Oil sands, tar sands
or, more technically, bituminous sands
Tar sands, or oil sands, are a mixture of clay, sand, water, and bitumen, a thick, tar-like form of oil. Worldwide, there are about 2 trillion barrels of tar sands oil, but only the Canadian tar sands in Alberta are in large-scale production. The U.S. is a large consumer of tar sands oil. Production of tar sands oil in Alberta has contaminated vast quantities of water, poisoned downstream communities, destroyed irreplaceable ecosystems, generated huge amounts of greenhouse gases, and created a toxic sacrifice zone the size of some small countries. [1]
The Tar Sands "Gigaproject" is the largest industrial project in human history and likely also the most destructive. The tar sands mining procedure releases at least three times the CO2 emissions as regular oil production and is slated to become the single largest industrial contributor in North America to Climate Change.
The tar sands are already slated to be the cause of up to the second fastest rate of deforestation on the planet behind the Amazon Rainforest Basin. Currently approved projects will see 3 million barrels of tar sands mock crude produced daily by 2018; for each barrel of oil up to as high as five barrels of water are used.
Human health in many communities has seriously taken a turn for the worse with many causes alleged to be from tar sands production. Tar sands production has led to many serious social issues throughout Alberta, from housing crises to the vast expansion of temporary foreign worker programs that racialize and exploit so-called non-citizens. Infrastructure from pipelines to refineries to super tanker oil traffic on the seas crosses the continent in all directions to allthree major oceans and the Gulf of Mexico.
Animals
Animal habitats and health are affected by tar sands production, whether from loss of habitat to any of the infrastructure developments across the continent, or through changes in the atmosphere such as melting polar ice caps in the Arctic brought on by out of control C02 emissions. Poisoning waterways, the food supply and the air in the immediate and not-so immediate surroundings has led to drops and even disappearances of species near pipelines, platforms and other infrastructure of the tarsands.
Two mouthed fish discovered near Alberta Tar Sands (2 Articles)
Duck Deaths Confirm First Nations Fears
Walruses die, global warming blamed
Climate Change/Emissions
Climate Change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions, in particular carbon. 40% of Canada’s emissions already come from Alberta alone, not counting the entire tar sands infrastructure across North America nor counting the projected increase in tar sands production or the infrastructure built across the continent to accommodate such increases in production. Factor it all in and you get the picture. You haven’t even burned the petrol yet. [2]
"Big Greens Holding Back Anti-Warming Movement"
Updating the Book on Global Warming
Top 10 Global Warming Stories of 2007
To understand the tar sands in more depth, please continue reading at Tar Sands 101 reading list
Two-Mouthed Fish Discovered Near Alberta Oil Sands,
CBC reported in August 2008
Residents in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., say they saw this fish, seen in this Aug. 15, 2008 photo, caught from Lake Athabasca last week. Picture via CBC (Courtesy of Ling Wang)
Days before a conference on water quality began in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., residents say a strange fish with two mouths was found at the nearby lake.
The deformed fish, which residents say children had caught off the dock at Lake Athabasca, has since been turned over to park wardens at Wood Buffalo National Park. Some residents, including officials from the Mikisew Cree First Nation, took photographs of the fish over the weekend.
Read more....
Days before a conference on water quality began in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., residents say a strange fish with two mouths was found at the nearby lake.
The deformed fish, which residents say children had caught off the dock at Lake Athabasca, has since been turned over to park wardens at Wood Buffalo National Park. Some residents, including officials from the Mikisew Cree First Nation, took photographs of the fish over the weekend.
Read more....
The true cost of tar sands oil
The expansion of tar sands production is a sign of Peak Oil. Oil prices had to be driven up enough by dwindling world supplies to make the arduous process of extracting oil (in the form of bitumen) from sand competitive on the global market. Steam is used in the extraction process. Vast quantities of water are drawn from Canada’s largest freshwater aquifer, threatening the longevity of a crucial North American water supply. Large amounts of natural gas are used to heat the water, meaning that every barrel of tar sands oil creates 3x the carbon emissions of oil from Texas or Saudi Arabia.
But all of this pales in comparison to the gigantic cesspools left behind in the process. Every barrel of Tar Sands Oil creates a barrel and a half of toxic waste that is collected into tailings ponds. It is an oily black cocktail of concentrated mercury, arsenic and other deadly and highly carcinogenic chemicals.
The tailings ponds stretch on over a construction zone larger than the size of Greece. Usually out of sight and out of mind, they drew world attention in 2008 when 1600 migrating ducks fatally mistook Syncrude’s tailings ponds for freshwater. Syncrude agreed to pay a 3 million dollar penalty (about a half a day’s profit) in 2010, and just hours later 230 more birds landed in the toxic brew and had to be euthanized.
These cesspools rest in unlined sand, and the majority are leaking into groundwater and the Athabasca River. Rob Renner, the Minister of the Environment in Alberta controls the program to monitor water pollution in the tar sands, but the results are confidential. The oil companies pay for the testing and own the data. The public hears only that water quality in the Athabasca River is “unchanged.”
But these chemicals are toxic at parts per trillion. Downstream the fish are deformed with humpbacks or cheeks that are eaten away as if by acid. They are unsafe to eat; the community has lost their traditional food source. An estimated 80-90% of the fish exposed to these chemicals die before hatching. Young people and old are developing brain tumors, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, leukemia and rare cancers at an alarming rate.
The previous text was taken from an article written by Allison LaBonne. To read the entire article, please click here!
But all of this pales in comparison to the gigantic cesspools left behind in the process. Every barrel of Tar Sands Oil creates a barrel and a half of toxic waste that is collected into tailings ponds. It is an oily black cocktail of concentrated mercury, arsenic and other deadly and highly carcinogenic chemicals.
The tailings ponds stretch on over a construction zone larger than the size of Greece. Usually out of sight and out of mind, they drew world attention in 2008 when 1600 migrating ducks fatally mistook Syncrude’s tailings ponds for freshwater. Syncrude agreed to pay a 3 million dollar penalty (about a half a day’s profit) in 2010, and just hours later 230 more birds landed in the toxic brew and had to be euthanized.
These cesspools rest in unlined sand, and the majority are leaking into groundwater and the Athabasca River. Rob Renner, the Minister of the Environment in Alberta controls the program to monitor water pollution in the tar sands, but the results are confidential. The oil companies pay for the testing and own the data. The public hears only that water quality in the Athabasca River is “unchanged.”
But these chemicals are toxic at parts per trillion. Downstream the fish are deformed with humpbacks or cheeks that are eaten away as if by acid. They are unsafe to eat; the community has lost their traditional food source. An estimated 80-90% of the fish exposed to these chemicals die before hatching. Young people and old are developing brain tumors, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, leukemia and rare cancers at an alarming rate.
The previous text was taken from an article written by Allison LaBonne. To read the entire article, please click here!
Climate activists tell Canada:
Don’t cop out on COP 15!
Via Tar Sands in Focus - On Monday 14th of December, 2009 campaigners from the UK Tar Sands Network and Camp for Climate Action protested outside Canada House in London and shut down Pall Mall Street in Trafalgar Square to protest against Canada’s attempts to derail the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.
Canada is one of the biggest current stumbling blocks to an ambitious and binding climate deal – because it continues extracting oil from the most destructive project on earth, the Tar Sands. This protest will take place in solidarity with similar protests in Copenhagen itself and several Canadian cities.
The Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada, are one of the world’s most polluting projects and are having a devastating effect on the lives of Indigenous communities and fuelling global climate change. Currently in Copenhagen, Canada is proposing an inadequate target for reducing greenhouse emissions by only 3% by 2020 ignoring world scientists’ recommendations to commit to over 40% reductions below 1990 levels in order to avoid dangerous runaway climate change. As a result, international criticism of Canada is mounting. Last week, a group of 11 Members of the European Parliament called on the leaders of BP, Shell, Statoil and Total companies to halt production of oil from the tar sands.
“Canada has already spectacularly failed to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets and has shown no signs of changing its priorities in Copenhagen. Instead of making the necessary shift to a low carbon economy, the Canadian government continues to approve new Tar Sands leases and is refusing to co-operate with international efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change. This affects the whole world,” says Suzanne Dhaliwal of the UK Tar Sands Network, who will be at the London protest.
“The Canadian government continues to ignore its own laws, which state they must consult with Indigenous Peoples who have been trying to convey concerns about Tar Sands development. Tar Sands are killing our communities and trampling over our rights.
Furthermore, the environmental destruction wreaked by the Tar Sands is directly threatening thousands of lives now and is driving our climate into chaos. The world has woken up to the fact that Canada is now Public Climate Enemy Number One. It’s time Canada did its global duty and shut down the Tar Sands,” says Clayton Thomas-Muller, an Indigenous activist with the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), who is participating in the parallel Tar Sands protest in Copenhagen.
UK campaigning against the Tar Sands, in solidarity with IEN, has focused on BP which plans to enter the Tar Sands through the massive ‘Sunrise Project’ and the Royal Bank of Scotland, now 84% state-owned, which has invested £8.3 billion in the Tar Sands since 2007 according to new research by the Rainforest Action Network.
The “Canada: Don’t Cop out on COP” action will start in Trafalgar Square, which has been occupied by the Camp for Climate Action for the duration of the Copenhagen negotiations as a base for UK based solidarity actions. Campaigners will then move onto Canada House to deliver their message to the Canadian government. [4]
March 2013
ExxonMobil pipeline carrying nearly 100,000 barrels of toxic tar sands crude spewed into Mayflower, Arkansas
On Good Friday, an ExxonMobil pipeline carrying Canadian Wabasca Heavy crude burst in Mayflower, Arkansas and was discovered - not by the pipeline company - but by a local resident. According to the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA), which referred to Wabasca as “oil sands” in a report, the “heavy crude” is a heavy bitumen crude diluted with lighter liquids (or diluted bitumen also called dilbit) to allow it to flow through pipeline. So we will be referring to the spill as oil sands to differentiate it from crude oil.
Exxon Mobil Corp continues its efforts to clean up thousands of barrels of Canadian tarsands spilled from a 65-year-old pipeline in Arkansas, as a debate rages about the safety of transporting rising volumes of the fuel into the United States.
The Pegasus pipeline, which ruptured in a community near the town of Mayflower, spewing oil sands across lawns and down residential streets, remains shut and Exxon didn’t begin excavating the area around the breach until Monday, a critical step in assessing damage and determining how and why it leaked. And no reports we have seen indicate the community was alerted to the potential health impacts the residents might experience.
Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline crosses 13 miles of the Lake Maumelle watershed. Many are concerned this poses a risk to Central Arkansas’s water supply, which includes the drinking water for Little Rock, the capital and the largest city of the state of Arkansas
The spill has stoked a discussion about the environmental dangers of using aging pipelines to transport dilbit from Canada, as a boom in oil and gas production in North America increases volumes moving across the continent. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said in a recent report that more than half of the nation’s pipelines were built in the 1950s and 1960s in response to higher energy demand after World War II. This is of particular interest to East Texans who may become host to hundreds of miles of re purposed Seaway pipeline that, like the Arkansas pipeline, passes near three major DFW water supplies.
Environmentalists argue that oil sands are more corrosive to pipelines than conventional oil and that spills from these pipelines pose a risk to drinking supplies and the health of residents living near a spill.
A 2010 Michigan spill resulted in residents being evacuated up to six miles away with more than 60% of the local population complaining of illness. (Source: Michigan Messenger,July, 2010) In a spill of oil sands, high levels of benzene and hydrogen sulfide go airborne requiring evacuation.
A film crew from the DFW area doing a documentary on the Tarsands fight, that traveled with a group of Texans to the Climate Rally in DC in February, were quickly dispatched after the Arkansas spill was discovered. They have shared with environmental groups that while filming in a local elementary school not far from the spill, numerous children at the school were reporting bouts of vomiting.
Children living near the Michigan spill reported cases of vomiting, upset stomach, shortness of breath, lethargy, headaches, rash, irritation with the eyes, sore throat, and cough withing the first week. Adults experienced migraines, eye irritation, sore throat, nausea, and coughing, and pets suffered from continuous vomiting and diarrhea. While the pipeline company told residents that they couldn’t prove that the pipeline spill was the cause, the EPA established that there were 15 parts per billion of benzene in the atmosphere in the region of the spill, which is roughly three times the standard established as safe for human exposure.
And to add insult to injury, this community found out after the fact that, while companies that transport oil are required to pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, giving the government a pot of money for immediate spill responses, the Enbridge pipeline in Michigan and the Exxon pipeline in Arkansas, are exempt because these pipelines are not considered to be carrying “conventional oil”, despite the fact bitumen spills are more expensive and more dangerous.
So after 3 years, the Michigan spill is far from being cleaned up, and the long term affects of exposure to the toxins released from the spill won’t be known for years. We can only anticipate that the Arkansas community will experience similar issues in cleanup efforts and Little Rock will wait to see if there are going to be impacts on their water resources.
Texans along the pipeline routes have expressed many of these concerns over the past year fighting the tar sands pipeline companies that want to run these through their lands and here are a few things that they have learned.
Read more....
Exxon Mobil Corp continues its efforts to clean up thousands of barrels of Canadian tarsands spilled from a 65-year-old pipeline in Arkansas, as a debate rages about the safety of transporting rising volumes of the fuel into the United States.
The Pegasus pipeline, which ruptured in a community near the town of Mayflower, spewing oil sands across lawns and down residential streets, remains shut and Exxon didn’t begin excavating the area around the breach until Monday, a critical step in assessing damage and determining how and why it leaked. And no reports we have seen indicate the community was alerted to the potential health impacts the residents might experience.
Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline crosses 13 miles of the Lake Maumelle watershed. Many are concerned this poses a risk to Central Arkansas’s water supply, which includes the drinking water for Little Rock, the capital and the largest city of the state of Arkansas
The spill has stoked a discussion about the environmental dangers of using aging pipelines to transport dilbit from Canada, as a boom in oil and gas production in North America increases volumes moving across the continent. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) said in a recent report that more than half of the nation’s pipelines were built in the 1950s and 1960s in response to higher energy demand after World War II. This is of particular interest to East Texans who may become host to hundreds of miles of re purposed Seaway pipeline that, like the Arkansas pipeline, passes near three major DFW water supplies.
Environmentalists argue that oil sands are more corrosive to pipelines than conventional oil and that spills from these pipelines pose a risk to drinking supplies and the health of residents living near a spill.
A 2010 Michigan spill resulted in residents being evacuated up to six miles away with more than 60% of the local population complaining of illness. (Source: Michigan Messenger,July, 2010) In a spill of oil sands, high levels of benzene and hydrogen sulfide go airborne requiring evacuation.
A film crew from the DFW area doing a documentary on the Tarsands fight, that traveled with a group of Texans to the Climate Rally in DC in February, were quickly dispatched after the Arkansas spill was discovered. They have shared with environmental groups that while filming in a local elementary school not far from the spill, numerous children at the school were reporting bouts of vomiting.
Children living near the Michigan spill reported cases of vomiting, upset stomach, shortness of breath, lethargy, headaches, rash, irritation with the eyes, sore throat, and cough withing the first week. Adults experienced migraines, eye irritation, sore throat, nausea, and coughing, and pets suffered from continuous vomiting and diarrhea. While the pipeline company told residents that they couldn’t prove that the pipeline spill was the cause, the EPA established that there were 15 parts per billion of benzene in the atmosphere in the region of the spill, which is roughly three times the standard established as safe for human exposure.
And to add insult to injury, this community found out after the fact that, while companies that transport oil are required to pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, giving the government a pot of money for immediate spill responses, the Enbridge pipeline in Michigan and the Exxon pipeline in Arkansas, are exempt because these pipelines are not considered to be carrying “conventional oil”, despite the fact bitumen spills are more expensive and more dangerous.
So after 3 years, the Michigan spill is far from being cleaned up, and the long term affects of exposure to the toxins released from the spill won’t be known for years. We can only anticipate that the Arkansas community will experience similar issues in cleanup efforts and Little Rock will wait to see if there are going to be impacts on their water resources.
Texans along the pipeline routes have expressed many of these concerns over the past year fighting the tar sands pipeline companies that want to run these through their lands and here are a few things that they have learned.
Read more....
April 4, 2013 - via National Geographic News - David Hatfield, an Arkansas wildlife photographer and minister, rose before dawn on Monday and headed to Lake Conway.
Even though he had lived nearby for 25 years, Hatfield never knew of the threat now oozing near this 6,700-acre habitat 25 miles north of Little Rock, the largest game and wildlife commission reservoir in the United States.
"It surprised me that we had a pipeline here," he said.
But ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline has been buried here for more than six decades, quietly propelling oil between Texas and Illinois beneath the backyards of Mayflower, Arkansas. Pegasus' years in obscurity ended March 29, when it ruptured, spilling at least 12,000 barrels (504,000 gallons/1.9 million liters) of heavy Canadian crude oil and water into the neighborhood.
Read more....
Yards are flooded in black crude, a river of toxic oil flows down the street, and the nearby fishing lake is covered in black grease. Families have been evacuated, but nobody knows what the dangers to the community are, or even how much oil has been spilled. Why? Because Exxon’s not talking.
Let’s hold ExxonMobil accountable for this spill by demanding it release all the information on this spill -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- while the images of play sets and driveways overrun with crude oil are still in the public eye.
Tell ExxonMobil to release information about the tens of thousands barrels of crude spilled in Arkansas.
ExxonMobil is controlling the no-fly zone over the spill site that the federal government put in place to keep news helicopters from capturing images of the disaster. ExxonMobil is being so secretive because it wants people to believe that pipelines like this are perfectly safe and pose no threat to people or the planet. But this catastrophe in Arkansas foreshadows a future reality for anyone who lives along the thousands of miles of pipeline being considered for approval by the U.S. government.
Right now, ExxonMobil and other oil companies are lobbying furiously for the Keystone XL, a massive pipeline stretching across the North America that will transport enough toxic tar to be "game over" for the planet. If approved, the Keystone XL will be carrying even more of the same hard-to-clean-up toxic crude as the oil spilled in Arkansas.
The last thing ExxonMobil and its ilk want is to tell us the truth about its dirty business while legislators are making such a high-stakes decision on the Keystone XL. It knows that if we can use this spill in Arkansas to show the world the reality of these pipelines, we may be able to stop the Keystone XL in its tracks. And it's especially vulnerable to public pressure right now, since images of backyards covered in its tar sands crude are leaking out and going viral on Facebook.
Tell ExxonMobil to release all the information it has on the massive pipeline spill.
Together, we can expose the reality for people in the path of the crude spill, help show the public that the pipelines that ExxonMobil and other major companies haven't started construction on yet are unsafe too, and hopefully stop future pipelines in their tracks entirely.
►►► Please SIGN the PETITION at SumOfUs
Even though he had lived nearby for 25 years, Hatfield never knew of the threat now oozing near this 6,700-acre habitat 25 miles north of Little Rock, the largest game and wildlife commission reservoir in the United States.
"It surprised me that we had a pipeline here," he said.
But ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline has been buried here for more than six decades, quietly propelling oil between Texas and Illinois beneath the backyards of Mayflower, Arkansas. Pegasus' years in obscurity ended March 29, when it ruptured, spilling at least 12,000 barrels (504,000 gallons/1.9 million liters) of heavy Canadian crude oil and water into the neighborhood.
Read more....
Yards are flooded in black crude, a river of toxic oil flows down the street, and the nearby fishing lake is covered in black grease. Families have been evacuated, but nobody knows what the dangers to the community are, or even how much oil has been spilled. Why? Because Exxon’s not talking.
Let’s hold ExxonMobil accountable for this spill by demanding it release all the information on this spill -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- while the images of play sets and driveways overrun with crude oil are still in the public eye.
Tell ExxonMobil to release information about the tens of thousands barrels of crude spilled in Arkansas.
ExxonMobil is controlling the no-fly zone over the spill site that the federal government put in place to keep news helicopters from capturing images of the disaster. ExxonMobil is being so secretive because it wants people to believe that pipelines like this are perfectly safe and pose no threat to people or the planet. But this catastrophe in Arkansas foreshadows a future reality for anyone who lives along the thousands of miles of pipeline being considered for approval by the U.S. government.
Right now, ExxonMobil and other oil companies are lobbying furiously for the Keystone XL, a massive pipeline stretching across the North America that will transport enough toxic tar to be "game over" for the planet. If approved, the Keystone XL will be carrying even more of the same hard-to-clean-up toxic crude as the oil spilled in Arkansas.
The last thing ExxonMobil and its ilk want is to tell us the truth about its dirty business while legislators are making such a high-stakes decision on the Keystone XL. It knows that if we can use this spill in Arkansas to show the world the reality of these pipelines, we may be able to stop the Keystone XL in its tracks. And it's especially vulnerable to public pressure right now, since images of backyards covered in its tar sands crude are leaking out and going viral on Facebook.
Tell ExxonMobil to release all the information it has on the massive pipeline spill.
Together, we can expose the reality for people in the path of the crude spill, help show the public that the pipelines that ExxonMobil and other major companies haven't started construction on yet are unsafe too, and hopefully stop future pipelines in their tracks entirely.
►►► Please SIGN the PETITION at SumOfUs
Blockadia Rising:
Voices of the Tar Sands Blockade
Blockadia Rising: Voices of the Tar Sands Blockade is an hour-long documentary film written and directed by Garrett Graham in collaboration with the Tar Sands Blockade and features exclusive video footage shot by the blockaders themselves during the course of over six months of sustained resistance.
In 2012, Texas landowners and environmental activists came together to organize resistance against a dangerous pipeline being built by a Canadian corporation to bring tar sands oil from Alberta Canada to refineries near the Gulf of Mexico. This hazardous project continues despite unprecedented opposition from indigenous communities, local farmers and even global environmental movements. From this struggle, a community of resistance was born that has attracted volunteers from around the continent who have successfully defied this multi-million dollar corporation with the power of non-violent direct action.
The film is meant to be both a celebration of the blockades' achievements and a primer for those interested in joining the campaign. It explains the dangers of tar sands extraction and the risks to public health posed by the pipeline as well as the strategy of non-violent direct action that has been delaying the pipeline so far.
The story takes place in the backwoods of East Texas where the pipeline crosses farmlands and homesteads as well as aquifers and old growth forests. You will hear the voices of the blockaders who are risking their lives to stop this pipeline. In the Texas heat, they have locked themselves to heavy machinery, and braved the elements by living in trees. Hear these courageous folks in their own words.
Blockadia Rising is just the opening chapter in this ongoing movement to stop this pipeline and halt the extraction of the Canadian tar sands, but the blockaders see themselves as a part of a larger struggle against the consequences of run-away climate-change caused by unchecked extraction of natural resources by industry at the expense of both human and non-human communities. This film speaks to all movements for environmental and social justice and showcases direct action techniques that have never been attempted before.
Blockadia Rising: Voices from the tar Sands Blockade (2013) was written, edited and narrated by Garrett Graham, an active participant of the Tar Sands Blockade who continues to support their efforts. This film is dedicated to them, and everyone fighting for environmental and social justice.
The Campaign: tarsandsblockade.org
The Filmmaker: garrettgrahamonline.wordpress.com
The film is meant to be both a celebration of the blockades' achievements and a primer for those interested in joining the campaign. It explains the dangers of tar sands extraction and the risks to public health posed by the pipeline as well as the strategy of non-violent direct action that has been delaying the pipeline so far.
The story takes place in the backwoods of East Texas where the pipeline crosses farmlands and homesteads as well as aquifers and old growth forests. You will hear the voices of the blockaders who are risking their lives to stop this pipeline. In the Texas heat, they have locked themselves to heavy machinery, and braved the elements by living in trees. Hear these courageous folks in their own words.
Blockadia Rising is just the opening chapter in this ongoing movement to stop this pipeline and halt the extraction of the Canadian tar sands, but the blockaders see themselves as a part of a larger struggle against the consequences of run-away climate-change caused by unchecked extraction of natural resources by industry at the expense of both human and non-human communities. This film speaks to all movements for environmental and social justice and showcases direct action techniques that have never been attempted before.
Blockadia Rising: Voices from the tar Sands Blockade (2013) was written, edited and narrated by Garrett Graham, an active participant of the Tar Sands Blockade who continues to support their efforts. This film is dedicated to them, and everyone fighting for environmental and social justice.
The Campaign: tarsandsblockade.org
The Filmmaker: garrettgrahamonline.wordpress.com
Sources & references
1. http://waterdefense.org/content/tar-sands
2. http://oilsandstruth.org/tar-sands-101
3. http://wednesdaypost.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/the-true-cost-of-tar-sands-oil-keystone-xl-pipeline/
4. http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/climate-activists-tell-canada-dont-cop-out-on-cop-15/
5. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/04/130405-arkansas-oil-spill-is-canadian-crude-worse/
1. http://waterdefense.org/content/tar-sands
2. http://oilsandstruth.org/tar-sands-101
3. http://wednesdaypost.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/the-true-cost-of-tar-sands-oil-keystone-xl-pipeline/
4. http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/climate-activists-tell-canada-dont-cop-out-on-cop-15/
5. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/04/130405-arkansas-oil-spill-is-canadian-crude-worse/