The tar sands issue isn’t only about the danger from pipelines crossing the U.S. so the dirty tar sands oil can be refined and shipped overseas, it’s about the destruction of thousands of square miles of wildlands in Alberta, severe health impacts on thousands of indigenous people, and a major increase in greenhouse gas emissions. The Canadian government and regulators bow to the pressure from the exploiters who are destroying our world; they help cover up the damage and apparently don’t care how many people are harmed in the process.
Read the blog post by Rocky Kistner, which includes a description of what’s going on and some good photos. It also includes the following video of Melissa Laboucan-Massimo’s testimony to Congress, where she says:
Last spring I returned home to where I was born…. What I saw was a landscape forever changed by oil that had consumed a vast stretch of the traditional territory where my family had once hunted, trapped, and picked berries and medicines for generations. Days before the federal or provincial government admitted that this had happened, my family was sending me text messages telling me of headaches, burning eyes, nausea, and dizziness….
It’s almost an exact parallel to what’s happening in Pennsylvania with natural gas development, although impacts here haven’t yet reached the scale of the tar sands—but wait until they drill tens of thousands of new wells, many of which have already been issued permits.
Speak up and demand a complete stop to this destruction! Remember what, Dante told us—that ‘The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.’