The truth is that blogs get as much attention as just another mosquito in the wildness of Ontario. No matter what the readership numbers, you never seem to reach the readers who can do something. They are too busy to read blogs. And after all, it is just one person’s
Continue readingTag: bitumen
Babel-on-the-Bay: Buffalo Declarations and other Bull.
There is an odour emanating from the politics of self justification in Alberta. And it is not that of the wild prairie rose. It is the greed and the false tears and it is the manure that helps it grow. I remember as a young man, standing at the government
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Have they ever lied to you before?
Teck Resources, the Vancouver-based company that wants to dig the largest open pit tar sands mine in Canada, tells us that the enterprise wants to be “carbon neutral” by 2050. I am sorry, but if you cannot meet emissions targets by next year, I am not interested. And who said
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Trans Mountain Pipeline court ruling looks like a win for Alberta — as the world drives away in an electric car
You win some, you lose some. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney won one yesterday with the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal to strike down a challenge by a group of four British Columbia First Nations and allow the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project to take another lurching step toward
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: From small creeks do mighty rivers flow.
From the Manchester Guardian to the Toronto Globe and Mail, there have been reports of our federal government scientists testing spills of diluted bitumen from Alberta’s tar sands. As one source pointed out to me, this was the government laboratory that former prime minister Stephen Harper forgot to shut down.
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The surreallity of life in Alberta
Living in Alberta, I sometimes get the feeling I live in a place shifted a few degrees off centre from reality. For example, in the real world we are faced with the overarching threat of global warming, a crisis we have brought down upon ourselves. But, despite near unanimous agreement
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: A tar sands story
Canadian Natural Resources, Canada’s largest oil and gas producer, has set an ambitious goal regarding greenhouse gas emissions. It has announced that by applying advanced technology, including carbon capture and storage, it will attempt to reduce the emissions from its tar sands operations to effectively zero. A laudable goal. This
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Harper’s proposed restrictions on bitumen exports caused no uproar – so why the fury at Justin Trudeau?
Late last week, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer was once again accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Government of wanting to phase out the oilsands, as he put it, and passing laws to put that putative plan into action. Notwithstanding a lack of persuasive evidence, the popularity of
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Eviscerating The Bitumen Bullshit
Give Jason Kenney, his predecessor, Rachel Notley, and our prime minister, Justin Trudeau, their due. When it comes to bitumen and bullshit they’ll lay it on just as thick as they can every chance they get. The Tyee’s petro-scribe, Alberta’s own Andrew Nikiforuk, systematically debunks every popular lie these characters
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Bank of Canada Warns: Beware of Carbon Dumpster Fires
Bad tidings for the Petro-Pols of Parliament Hill. The Bank of Canada warns of looming carbon-asset “fire sales” that could destabilize our economy. The shift to a low-carbon economy is “underway” and sectors like oil and gas, as well as the banks that loan money to them, are exposed to
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: What Yesterday Meant to Me
Since that first time I heard Greta Thunberg, I sensed that something wonderful might be about to happen. Eventually she inspired a resistance. The school children’s revolt and then Extinction Rebellion – children and adults saying there no longer could be, nor would be, tolerance of the status quo. As
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: BRITAIN WINS! Parliament Declares Climate National Emergency
From CNN: Lawmakers in the UK Parliament have declared “an environment and climate emergency,” making it the first country in the world to do so, according to the opposition Labour Party. The motion was called by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. WE DID IT! Thanks to pressure from the Labour
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Those Ever So Tarry Sands
You know your country has descended into a petro-state by the arguments it invokes to excuse itself. The classic Tory line that’s now the Liberal line is that, gee shucks, Canada is such a minor player that even if we stopped flogging bitumen it wouldn’t really change much. Even Environment
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: This Is What Gives Them Away
A lot of stupid people in Canada have come to think of Athabasca bitumen as “oil.” That is the single most important victory the petro-state has achieved. It’s not oil. It may be turned into oil at a distant refinery, probably in the States but we’re told even in Asia,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Trudeau’s Dodgy Ten Billion Dollar Bet
Justin Trudeau bet the farm on bitumen when he bought the Trans Mountain pipeline. Cutting a treasury cheque for $4.5 billion to the former owner, Kinder Morgan, and facing another $7 billion to complete the pipeline expansion, the Trans Mountain is a 40-60 year proposition for breaking even. Visions of
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The entitlement of being Alberta.
Have you ever felt the cold of Calgary in the loneliness of two AM walking about six city blocks from the Calgary Herald offices to your hotel? They said it was minus 35 Fahrenheit. I was wearing a Toronto top coat and low-cut shoes and was determined to step in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: All we got from Trudeau was a Ho-Ho-Ho.
How do you like that bunch of ingrates in Alberta? Prime minister Trudeau comes up with a $1.6 billion Christmas present for them and all they do is complain. Bet you just love the mental picture of premier Rachel Notley sitting on Justin Trudeau’s lap last time she was in
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Finance ministers can also lie.
Canada’s provincial finance ministers met last weekend for a play date with their federal counterpart. This was a follow-up to the first ministers meeting on the Friday. When Alberta finance minister Joe Ceci found that Quebec premier François Legault had left him a lump of coal, he got a bit
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Author Andrew Nikiforuk tells a bleak tale of squandered opportunities, wilful blindness on energy policy
By adopting an energy policy founded on low royalties and pipeline development, the NDP government of Premier Rachel Notley squandered an opportunity to implement a program that could have strengthened Alberta’s economy while preparing it to deal with the inevitable decline in fossil fuel demand, author Andrew Nikiforuk told the
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Exxonneration?
Help is on the way. It was wonderful to read that ExxonMobil is being sued by the New York Attorney General’s office in the United States for the lies to investors about the pollution caused by producing oil from Alberta tar sands. After three years of investigating, it is claimed
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