Oil Sands

Could it be that US environmentalists are so hyper about the oil sands in Alberta because they want to deflect attention away from the fact that half the electricity generated in the US is from coal plants? These coal plants are more environmentally damaging that our oil sands.

I notice that people go on and on about the oil sands using strip mining. However, there are plenty of other strip mines in US and Canada and no one is making a fuss about them. They are doing strip mining the BC. However, BC is complaining about the oil sands and how environmentally unfriend it is. Let me tell you all strip mining is environmentally unfriendly.

No one seems to be complaining about say getting oil off the coast of Newfoundland. However, spills can happen. Just remember what occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. A spill in the Atlantic Ocean would have a huge environmental effect, but no one is saying that Newfoundland should not go after the its oil. The Atlantic Ocean is colder and a lot rougher than the Gulf of Mexico and therefore any spill would be far worse.

I do not think that there is any doubt that Americans are funding oil sands protests in Canada. Their avowed purpose is to shut down the oil sands. This has not stopped them from going after oil in US or doing strip mining in the US. Without the pipelines, Canadian oil will be shipped by train. I understand that oil spills due to derailments are far worse than oil spills from pipelines.

Perhaps I am missing something, but I do not see the oil sands as the epitome of evil, nor do I see the Albertans as evil for wanting to develop the oil sands. There seems to be a lot of hysteria about protests to the oil sands. In my view, hysteria prevents people from thinking logically or just prevents thinking totally.

As far as pollution on lands is concerned, I feel that, especially in the Western world we have been cleaning up our act. Wilderness areas are coming back. We have other animals making a comeback. I live in Toronto and there are now coyotes in the city and this is a rather recent development. People have also said that they have Wolves in TO.

There used to warnings all the time about the beaches around Toronto being too polluted to swim in. I have not heard a pollution warning for quite some time. Our Great Lakes are reviving. BC has cougars again and there are wolfs, again, in Yellow Stone park. I must admit that from what I have seen and read, things are getting better.

I am afraid I worry a lot more about what humans are doing to life in the oceans. Could we be on a path to destroying life in the oceans? This would be a true catastrophe. Fish species are still disappearing from the oceans and the ones being caught are a lot smaller than they used to be. There is an article on this by the BBC.

In Canada we have had a moratorium on cod on the Grand Banks since 1994. That is almost 20 years and they might be slowing recovering, but not enough to lift the moratorium. This is not talked about much anymore and the most recent article I can find is from 2010 by CBC.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on the oceans. After all, this article is on the oil sands. I do have hope that we humans will find our way to more renewable energy sources and away from oil and gas. It is hard to say when this will occur, but I have not doubts it will.

One good thing about all these radical environmentalists screaming in our ear is that it may push us to take better care of our earth, which we really need to do.

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