{"id":1726,"date":"2011-12-05T14:42:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-05T22:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=1726"},"modified":"2012-01-26T13:19:12","modified_gmt":"2012-01-26T21:19:12","slug":"web-exclusive-alberta-tar-sands-are-selling-out-our-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2011\/12\/05\/web-exclusive-alberta-tar-sands-are-selling-out-our-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta Tar Sands are selling out our future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right now, the largest industrial project in the history of humankind is taking place in Alberta. This project is generating incredible sums of money for the Harper government and the Canadian economy. And, it\u2019s killing us.<\/p>\n

The Alberta Tar Sands (also known as the Alberta Oil Sands) is producing more and more greenhouse gases every year, and is predicted to surpass the greenhouse gas output of the entire European nation of Denmark by 2015. At the same time, Canada\u2019s Northern Boreal Forest\u2014which is the largest carbon sink on Earth and sometimes called \u201cthe Lungs of the Earth\u201d\u2014is being logged and destroyed in order to further this development.<\/p>\n

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An art installation protesting the Alberta Tar Sands (Photo by itzafineday\/Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And it gets worse: the amount of waste generated by the tar sands is massive. Tailings ponds\u2014man-made lakes full of toxic sludge created from the bitumen refining process\u2014are so numerous and large that they can be seen from space. Some tailings ponds are as large as 8,850 hectares\u2014and they aren\u2019t lined, which means that their toxic materials are leeching into the Athabasca River.<\/p>\n

The First Nations community of Fort Chipewyan, which lies north of the tar sands along the Athabasca River, boasts a cancer rate three to seven times higher than the national average rate. Northern communities like Fort Chipewyan rely on natural resources for food due to the immense costs of shipping food in, but fish in the Athabasca River are now contaminated with carcinogens.<\/p>\n

The tar sands are, literally, killing people.<\/p>\n

No justification can be made for this willful disregard for human life and the environment. The Northern Boreal Forest is twice as effective at reducing carbon emissions as the Amazon Rainforest, and we\u2019re destroying it to fuel an economy based on greed and antiquated technologies. And then there\u2019s the human cost: we\u2019re allowing human beings to die.<\/p>\n

None of this makes sense. Alternative technologies are out there: technologies we know could replace our energy requirements. The infrastructure of our world needs to change; we need to embrace a different way of thinking and acting; we need to start doing something proactive.<\/p>\n

Our government and the governments of the world need to know that short-term gains aren\u2019t justification for giving up our children\u2019s futures. Ours is the generation that can\u2019t afford complacency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right now, the largest industrial project in the history of humankind is taking place in Alberta. This project is generating incredible sums of money for the Harper government and the Canadian economy. And, it\u2019s killing us. The Alberta Tar Sands (also known as the Alberta Oil Sands) is producing more and more greenhouse gases every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-views"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t