Massive tar sands protest in the US
On Saturday 20th August, campaigners began to gather outside the White House in Washington to begin a two-week-long protest against the Alberta tar sands pipeline. They have turned up in cars and camper vans from all over America, prepared for a long sit-in. About 1,500 people have signed up to accept the possibility of arrest and it’s predicted to be the biggest green civil disobedience action the US has ever seen.
The State Department is expected to produce its final environmental analysis of the pipeline by the beginning of September, and from then, Barack Obama will have 90 days to decide whether going ahead with the project is in the national interest. The massed crowd outside the White House knows this is the last chance to persuade the President to stop the planned 1,600-mile pipeline that will carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta across rich American farmland to the Gulf of Mexico.
The existing ‘Keystone XL’ tar-sands project has caused immense environmental protest. Its pipeline from Canada already brings 591,000 barrels of diluted bitumen, the technical name for the thick oil mixed in the sands, to refineries in Oklahoma and Illinois. The extra energy needed to mine the oil from the sands of Alberta and to process it creates 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil, and the open-pit mining that is already happening has devastated Alberta’s forest lands. The new pipeline would increase the capacity to 1.3 million barrels a day and deliver the crude to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Here in Scotland, our own Co-op has voiced its concern about the desperate oil-seeking technologies now being unleashed. Its current Re:act magazine carries a piece called The Future of Fuel, pointing out the serious dangers of ‘fracking’ for shale gas and calling for an expansion of renewable, non-damaging forms of power generation. Well done, the Co.
PS – Despite all this public outrage, President Obama decided on August 29th to go ahead with the pipeline.
