» 2007 » September

Must Alberta feed the US oil addiction?

It’s well known that the United States consumes more oil per capita than any other country in the world, absorbing two-thirds of global oil production. This heavy dependence has often, and aptly, been described as an addiction; even U.S. President George W. Bush trotted out the metaphor in his 2006 State of the Union address (”America is addicted to oil”).

Most of us regard addictions (to anything) as inherently unhealthy and admission of the problem as the first step toward getting clean. In this case, however, U.S. policy has simply been to seek increased oil imports from more reliable sources closer to home, in effect, to replace distant and unstable dealers with one from the neighbourhood — specifically, Canada, already the kingpin dealer of oil to the United States. In 2005, Canada exported almost 1.5 million barrels per day to the United States, about seven per cent of U.S. daily consumption. Canada exports 66 per cent of its domestic crude oil production, and since 1995, the United States has received 99 per cent of these exports. At first glance, it would seem that Canada wouldn’t be able to boost oil production to fill the gap; production of conventional light and heavy oil in Canada was predicted to peak in 2006 and then rapidly decline. But that’s where Canada’s “unconventional” tar sands come in.

Source: www.thetyee.ca/…

LS » Canada’s energy industry may be driving our strong economy and pushing our dollar above the faltering Yankee buck, but the tar sands are definitely “Canada’s dirty secret.” Once they have clear-cut and strip-mined northern Alberta it is going to leave a nice environmental legacy. It is too bad Bush is too myopic and oil-drunk to invest in new energy and transportation technology.

→ More info in case you are interested in learning about The Harm the Tar Sands Will Do.

Bike activists face an uphill climb against Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who claims bike paths are not transportation and are stealing tax money from bridges and roads.

Imagine you’re the federal official in the Bush administration charged with overseeing the nation’s transportation infrastructure. A major bridge collapses on an interstate highway during rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring an additional 100. Whom to blame? How about the nation’s bicyclists and pedestrians!

The Minneapolis bridge collapse on Aug. 1 led Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters to publicly reflect on federal transportation spending priorities and conclude that those greedy bicyclists and pedestrians, not to mention museumgoers and historic preservationists, hog too much of the billions of federal dollars raised by the gas tax, money that should go to pave highways and bridges. Better still, Peters, a 2006 Bush appointee, apparently doesn’t see biking and walking paths as part of transportation infrastructure at all.

Source: www.salon.com/…

LS » It is hard to believe that moron’s like this actually get high-ranking political jobs. It will be nice when Bush and his idiots are sent packing after the next election.

Global warming doesn’t faze the infamous author, who argues that polar bears are doing fine and Al Gore is way too hot under the collar. But can the “skeptical environmentalist” back up his rosy views?

Bjørn Lomborg drives people crazy. The tale of the controversy that swarmed his 2001 book, “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” in which the native Dane argued that many environmental problems were overblown, has been widely told. With a few clicks you can read all about his skirmish with the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty and his protracted battle with Scientific American. In a flash you can find his defenders strafing his critics from their libertarian bunkers or congressional offices. When Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., wants to back up his claim that global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” or invites somebody to Washington to debate Al Gore, he calls on Lomborg.

Source: www.salon.com/…

Hot Air

Global warming is not as bad as it’s made out to be, argues Bjørn Lomborg. But he cherry-picks evidence to manufacture a scientific and economic consensus that doesn’t exist.

In “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming,” that Copenhagen Business School professor, Bjørn Lomborg, is at it again, preaching the gospel of benefit-cost analysis. His message: Don’t take any serious action to stop global warming pollution because doing so will slow down economic growth that poor people need, and anyway, it’s really not going to rain that hard.

Source: www.salon.com/…

LS » First I read the Hot Air article and thought Lomborg was pandering to the right by writing a book that catered to their viewpoint that global warming is exaggerated and the market will fix it if necessary, but then I read the interview article and I would say that I like his pragmatic approach. Like it or not, this ship has to be turned gradually, it is too big to do it any other way so we might as well act in accordance with that reality.