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Posts in tar sands

“Time to Leave ‘Fossil’ Canada Behind”
Andy Rowell
Dec08
As Canada continues to push its pro-tar sands message out across North America, Europe, Asia, it was greeted by protests at the COP17 Climate talks in South Africa. Yesterday members of the Canadian Youth Delegation were ejected from the meeting as Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent delivered his opening address. Just as Kent began his…
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Tar Sands: “No Safe Way to Market”
Andy Rowell
Nov30
The top brass of BP and Shell will have not been amused this morning when they opened their Financial Times to see a half page advert staring at them about the ecological cost of the tar sands. The advert, entitled: “Tar sands – 23 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil” demands that…
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A Culture Beyond Oil
Andy Rowell
Nov29
“There is no money that is completely pure”, so says Nicholas Serota, the Director of the Tate gallery in London that is under fire once again for taking oil money from BP and Shell. Serota is right in many ways, there is no such thing as clean money but some funding is dirtier than others….
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Tar Sands: Britain is “Canada’s Partner in Crime”
Andy Rowell
Nov28
Late last week on the eve of the Durban climate talks, the British Climate Change secretary, Chris Huhne boasted that Britain was showing “leadership” in the UN negotiations. But whilst Britain is bragging about leading the climate change fight, it is still leading the pro-tar sands charge in Europe; a somewhat hypocritical position. This dirty…
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Don’t Look Away Now
Andy Rowell
Nov21
Love it or loath it as the voice of business, you can say one thing about the Financial Times, it normally covers the energy beat with a reasonable degree of accuracy. That’s why is was so disappointing to read the latest misguided comment piece by the paper’s Washington columnist Edward Luce, in an article “Look…
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What now? Reading the tea leaves on Keystone XL
Lorne Stockman
Nov15
Written by Steve Kretzmann and Lorne Stockman Last week, the Obama Administration announced that it would “examine in depth alternative routes” for the Keystone XL pipeline and that this process “could be completed as early as the first quarter of 2013”. The Administration pledged to consider “all the relevant issues together”, including climate change, energy…
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“Yes we can, stop the pipeline.”
Andy Rowell
Nov07
Yesterday, over 12,000 people came from across North America and Canada to the White House to call on President Obama to stop the highly controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The thousands of protesters, some carrying a long black inflatable replica of a pipeline, formed a human chain around the White House. Some chanted “Yes we can,…
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$frack$
The Downsides of “Extreme Energy”
Andy Rowell
Nov02
So its official: fracking causes earthquakes. Just minutes ago, a report published by the oil company Cuadrilla as to whether its drilling operations caused two “earthquakes” back in April and May, concluded that fracking was the “highly probable” cause of the small seismic events. Cuadrilla suspended fracking operations in June, over fears of a link…
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Shell “Threatens” the EU with Long-Term Exit
Andy Rowell
Oct31
Last Friday, oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, announced that it had doubled third quarter profits to $7.2 billion. So where is this cash coming from? Let’s not forget that Shell has spent millions over the last fifteen years trying to remould its image from a dirty oil company implicated in human rights abuses to a…
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Britain Backs Canadian Bullying Over Tar Sands
Andy Rowell
Oct26
Britain was joined by some Eastern European countries yesterday in backing Canada in its dirty fight to force the EU not to discriminate against the tar sands in the Fuel Quality Directive. A meeting of European environment experts yesterday had been expected to vote on a proposal by the European Commission to give a different…
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