 26 percent. The overall increase of Canada’s expanding tar sands extraction, however, has the nation’s total emissions set to increase steadily over the next several decades. FACT #10: Climate pollution from producing tar sands oil is projected to hit 104 MtCO2 by 2020. That is twice current emissions from Norway or Bangladesh – and exceeds the combined emissions from 85 nations.10
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:44:09 +0000
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