Scraping Bottom - The Canadian Oil Boom - National Geographi

[Oscar]

Canada: Scraping bottom

http://forests.org/shared/reader/welcom ... kid=119036

Once considered too expensive, as well as too damaging to the land, exploitation of Alberta's oil sands is now a gamble worth billions.

Source: Copyright 2009, National Geographic Date: February 19, 2009 Byline: Robert Kunzig

One day in 1963, when Jim Boucher was seven, he was out working the trap­line with his grandfather a few miles south of the Fort McKay First Nation reserve on the Athabasca River in northern Alberta. The country there is wet, rolling fen, dotted with lakes, dissected by streams, and draped in a cover of skinny, stunted trees--it's part of the boreal forest that sweeps right across Canada, covering more than a third of the country. In 1963 that forest was still mostly untouched. The government had not yet built a gravel road into Fort McKay; you got there by boat or in the winter by dogsled. The Chipewyan and Cree Indians there--Boucher is a Chipewyan--were largely cut off from the outside world. For food they hunted moose and bison; they fished the Athabasca for walleye and whitefish; they gathered cranberries and blueberries. For income they trapped beaver and mink. Fort McKay was a small fur trading post. It had no gas, electricity, telephone, or running water. Those didn't come until the 1970s and 1980s.

In Boucher's memory, though, the change begins that day in 1963, on the long trail his grandfather used to set his traps, near a place called Mildred Lake. Generations of his ancestors had worked that trapline. "These trails had been here thousands of years," Boucher said one day last summer, sitting in his spacious and tasteful corner office in Fort McKay. His golf putter stood in one corner; Mozart played softly on the stereo. "And that day, all of a sudden, we came upon this clearing. A huge clearing. There had been no notice. In the 1970s they went in and tore down my grandfather's cabin--with no notice or discussion." That was Boucher's first encounter with the oil sands industry. It's an industry that has utterly transformed this part of northeastern Alberta in just the past few years, with astonishing speed. Boucher is surrounded by it now and immersed in it himself.

More: http://forests.org/shared/reader/welcom ... kid=119036

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----- Original Message -----
From: Elaine Hughes
To: ngsforum@ngm.com
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 4:38 PM
Subject: Scraping Bottom - Alberta's tarsands

Thank you so much for exposing the ugliness and danger to all living things posed by the Alberta tarsands.

But, they don't end at the Alberta/Saskatchewan border as your article shows.

They continue eastward into northern Saskatchewn, deeper and larger than those in Alberta, and will be have to extracted 'in situ', requiring more energy and emitting more GHGs than even conventional tarsands extraction.

So, we are not only faced with the social, health and environmental nightmare of our own "Mordor", we are also threatened with Bruce Power's proposed nuclear power plant to cook the muck beneath our pristine wilderness.

Location for this potential deadly contamination of our water, air, soil, wildlife and every other living thing for miles around - forever?

Where else? On the banks of our beautiful North Saskatchewan River!

Elaine Hughes
Archerwill, SK CANADA

[Oscar]

Rex Murphy and The National Geographic

From: Shane in Wpg.
To: The national@cbc.ca
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 11:50 PM
Subject: Rex Murphy and The National Geographic

Dear friends at The National,

RE: Rex Murphy's attempt to discredit the National Geographic Tar Sands feature on tonight's news 26.02.09

OK so you gave Rex Murphy his moment to display his rhetorical skills, but in doing so he disgraced the traditions of journalistic excellence CBC is known for with his ignorance and cavalier, over-confident 'religious' myopia.

Rex spouted forth against the "simplistic, hypocritical" National Geographic, but his so-called logic was burdened by his ignorance of his belief system that accepts, it seems, every iota of the dogma that drives the 'growth, industrial, exploitation' economy that was unquestioned for most of the last century.

So many of Rex's statements SIMPLISTICALLY started with statements like 'If we want..' and then he would list some of the so-called advantages provided by the archaic 'economy' he believes in. So much of his rhetoric SIMPLY made the choice for the population and himself WITHOUT considering the alternatives... many of which are terrifying.

These are the tools of a Sophist...one who believes in the power of words and specious argument over logical investigation of facts and possibilities.

An example of his use of closed/circular logic, was that he accepted as unquestionable that we 'need' energy in the quantities and excesses that he believes are necessary for our standard of living... or perhaps standard of expectations. But of course such a shallow effort to discuss the topic does not seek deeper understanding and truth but is truly just showmanship and pretence of intelligent discussion.

Rex's diatribe, or perhaps better described as- blind and ignorant recitation of the dogma he fears to question, was a DISGRACE to the traditions of excellent broadcasting and journalism CBC is renowned for.

Rex is clearly a man from the past with the understanding of a man from the mystical traditions of 'infinite growth and infinitely abusable planet'. It seems he is totally unaware of Climate Change and the pollution that is killing-off life in even the oceans. It seems he cannot make the connection between the disappearing polar ice caps and the burning of fossil fuels. He is clearly a staunch member of the religion of 'Oil the God that provides everything'.

Perhaps it is time that CBC considered a more equipped commentator. At very least in the environmental area we deserve a commentator not crippled by dogma and myths from the past.

Except for his vocabulary and grammar Rex was every bit the equal of George Bush.

Like we need this CR _P in Canada? On The National?

If CBC needs to save money, fire this over-confident buffoon!

Shane Nestruck
Winnipeg
204 510-8828
shanedn@mts.net