Retired NASA GISS chief James Hansen is Slagging Canada’s Oil Sands Again
Canada’s Environment *Resources Minister Joe Oliver is calling out Jim Hansen for exaggerating claims that the oil sands and Keystone XL pipeline is “game over for the environment.”
“A retired NASA scientist is exaggerating when he claims Canada’s oil sands development is an environmental scourge, federal environment minister Joe Oliver said on Wednesday.
“It does not advance the debate when people make exaggerated comments that are not rooted in the facts. And [scientist James Hansen] should know that,” Oliver told reporters in Washington, D.C., CBC reported.”
Read more:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/25/natural-resources-minister/
Story submitted by WUWT reader John Marincic
* John Marincic adds at 2013/04/25 at 12:51 pm in comments
Anthony, when I posted this NP had him as the Environment Minister. He is the Natural Resources Minister and NP changed the title on me. If you want to correct the post please be my guest.
Thx, John
Kajajuk says:
April 27, 2013 at 8:35 am
“As long as the ‘clean up’ of the natural environment will include massive tailings pools i am sure there is nothing to worry about. Why be cautious with irreversible actions?”
Certainly due care in mining and disposition of waste should be a central consideration of modern society. However, I get tired of the anti mining folks who go to protests on their titanium bicycles and organize using their metal and plastic computers burning energy in the process. This is a bit like protesting against deer pooping in the forest. Our use of earth’s mineral materials IS the central identifying characteristic of being human. It separates us from the apes and other creatures. The very names of the fundamental steps in human development are not arbitrary: paleolithic neolithic (lithic refering to “stone users”), the bronze age, the iron age… use of mineral materials in a virtually hereditary and defining aspect of humaness. Our archeological history is known almost solely from the caches of mineral materials that we have left behind. It is no less natural than beavers building a dam. Kajajuk, please fast forward a couple of hundred years and join us.
Not an anti-mining folk am i; just a powerless observer whom watches and waits…
More monuments in stone should be constructed to ‘humaness’; they last longer than concrete and steel.
Comparing extraction of resources in ‘archeological history’ to the lemmings march of today is most amusing. Perhaps i will join you as the years click by, but perhaps you will be joining me. It will depend on how the ‘cookies’ crumble.
Oops I meant a couple of hundred thousand years.
kajajuk – Sorry kajajuk, you’ll find it hard to mislead here. “So big you can see it from space…one of the biggest man-made structures on Earth…a modern marvel…” Please check such absurdities before posting. Google earth is my friend. If you look on Google Earth you can find the oil sands mines, after some looking, if you can follow waterways and look up the nearby towns or cities. Try finding them without using looking up Fort MacMurray or Fort MacKay and you’ll see how small the area that is affected is. The active mines are not as easy to find, or notice, as you’re implying. On the provincial, or regional
Next, compare pretty much any major city at the same scale. London, Paris, New York, Toronto, Dallas, Mexico City, Beijing, Rome…. if you If you look at any of them at the same scale, the cities have a bigger footprint than the oilsands mining does. And mining doesn’t introduce foreign plants and trees to the local ecosystems (like so many gardeners do, usually inadvertently). The city cores are larger than the oilsands mines, but what about the surroundings? If you zoom in on any of the city areas you’ll find a lot of individual houses, streets, agriculture, and parks. Some cities have large parks beside them that are enforced as “no development” zones. Zoom in on the area around the oilsands mines and what do you find? There’s lots of trees and swamps, and the occasional road or drill pad. If you’re really serious about being concerned with oil products going to or being taken from a zone that’s been toxic for thousands of years (the La Brea tar pits is a similar deposit, how do you think it captured all those skeletal samples?) then why not try to stop pavement? It uses a petrochemical base, and is ubiquitous in today’s first world nations. Until you’ve cleaned up the mess in your area, stop telling me what do to in mine.
drat, must remember to review. The first paragraph was intended to end “On the provincial or regional level, the Oilsands mines look the same as intensive agricultural areas that are lying fallow or covered in snow. They are far from the only thing in Alberta that would be visible from space, if indeed they are.”
Since, i am not in space it is not my observation. Funny how the fur is so well matted by your inability to be deceived but the meat remains unchallenged.
“A Man-Made Wonder of the World
You’ve seen pictures of the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal, and Machu Pichu? Now see the newest wonder of the world for yourself. As large as 12,000 football fields and clearly visible from space, the oil sands toxic tailing ponds of Alberta are one of the largest man-made structures in the world. With the only industry planning to quadruple production, this wonder is only getting larger. Come celebrate this wondrous achievement!”
http://travelingalberta.com/vacation_ideas.php
If what you say is true Mike D, then my faith in the Alberta tourist industry has been shattered.
I will be passing on the celebrations, but cheers to you and yours!
props