The Denial Machine

Page 14

Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

……….The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees…….

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

Congress Committee Releases In-Depth Report on White House Climate Science Manipulation

10 Dec 07

The evidence before the Committee leads to one inescapable conclusion:

the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming."

James Hansen on White House censoring of Global Warming

The American Denial of Global Warming

( uctv.tv documentary 58 minutes; 12/12/2007)
Polls show that between one-third and one-half of Americans still believe that there is "no solid" evidence of global warming, or that if warming is happening it can be attributed to natural variability. Others believe that scientists are still debating the point. Join scientist and renowned historian Naomi Oreskes as she describes her investigation into the reasons for such widespread mistrust and misunderstanding of scientific consensus and probes the history of organized campaigns designed to create public doubt and confusion about science.

This documentary shows how a hand full of people manipulated the system to create doubt, which led people to question if global warming was really happening.

The Denial Machine

CBC Documentary can viewed on line

In the past few years, a rhetorical firestorm has engulfed the debate about global warming, pitting science against spin, with inflammatory words on both sides. That debate only intensifed recently when former Vice-President Al Gore received the Nobel Peace Prize for his populist environmental campaign.

The Climate Change Denial Industry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGrkVoa78o&feature=related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIHtcEiDCGk&feature=related Video

It is clear that the Canadian and American government backed by big oil companies have been working in unison to create dought, about the true facts of global warming . As well they are making it appear as if they are doing something , while the efforts are meaninless .

Activist says Bali is a big "cover-up"

Straight Talk By Matthew Burrows

Publish Date: December 20, 2007

By not agreeing to binding emissions-reduction targets, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister John Baird are engaging in a "tar-sands cover-up", according to activist Tzeporah Berman.

We are now seeing that some governments and oil corporations are participating in the Genocide of Humanity. They are willing to put the last nail in the coffin.

Mitch McConnell, George Bush, Dick Cheney Are “Climate Criminals”–Environmentalist in 99th Day of Climate Emergency Fast Blasts GOP

Environmentalist Ted Glick is heading to Capitol Hill today to protest Republican opposition to a House-approved energy bill. The Bush administration and leading Republicans oppose the measure. Glick is now on the ninety-ninth day of a fast to protest the failure of Congress to address climate change.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what the Republicans are opposed to in this bill. And if you can talk about what Harvey Wasserman talks about, “King CONG madness.” That’s CONG—coal, oil, nukes and gas.

TED GLICK: Yes. Coal, oil, nukes and gas. If you want to talk about who it is that is the target, who it is that’s preventing what needs to happen in this world, there you go: the coal industry, the oil industry, the nukes, natural gas industry. We have to be clear that we have to overcome those corporations, those entities.

In terms of what is happening—what the Republicans are opposed to, they are opposed to renewable energy. They are opposed to energy from the wind, from the sun, from the tides, from the earth, the heat of the earth. They literally don’t want to have anything or virtually anything in an energy bill in the year 2007 that supports renewables. Again, to me, that’s criminal.

They also want to protect their friends in the oil industry. There’s about $13.5 billion of the—to help finance the renewable energy piece in the House bill, there’s about $13.5 billion of tax breaks that were removed by the House bill that the Republican senators, supported by a very few Democrats, want to put back in.

Again, we have to be clear on who it is that is obstructing forward progress, obstructing it by their dominance over major players, many of those in our federal government, as well as other levels of government, and we cannot accept it, and we have to take strong action. We have to make sacrifices. We have to be willing to go to jail. Al Gore, himself, a couple of months ago talked about how young people need to be sitting in in front of the coal plants to prevent coal plants from being built. That’s true. Young people need to be doing that. Middle-aged people need to be doing that. Older people need to be doing that. And Al Gore needs to be doing that. Let’s get serious about this crisis.

'The Biggest Environmental Crime In History'

By Cahal Milmo

BP, the British oil giant that pledged to move "Beyond Petroleum" by finding cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, is being accused of abandoning its "green sheen" by investing nearly £1.5bn to extract oil from the Canadian wilderness using methods which environmentalists say are part of the "biggest global warming crime" in history

It's the Tar Sands, Stupid

PM Harper: Bali ballyhoo.
Canada home to global warming's new ground zero.

When all the Alberta oil sands have been extracted, upgraded and burned, they will result in the release into the Earth's atmosphere of around 112 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. That is equivalent to all fossil fuel and industrial emissions worldwide combined over a period of more than four years.

The planet's atmosphere is a finite system. It currently contains about 3000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide -- about 35 per cent above pre-industrial levels. If all the carbon from the development of the oil sands were released at once it would single handedly increase atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from the current level of 384 ppm to 400 ppm.

Some scientists believe that there is a one in five chance that a carbon level of 400 ppm this century would lead to catastrophic changes. In fact we are on track to reach that milestone by 2015. The oil sands alone would put us beyond that potential tipping point.

President Stephen Harper
Oil for one, one for oil?
Is he governing for Canada, or just Alberta?

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/04/20/PresidentHarper/

The coming brouhaha about the tar sands

February 19, 2008

No matter what rhetoric we hear from our leaders on cleaning up Canada's environmental record, on one project they are strangely silent: the ecological disaster that is the Athabasca tar sands development. The sheer scope of the damage from the tar sands developments are hard to comprehend, but a recent report evocatively titled Canada’s Toxic Tar Sands: The Most Destructive Project on Earth has made a valiant effort to grasp the enormity of the problem.

Because of their sheer scale, all Canadians are affected by the Tar Sands, no matter where they live.

If you live downstream, your water is being polluted and your fish and wildlife may be dangerous to eat. If you live in Saskatchewan you are a victim of acid rain. If you live in BC, “supertankers” may soon be plying your shoreline carrying Tar Sands oil to Asia. If you live in Ontario, you are exposed to harmful emissions from the refining of Tar Sands Oil. And the impacts do not stop at Canada’s border – US refineries are re-tooling to handle the dirty oil from Alberta.

With the Tar Sands, Canada has become the world’s dirty energy superpower.

The Harm the Tar Sands Will Do

Oil sands open pit mining in Alberta's Athabasca region.

The project's expected costs to our forests, water and air.

By Dan Woynillowicz

Published: September 20, 2007

World Watch/AlterNet.org

The environmental consequences of oil production from Alberta's tar sands are major, beginning with its effect on climate change. North America's transition to oil from the tar sands not only perpetuates, but actually worsens, emissions of greenhouse gas pollution from oil consumption.

While the end products from conventional oil and tar sands are the same (mostly transportation fuels), producing a barrel of synthetic crude oil from the tar sands releases up to three times more greenhouse gas pollution than conventional oil. This is a result of the huge amount of energy (primarily from burning natural gas) required to generate the heat needed to extract bitumen from the tar sands and upgrade it into synthetic crude. The energy equivalent of one barrel of oil is required to produce just three barrels of oil from the tar sands.

Canada pays environmentally for US oil thirst

By Doug Struck
The Washington Post

FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta —

Huge mines here turning tarry sand into cash for Canada and oil for the United States are taking an unexpectedly high environmental toll, sucking water from rivers and natural gas from wells and producing large amounts of gases linked to global warming.

The digging has proliferated at gold-rush speed, spurred by high oil prices, new technology and an unquenched U.S. thirst for the fuel. The expansion has presented ecological problems that experts thought they would have decades to resolve.

"The river used to be blue. Now it's brown. Nobody can fish or drink from it. The air is bad. This has all happened so fast," said Elsie Fabian, 63, an elder in a native Indian community along the Athabasca River, a wide, meandering waterway once plied by fur traders. "It's terrible. We're surrounded by the mines."

Alberta's greed is a threat to Canada and the world.

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/01/25/TarSands/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=280108

By Matt Price and Christopher Hatch
Published: January 25, 2008

TheTyee.ca

As Canada's premiers gather in Vancouver this coming Monday for the Council of the Federation meeting, the future of Canada is again at stake. But this time the threat isn't Quebec nationalism so much as it's global warming pollution from the Alberta tar sands.

And Western Canada's traditional complaint is bang on: it's Ottawa's fault.

Stephen Harper refuses to show leadership and put hard caps on Canada's global warming emissions -- all so the tar sands can keep growing. No matter how much Canadians clamor to join the global fight against climate change, we are being held hostage by the tar sands.

Alberta unveils emissions-reduction plan

New targets lower than Kyoto and federal levels

Jason Markusoff, edmontonjournal.com

Published: Thursday, January 24

EDMONTON - The Alberta government set new provincial goals today for greenhouse gas reductions that are less stringent than Canada's obligations under the Kyoto Protocol or even the current federal government's lesser targets.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is supposed to slash emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels in the next four years. It's almost certain the country will miss that goal, with Alberta's growth spiking provincial emission levels by more than 40 per cent since 1990.

The projected reductions announced today would still keep emissions well above that Kyoto target, even four decades from now.

The Harper government has largely ignored Kyoto's 1990 baseline, aiming to cut national emissions to 20 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. It's unclear how Alberta's targets, which would see overall emissions still higher by 2020, would jibe with Ottawa's ambitions.

Premier Ed Stelmach has long insisted he'd follow a made-in-Alberta approach that wouldn't stifle industrial growth.

Report criticizes oil sands companies on environment

Updated Thu. Jan. 10 2008 9:16 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Nine out of 10 oilsands producers in Alberta got a failing grade in a new study that compared the environmental records of the different companies.

The study by the Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund looked at the 10 largest producers and compared them against the best performer in each of 20 categories, making it a true "apples to apples" report, said Dan Woynillowicz, of the Pembina Institute

Alberta green plans would see first real cut in 2020

Updated Thu. Jan. 24 2008 1:50 PM ET

The Canadian Press

EDMONTON -- Alberta has rolled out a plan that allows total greenhouse gas emissions to increase another 12 years before starting a gradual reduction.

Environment Minister Rob Renner says the plan will result in "real reductions'' of 14 per cent below 2005 levels by 2050.

Oilsands heavyweights back Alberta's new climate change plan

Under that plan, the gas belched out by oilsands plants and other industries would be pumped into the ground through a multibillion-dollar pipeline. It could be then used to help squeeze oil out of older wells.

Premier Ed Stelmach said Thursday that 70 per cent of the planned emissions cut over the next four decades will be from carbon capture and storage. His strategy aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions to 14 per cent below 2005 levels by 2050, with no real reduction for more than a decade.

On The Map with Avi Lewis: Alberta Oil Sands

About This Video

Added: June 14, 2007

Oil. Canada has it and the US craves it. But what are the implications of treating Alberta's tar sands as America's security blanket? Avi talks to Diana Gibson of the Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta about NAFTA, Kyoto, and Canada's own energy security. Watch all the footage at

http://www.cbc.ca/onthemap/fullpage.php?id=89

Fact:EPA says that 25% of methane emissions to the atmosphere are from leakage from oil and gas wells and pipelines. Methane is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse as than CO2.

( from the book Stupid to The Last Drop by William Marsden)

Doomsday: Alberta stands accused

A huge fight between East and West -- over the oil sands -- is just starting

NICHOLAS KÖHLER | October 8, 2007 |

Left unfettered, Alberta's energy sector will, by the end of this century, transform the southern part of the province into a desert and its north into a treeless, toxic swamp. Driven both by global warming and oil and gas developments, temperatures in Alberta will soar by as much as eight degrees. The Athabasca River will slow to a trickle, parching the remainder of the province's forests and encouraging them to burst into flame, generating vast quantities of CO2. "They're going to be the architects of their own destruction," says journalist William Marsden, whose new book outlines the environmental threats posed by Alberta's energy industry.

Even now, fish pulled from the Athabasca downstream of the oil sands taste of gasoline and smell of burning galoshes in the fry pan. The landscape is perforated by more than 300,000 oil and gas wells. Water in some areas to the south can be set alight with a match, likely due to coal-bed methane developments. Doctors administering to Aboriginal communities not far from the oil sands report high rates of thyroid conditions and rare diseases such as cancer of the bile duct. Some from those communities have been employed at the oil sands raking in the carcasses of ducks floating on vast pools of rotten water, the by-product of the sands' oil-extraction methods.

Alberta oil thirst

leading to disaster: author

A must read book

Such are the claims contained

in Marsden's upcoming

Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada(And Doesn't Seem to Care),

which presents a scenario almost too frightening to contemplate and suggests Alberta may already be too far gone for redemption -- indeed, that it is environmentally doomed. "When you start digging up an area equivalent to the state of Florida, when you start carpet-bombing your province with oil and gas wells, and at the same time, you've got global warming drying up the glaciers and your rivers -- you're kind of looking at a doomsday scenario," he says. "It sounds bizarre, but it's an absolute possibility that they could be literally destroying themselves."

The real truth about our oil and gas reserves, are that they won’t last long according to Marsden

Updated Tue. Oct. 9 2007 12:57 PM ET

Andy Johnson, CTV.ca News Staff

The author of a new book on the future of Canada's oil industry says Alberta is destroying itself in its rush to extract every drop of fossil fuel from the oilsands.

William Marsden, a Montreal journalist and author of "Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn't Seem to Care)," appeared on CTV's Canada AM on Tuesday.

Read an excerpt from 'Stupid to the Last Drop'

He says Alberta is giving up control of its oil assets to foreign investors and private business, with little effort to ensure its economic or environmental future is protected.

"This is really crazy what's happening in Alberta today. We have a province that is actually destroying itself in the effort to get every last drop of oil and gas out," Marsden says.

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=e3f144e2-1c43-41be-841e-5b0a71d4e8c5

'Conspiracy of silence' on tarsands, group says

Updated Fri. Feb. 15 2008 9:14 PM ET

A new report accuses the federal government of allowing Alberta's tarsands to become "the most destructive project on earth".

"The enormous toxics problems go hand-in-hand with massive global warming pollution and the impending destruction of a boreal forest the size of Florida," the report says in its introduction.

INTERVIEW-Mankind can't afford more oil drilling-ex-BP exec

Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:39pm GMT

By Gerard Wynn

LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Known oil, gas and coal reserves may already contain a quarter more carbon than mankind can emit and still avoid dangerous climate change, putting the value of new oil exploration in doubt, said a former oil major executive.

The oil industry may be wasting $50 billion annually searching for new fields, said Jan-Peter Onstwedder, formerly BP's most senior risk manager. He left BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) in December.

He calculated potential carbon emissions from proven oil, gas and coal reserves at around 700 billion tonnes, compared with about 500 billion tonnes which can be emitted this century and keep temperature increases within less dangerous bounds……

……...Coal power plants could produce less carbon by pipeing emissions underground using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, but that is untried and so expensive that so far one pilot project after another has collapsed.

The U.S. Energy Department two weeks ago shelved plans to support the "FutureGen" pilot plant because of cost overruns.

"The only reason you'd have to explore for more (oil) is if CCS works," said Onstwedder. "As an investor I'd ask how comfortable are you that CCS will work. I haven't seen oil companies answer that directly."

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