Stephen Harper And George Bush: Bosom Buddies
OILSANDS What A Wonderful World Harper's Legacy
Oilsands : Our Legacy to Future Generations
OilSands and open pit miningas for the environment Harper's so called solution is a smokescreen whereby Industries will be able to continue to pollute Canada's air & water -
The Conservative Stephen Harper Government's Environmental Plan - Turning the Corner - is Unethical (information for the 2008 Canadian election)
Like George Bush &co. Harper is uninterested in the views of experts on Environment especially if those views might interfer with his agenda to help out Big Oil or himself after leaving office or his friends or because in fact he believes his own lies or and so has become like Bush delusional. His appearance of being cold and distant might just be too close to the truth. He's either delusional, or a cynical crafty S.O.B..
see: Climate scientist claims Stephen Harper's government has muzzled experts
By Charlie Smith sept. 25, 2008
In a recent phone interview with the Georgia Straight, University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver joked that he hasn’t received any thank-you cards from the Conservative party for his new book, Keeping Our Cool: Canada in a Warming World (Viking Canada, $34).
Weaver, a lead author of three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports, claimed that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his cabinet have ignored the input of scientists while preparing the government’s response to global warming.
“They were making policy without even consulting their environmental scientists,” Weaver charged. “I know that for a fact.”
He added that Harper and other top Conservative policymakers have also refused to meet representatives of the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, a national organization that, according to Weaver, has brought Canada to the international forefront of scientific research on climate change. “They don’t want to meet them because their policy is not one based on science,” Weaver said. “It is based on ideology and what’s best for the Alberta oil-sands industry. That’s the bottom line.”
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Harper like Bush and the Neocons believe there is a world wide socialist / liberal conspiracy out to destroy Canada and other wealthy nations . you Betcha all these various scientists and governments and NGOs got together and cooked up this whole Global Warming & Global Environmental disaster just to rob Canada and America. If he wore a tinfoil hat it would make more sense instead he is the Prime Minister of Canada. Maybe its the anti-Christ coordinating this whole scheme.
Then publicly he tries to soften his tone when the polls show for Canadians the environment had become a major issue and concern. But he didn't really change what he believes and how he will therefore actually act.
Harper's letter dismisses Kyoto as 'socialist scheme'
: Tuesday, January 30, 2007
CBC News
Prime Minister Stephen Harper once called the Kyoto accord a "socialist scheme" designed to suck money out of rich countries, according to a letter leaked Tuesday by the Liberals.
The letter, posted on the federal Liberal party website, was apparently written by Harper in 2002, when he was leader of the now-defunct Canadian Alliance party.
He was writing to party supporters, asking for money as he prepared to fight then-prime minister Jean Chrétien on the proposed Kyoto accord.
"We're gearing up now for the biggest struggle our party has faced since you entrusted me with the leadership," Harper's letter says.
"I'm talking about the 'battle of Kyoto' — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord."
The accord is an international environmental pact that sets targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
...He writes that it's based on "tentative and contradictory scientific evidence" and it focuses on carbon dioxide, which is "essential to life."
He says Kyoto requires that Canada make significant cuts in emissions, while countries like Russia, India and China face less of a burden.
Under Kyoto, Canada was required to reduce emissions by six per cent by 2012, while economies in transition, like Russia, were allowed to choose different base years. As developing nations, China and India were exempted from binding targets for the first round of reductions.
"Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations," Harper's letter reads.
"We will do everything we can to stop him there, but he might get it passed with the help of the socialists in the NDP and the separatists in the BQ [Bloc Québécois]."
The Prime Minister's Office refused to comment about the letter on the record.
In recent weeks, Harper has spoken strongly about the environment, saying he will dramatically revamp his minority government's much-criticized clean air act.
His comments come as public-opinion polls indicate the environment has become the number one issue among Canadians.
While Stephen Harper sees the oilsands development as profitable for Big Oil and providing jobs for Canadians he shrugs off any notion that this could lead to an environmental disaster for later generations of Canadians to deal with. Of course he and his rich friends and their families don't worry about such issues since they can find places where the air and water are cleaner because they can afford to have a second home or even a third or fourth home built in the Swiss Alps or wherever the conditions are better for themselves and their children. The average Canada does not have this luxury and for many Canadians they may be forced to live out their lives in the midst of some toxic wasteland which is what much of Alberta will eventually become. The only lakes or rivers they may be able to get to for their holidays may be ones which are filled with toxic material or covered in green slime where the fish are deformed . Besides the pollution caused by the oilsands projects most Canadians don't realize that much of the oil extracted is not staying in Canada but is going to the United States. In the end only a few Canadians will prosper as a result of the oilsands projects. For a comparison take a look at what Profitable Mountain-Top Mining is doing to West Virginia. Destruction of the forrests, streams, lakes and mountains; big profits for Big Coal and only a small number of well-paying jobs & the destruction of communities and a way of life all in the name of Profits.
and see article at Current.Com Oilsands Development: Killing Canada, June 30, 2008 on the devastation caused by the extraction of oil from the oilsands .
"We appreciate the fact that Canada's tar sands are now becoming economical and we are glad to be able to get the access toward two million barrels a day."-George W. Bush, March 23, 2003.
Powers in this world are now salivating to be able to tear apart the boreal forest to satisfy their lust for greed. And make no mistake about it, it has nothing to do with caring about the people or other species because if it did alternate sources of energy that are safer for the environment and cleaner and more economical to use would be the order of the day, not the "new world order" of the Bushes of this world that seek only to destroy it for their own benefit. But then, getting his fix seems to be something Bush is accustomed to in his life.
Making crude oil from tar sands is a dirty wasteful business. It takes two tons of oil sands ore to yield ONE barrel of oil. Put that into perpsective of these people wanting two MILLION barrels a day, and then it is not hard to see the environmental degradation this process is causing. The oil sand is composed of silt, sand, clay, water, and bitumen. On average, bitumen contains 83.2% carbon. At two million or more barrels a day burning, you figure out the environmental impact of that. And there are two methods by which this noxious smelling concoction is brought to the surface.
In this article from Gristmill.org the author criticizes the authors in a Time magazine article for being too caught up in the scale of the engineering feat of the Tarsands to objectively consider the environmental damage that these projects will result in:
Gristmill:The Environmental News Blog/Time for tar sands
The mag exalts Canada's potential to become the Saudi Arabia of the north/ by Joseph Romm 28 May 2008
I consider Time to be one of the more forward-looking periodicals when it comes to the environment. But the editors messed up in this week's edition. The June 2 Time carries a breathless feature about the potential petroleum bonanza in Canada's tar sands.
The article's authors are so giddy with the testosterone rush of big-ass earth-moving machines that they forgot what a multifaceted disaster this "bonanza" would be. The magazine quotes tar men in Alberta as they marvel at their own ability to move mountains ... literally.
At one open-pit mine, a manager brags that his operation moves enough dirt every 48 hours to fill Toronto's 60,000-seat SkyDome. "A year from now, that mountain won't be there," he says, referring to a wall of black soil. Some of the biggest trucks on earth, 20 feet tall, carrying 320 tons of dirt in each load, crawl through the "stark landscape of jack pine, spruce and poplar forests" like Tonka toys built for Paul Bunyan.
Oil from Canadian Tar Sands
It takes two tons of tar sands to produce one barrel of oil, and oil companies are extracting 1.3 million barrels of crude every 24 hours. Much of the world's petroleum, about 2 trillion barrels, is in tar sands. It is an alluring prize; as conventional crude becomes more expensive, oil from tar sands becomes more profitable.
"The mega-projects across Alberta's oil sands rival some of the humankind's greatest engineering achievements, including the pyramids of Giza and the Great Wall of China," gushes Time. "Canada may become the new Saudi Arabia, the last great oil kingdom, right on the U.S. border."
Oil from tar sands has two especially sensitive liabilities: It uses a lot of water and it produces a lot of carbon emissions. Water is becoming an increasingly critical resource worldwide. It takes several barrels of water to make one barrel of oil from tar sands. And tar sands production emits three times more carbon than regular crude oil. It already is undermining Canada's ability to meet its obligations under the Kyoto protocol. The Pembina Institute estimates that tar sands production in Alberta is producing 40 million tons of greenhouse gases a year, with projections of 142 million tons by 2020.
Time concurs with NRDC about what's driving Alberta's mining. It's the U.S. oil addiction -- and specifically, one of our principal dealers, ExxonMobil. Canada provides 20 percent of U.S. oil imports, our biggest source. Much of that oil comes from tar sands. Plans are to pipe tar-sands oil to refineries in Minnesota, Ohio, and North Dakota. ExxonMobil is a major force behind the plan. Some $124 billion is expected to be invested in this scheme from 2007 to 2012. That same investment, redirected to solar energy, would put America firmly on the path to an economy free of fossil fuels by mid-century.
As Exxon pushes for the biggest oil boom in North American history -- and as the melting Arctic ice opens access to vast new oil and gas fields -- it's hard to imagine a more dramatic and critical fork in the road of human progress. One path offers dazzling new riches for oil companies and provides tantalizing new frontiers for wildcatters. But it leads us to an even deeper addiction to finite fossil fuels and to the quickly approaching point of not return on global climate change. Think of this year's floods, tornadoes, and wildfires on steroids.
But :
In the far north latitudes, just below the treeless tundra of the polar region, a forest of evergreen trees encircles the earth: this is the boreal forest. The last frontier of northern forest wilderness in Canada, the boreal forest is North America's greatest conservation opportunity. Although most of the world's original wilderness forests have been logged or developed until just about 20 percent remains, approximately 80 percent of the Canadian boreal forest is still unfragmented by roads. Mostly in public hands, over half of Canada's boreal has yet to be allocated to industrial use. This situation is quickly changing, however, as the boreal forest comes under imminent threat from industrial logging, hydropower, mining and oil and gas development.
Like the Amazon, the boreal forest is of critical importance to all living things on earth. It is home to the one of the world's largest remaining stands of spruce, fir and tamarack. The thick layers of moss, soil and peat of the boreal are the world's largest terrestrial storehouse of organic carbon and play an enormous role in regulating the Earth's climate. Boreal wetlands filter millions of gallons of water each day that fill our northern rivers, lakes, and streams. As a vast, intact forest ecosystem, the boreal supports a natural web of large carnivores, such as bears, wolves and lynx along with thousands of other species of plants, mammals, birds and insects.
The tar sands found deep beneath Alberta's vast old-growth forests are made up of 90 percent sand, clay, silt, and water and 10 percent bitumen, a tarlike substance that can be converted to oil. Currently, most tar sands production relies on open pit mines, some as large as three miles wide and 200 feet deep. Because less than 20 percent of the oil-producing bitumen deposits are close to the surface, the rest of the deep reserves must be extracted by injecting steam underground and pumping out the melted bitumen. The amount of natural gas used daily during these processes could heat about four million American homes. Once separated from the sand, clay and silt, the bitumen is still of low grade and must undergo yet another energy-intensive process to turn it into a crude oil that more closely resembles conventional oil.
article from TIME.COM:Well-Oiled Machine
May 22, 2008 By ERIK HEINRICH/FORT MCMURRAY
And here is a great article on Stephen Harper's failur to represent ordinary Canadians and not just the Neocons & Big Business and Big Oil and the Radical Religious Right;
Publicbroadcasting.ca/Saturday, August 30, 2008Time to Unite Against Stephen Harper
In his speech at the Democratic convention Barack Obama laid out plainly the choices before Americans, pointing out the failure of George Bush neo-con policies on almost every front. Canadians will soon have a similar choice to make. Stephen Harper is, perhaps more than Bush himself, a George Bush style neo-conservative. Harper's policies are essentially the same as those of George Bush even when those policies benefit the US and harm Canada.
Since taking over as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has waged a non-stop attack on Canada and everything Canadians value. He has repeatedly assaulted Canada's natural environment right down to allowing Canadian lakes to be used as toxic dump sites at no cost to polluters.
Although he promised open accountable government, Harper has lead one of the most secretive, authoritarian governments in Canadian history.
And while he was elected in part due to corruption on the part of the Liberals, Harper has lead one of the most deeply corrupt governments in recent memory. From the in-out scheme to the Cadman affair and beyond.
He has waged a relentless assault on the arts from attempts to kill the Canadian film industry, to a copyright bill that is good for big media companies but bad for artists and that would make most Canadians into criminals to his rejection of a Heritage Committee recommendation that would have strengthened and improved the CBC and most recently his cuts to export subsidies for the arts.
He has been no friend to Canadian cities, he has bungled the economy (one of the few areas the Tories are supposed to be good at) and may soon take us back into deficits.
He reneged on his promise not to tax income trusts, costing many small investors - including retirees small fortunes, because Harper had promised not to tax these trusts many were buying them until days before his announcement.
Finally he has done considerable damage to Canada's reputation abroad. From refusing to attend the world aids conference to insulting the Chinese people (and Canadian athletes) by his absence from the opening ceremonies. His administration has interfered in foreign elections by leaking private information and left classified documents with girlfriends. The have also damaged Canada's reputation as a refuge from wars and war crimes by deporting asylum seekers.
In short Stephen Harper's government has been inept, corrupt, incompetent, immoral and staunchly anti-Canadain on almost every important issue. So, like the Americans, Canadians have a choice to make between the failed policies of the Bush Administration (echoed by Harper) and a reversal of that course.
Stephen Harper and his Tories have never enjoyed more than about 35% support in Canada, yet they manage to cling to power. If they truly care about Canada it is time for the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party to put aside their differences, focus on areas of common ground and at least temporarily come together in Coalition.
If the next election results in anything less than a majority parliament, Stephen Dion, Jack Layton and their parties should make it clear to Stephen Harper and the Governor General that they will act in concert and prevent the Harper Neo-Con agenda from going any further, that they can and will form a coalition Government and will block any further legislation by Stephen Harper until given a chance to do so.
and for more on Stephen Harper's connections to the Christian Right/ Religious Right and Neoconservatives see:
Chris Hedges the Nation Letter From Canada: The New Christian Right Nov 9, 2006
and: also see:
Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons /ELECTION 2008 / The rising clout of Canada's religious right /Marci McDonald / Originally published in the Oct 2006 issue of The Walrus magazine / National / Wednesday, September 17, 2008
and for more on Bush's attitude towards the environment see:
Bush On the Environment : Wrong, and Proud of It Until The very End at Huffington Post by Jeremy Jacquot/ July 14, 2008
and: Bush Lifts Presidential Ban On Offshore Oil Drilling /Monday 14 July 2008 by: Elana Schor, The Guardian UK
Recommended Books:
(more at right side-bar)
American Theocracy by Kevin Philips , pub.2006
American Fascists by Chris Hedges, pub. 2007
Restoring The Faith :The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture by Edith L. Blumhofer, pub. 1993
GOD AND COUNTRY : HOW EVANGELICALS HAVE BECOME AMERICA'S MAINSTREAM by Monique El-Faizy, pub. 2006
Leo Strauss: An Intellectual Biography, by Daniel Tanguay, pub. 2007
The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, (updated edition) by Shadia B. Drury, pub. 2005
Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics, and the Western Psyche, by Shadia B. Drury , pub. 2004
The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby, pub. 2008
BIG COAL; The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future, by Jeff Goodell, Pub. 2006
WHAT WE’VE LOST: BUSH’S WAR ON DEMOCRACY & FREEDOM by Graydon Carter, pub. 2004
The Assault On Reason by Al Gore, pub. 2007
and so it goes,
GORD.
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