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Oil is Death
Investing in Tar Sands, or letting pipelines carry Dilbit through a community, is not in the public interest.
Date: 9/9/2013 11:33:10 AM ( 11 y ) ... viewed 9741 times Slow Death By Oil
Where the oil, natural gas, and coal ["fossil fuels"] are being extracted, refined, transported, or used, there is death. Mostly it is a slow death, and involves long slow processes such as global warming or increasing cancer rates and environmental degradations. The Tar Sands in Alberta [Canada] is the poster child for "death by oil".
Refining bitumen on site would require huge investments, perhaps $10's of Billions, and they could not get a good return on that money for many years. The quick profit comes by moving "price discounted" bitumen to other markets [it is about $30 per barrel cheaper than regular crude].
B.C. won't let the Gateway Pipeline carry Tar Sand's bitumen to the West Coast, and Pres. Obama might not allow the Keystone to take Dilbit [diluted bitumen] south to the USA, so now they are trying to move it to Eastern Canadian refineries.
Communities are constantly being asked to allow development of a pipeline or fracking or a railway carrying Tar Sands products. Besides the [false] guarantees of safety, there is a suggestion that communities should allow these fossil fuel developments "in the public interest" because "we all use energy, everyone burns gasoline in their cars, and we want to keep the lights on, we want to stay warm in our houses".
The oil people promise communities that everything will be okay - "we have safety built into the system". This was repeated yesterday by TransCanada Pipelines as they endeavour to move Tar Sand's bitumen to Eastern Canada as their final option to get someone to take it.
TransCanada people say they can shut the line down if something goes wrong, but that isn't really quite true - those shut off valves cannot just be slammed shut or the back pressures would blow the line open somewhere upstream, and there have been several incidents where the "monitors" were asleep at the wheel [like Kalamazoo, where Dilbit spilled for 17 hours before the valves were closed].
They are still cleaning up that Kalamazoo mess. And the Gulf Coast. And the Exxon-Valdez victims are still seeing oil on the beach. Where spills occur, life is never the same again - don't let it happen to you Edmunston!! Water is LIFE, oil is DEATH.
Public Interest?
If this were really a "public interest" situation then the public should share in more of the rewards and not just the risks, but instead we just keep ending up absorbing all the risks when things go wrong, and we are not getting nearly enough of the rewards.
The REWARDS are mostly going to the wealthy ones who just keep getting more wealthy!! If it were "in the public interest", then why is there a "wealthy 1%" class of citizens? And why are they getting richer while the rest of us are getting poorer?
The oil industry has done more to shift the wealth gap than any other industry. They spend between $2 and $15 to produce a barrel of oil, and sell it for $100.
It is propaganda!! We have heard it so often that we start to accept it - that is the basic way propaganda works - but it is NOT TRUE. There ARE other ways to keep the lights on and to heat our houses, and we do not all need gas driven cars.
A Nation's Money
If "the public interest" is being considered, then it should include where a nation's money is going because new investments determine the direction for the future.
I live in Canada, and huge investments of our nation's money is still going into expanding the Tar Sands and other oil and gas plays instead of finding other ways to provide our energy needs.... and yes, it CAN be done because some nations are doing it - Sweden is nearly "fossil fuel free" and Germany is over 50% of the way there and a dozen other nations are proving me right.
It isn't just one nation anymore though - we live in a global world now. China and the USA and other nations are investing in the Tar Sands. Global warming emissions from the Tar Sands is causing the ocean to swallow Island nations in the South Pacific, and communities on the east coast of the USA!!
Where the world's investment money goes must no longer be determined by individuals or corporations - the risk and the direction for the future affects THE AVERAGE PERSON and therefore there is a role for government.
Any responsible government would be saying "NO MORE FOSSIL FUEL INVESTMENTS" - we must now turn the corner and begin what will be a long and slow process of developing clean and responsible energy for the future. However, corporations have too much influence over government... but all it will take to end that is for the average person to realize that there really is no right of the wealthy and the corporations to invest in oil, gas, and coal anymore BECAUSE WE ARE ALL AFFECTED BY THOSE INVESTMENTS.
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