It’s time for “International Save the Tar Sands from Eco-Hypocrisy Day” — every day. We need to stand up and say to these self-righteous international environmentalists who want to tell us what to do with our oil sands: “Clean up your own backyard.”
The following groups recently sponsored an ad demanding a new environmental panel to oversee the oil sands. Last I knew, they were not citizens of Canada — but they are eco-hypocr-idiots!
The Rainforest Action Network want to shut down the tar sand’, and the Girl Scouts.
Did you know Girl Scout cookies are really bad for the environment? Just sign an email form letter on the RAN site. “.... break the link between the Girl Scout cookies and rainforest destruction.”
Then there’s California-based Global Community Monitor. “Over the past dozen years, GCM, a project of the Tides Center, has developed and pioneered the use of “bucket brigades” . . . as a method for communities to document and understand the impacts of industrial pollution, to launch advocacy efforts against polluters, and to win stunning victories.”
The “Tides Center”...hmmm that murky, many tentacled foundation that has funded several dozen spin-off enviro-orgs in Western Canada? What’s up with that?
They should take their Bucket Brigades to the flooding American mid-West if they really want to help someone.
Oddly the Nebraska Sierra Club is very concerned for “the welfare of aboriginal communities in northeastern Alberta” instead of taking care of a looming Fukushima-like enviro-crisis in their own backyard.
In Nebraska, the bloated Missouri river came within 18 inches of “forcing the shutdown of Cooper Nuclear Plant at Brownville and the Fort Calhoun Stations near Omaha, Neb.” Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Sand-shortage-causes-concern-for-flood-fighters-1431537.php#ixzz1PshwF7f1
But they are out of sand for sandbags! Why isn’t the local Sierra Club busy with that? What kind of crisis could we have if the Cooper Nuclear Plant flooded? Will the downstream Missouri start to glow in the dark?
It gets worse . . . ”few days, the river is expected to rise as much as 5 to 7 feet above flood stage in much of Nebraska and Iowa, and as much as 10 feet over flood stage in parts of Missouri.”
Shall we mention that making sand bags is only possible on a mass scale through the use of fossil fuels and heavy equipment?
Maybe the RAN and Sierra would like to step in and stop these floods with some elbow grease and Bucket Brigades from GCM. Maybe they would like to walk several thousand more sand bags to the river. That would be a timely GHG-free rescue I am sure.
The National Wildlife Federation also hates the oil sands, but seems to have a soft spot for the mid-west flooding and you’d think all their attention would be on helping animals (or people!) there!
The Belgium-based Transport and Environment say on their web “Tar sands are one of the most polluting ways known to man for producing transport fuel. They also represent a huge climate change threat for our planet and are causing an ecological disaster in Canada...“ (so they say, but who are “they“?)
“They“ heat their homes and drive industry with natural gas from Russia, one of the most toxic and polluted countries on earth. H-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e-s. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=medvedev-calls-for-investment-to-cl
Another anti-oil sands campaigner is the U.K. Tar Sands Network. “The UK Tar Sands Network campaigns in partnership with Indigenous communities affected by the Tar Sands oil developments in Canada. . . the world’s most destructive project” (no source given for that questionable statement of ‘fact’ — I thought all of industrial China had won that prize!)
I wonder how they will take to the news that the oil sands are positively affecting indigenous communities in Alberta. “The latest information is 1,700 Aboriginal employees and over $5 billion in business between oil sands companies and Aboriginal businesses since 1997 with $1.3B of that last year! Three companies (Syncrude, Suncor and Shell) have each now achieved over $1B in Aboriginal spending).” (OSDG- Oil Sands Developers Group)
You mean the UK Tar Sands Network want to put all those hard working aboriginal people back on welfare? What kind of ‘partnership’ support is that?
I’m tired of these Nosey Parkers. Time to start the Alberta Global Eco-Watch Network (AGEW – pronounced “eh-goo”) and inundate them and their local governments with messages from us!
We Albertans want you Nosey Parkers to establish independent panels to clean up your own backyards! And we’ll be your panel experts because we’re very experienced and good at environmental management, because until now, we were busy in our backyard — unlike all of you.
Michelle Stirling Anosh is a Ponoka-based freelance writer.