<The Importance of Social Capital The Oil Drum DrumBeat: June 20, 2006>

98 comments on Mining Canadian Oil Sands into the future

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

TrueKaiser on June 20, 2006 - 1:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
umm you do know the psudo forest that is put back if they do repair the land is not even a fraction of what the forest once was. so yes land is destoryed, animals are pushed even closer to the brink and we slowly cut away our ability to live on this planet so that we can continue driving our cars to mc-donalds for food after a 9-5 job in some office?
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
fleam on June 20, 2006 - 4:21am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Funny, one place we lived where I grew up had pseudo-forest - spindly trees with bare dirt between them, the humous that takes serious time to build up wasn't there and erosion was a HUGE problem.
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
odograph on June 20, 2006 - 7:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
One minute people are complaining that we won't have enough oil to run the farms and deliver the food, the next they complain that we'll have too much, and continue the "mc donalds" lifestyle ...

For what it's worth, I think these big but slow to extract reserves represent a good insurance policy for the future.  And it's nice that they can't be burned off too quickly.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
NC on June 20, 2006 - 8:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm with TrueKaiser on this one.

How many posters here have been to Fort McMurray? or Hay River? or more to the point Dawson City, which is a disaster after 100 years of gold mining.  I have been to all and the disturbed ground is not pretty.

Northern Canada is a fragile land that does not recover quickly.  Left alone it provides some wood but a lot more fish and wild grazing animals like Moose, Deer and Caribou that people eat.  Mess it up and it won't do that anymore for people who might want to live there.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
odograph on June 20, 2006 - 9:01am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think we have to keep an eye on all these guys (mines) and make sure the remdiation they promise is done, without any corner-cutting.

But when we just compare them to old unremediated projects, that doesn't advance the conversation.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Oil CEO on June 20, 2006 - 12:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
We are keeping an eye on these guys. We have handed that responsibility over to our governments. They in turn have sold it to the corporations. So the corporations are keeping an eye on it. Who is watching the watchers? I will not buy shares of these companies.

Suncor
Exxon, Imperial
Chevron
Shell
ConocoPhilips
Encana
Petro-Canada
Western Oil Sands
Nexen
OPTI
Husky
Synenco
Murphy Oil
Mocal Energy

Not until you guys start being completely transparent about your impact on the environment and the true EROEI of what you are doing.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
odograph on June 20, 2006 - 3:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The two watchers watching the watchers that spring to mind are the Sierra Club and the Natural Resource Defense Council ... but it is of course a constant battle.

Wikipedia has a more exhaustive list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_organization

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

98 comments on Mining Canadian Oil Sands into the future

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version