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Bearing witness to the myth that tar sands are a clean fuel

January 18, 2008

Posted by Liz Barratt-Brown in Moving Beyond Oil , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming

Tags:

edstelmach, globalwarming, oilsands, tarsands

Premier Stelmach came to town this week to promote increased production of tar sands oil and was met by protestors and serious questions about the impacts of this production on Alberta and on the U.S. I wonder what he expected?  Maybe the good old days (the Edmonton Journal reported this morning that the Premier is meeting with our own VP Dick Cheney today, perpetrator of the secret Energy Task Force).  But those days are largely gone and a new urgency about global warming and energy conservation has taken their place.  No longer is it really acceptable to come to Washington and talk about environmental concerns around oil production as “myths”.   

The Premier returns to Alberta today and we are left to ask what did his visit accomplish?  His visit has generated a huge amount of Canadian press with headlines like “Protestors dog Stelmach in Washington”, "Stelmach Mauled in D.C.", “Premier Defends Oilsands in D.C. Visit”, and “Stelmach fights ‘dirty’ image of Oilsands in Washington”. These headlines could, of course, paint the Premier in some parts as Heroic, but more likely than not, they point to a deep misunderstanding about how much the landscape has changed in Washington D.C. and across the country.

Global warming has arrived. Even our new National Intelligence Director recently suggested that global warming is a threat perhaps more serious than terrorism. Multiple members of Congress have introduced legislation to address global warming.  The first global warming bill, Lieberman-Warner(PDF), passed 11-8 this fall in the Senate Committee responsible for moving a bill forward.  Bills are expected to be taken up in Congress this year. 

 

And who would have thought it could happen?  President Bush signed into law a new energy bill that requires that cars meet a 35 miles-per-gallon fleet-wide standard, raising fuel economy standards for the first time in 30 years. The bill also contained a Renewable Fuel Standard that mandates production of environmentally-sensitive biofuels. The provision that may have the greatest impact on tar sand production in the future is the little-known section 526 that prohibits procurement of "unconventional oil" by the federal government that has higher lifecycle CO2 emissions than conventional oil. 

At the state level, there is even more activity. 600 mayors have adopted “mini Kyoto-protocols” – the international agreement to cut emissions that the Bush Administration has refused to sign. Eighteen states have made commitments to cap carbon. Twelve states are considering doing the same. And another twelve are considering following the lead of California and adopting Low Carbon Fuel Standards.

This all marks a directional shift that few will say is likely to revert back. All the Democrats running for President have endorsed strong global warming legislation and even a couple of the Republicans, including the arguable front-runner, John McCain. So, in my view, the gig is up. We are becoming a nation that is low carbon-minded if not low carbon in fact.  What does this mean for Alberta and for Premier Stelmach?  We may not want to commit to a high carbon spider-web of new pipelines and refineries to refine tar sands oil from Canada.  We may not want the North American West to become drilled, strip-mined and spoiled for oil. We may not want the Midwest to be refining the dirtiest fuel that can be bought on the market. Maybe we’d rather have our big oil companies invest instead in renewable fuels. After all, it’s about the gas we put in our gas tank and, as a result, we have the right – and the responsibility – to say no to dirty fuels of the past.

When the Premier gets home, I hope he'll put his energy behind cleaning up the tar sands, not waging a PR battle, which history has shown, he is bound to lose.  

Photo Credit: Oil Change International 2008

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