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World Issues Challenge - The Tar Sands Atrocity
Everyday in Alberta hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil are being extracted from the earth - Approximately 320 600 barrels (roughly 50876Litres) a day. The mining of this oil is levelling kilometres of forest and releasing huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Many people are concerned about the environmental damage caused by the tar sands and by the habitats that can be destroyed by the creation of pipelines.
Many protests have been held to stop the mining of the tar sands and recently approximately 1500 protesters took part in a final stand against the Keystone XL Pipeline that would stretch from the Sands to the gulf of America. TarSandsAction.org is a website dedicated to stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline. It also has the latest news related to the Tar Sands and Pipeline Projects. They recently organized a sit-in on the West Lawn of the Whitehouse. OilSandsTruth.org is another website dedicated to stopping the oil sands. But rather than organize movements, they are dedicated to spreading awareness of some of the atrocities and environmental effects caused by the oil sands. Animal mutations have been caused by pollution rooted in the oil sand mining and processing. Air pollution has also caused disease and cancer in surrounding towns and residencies.
This environmental abuse may have created jobs, but those jobs will only last until the oil sands are mined clean, or until the methods currently being practised become obsolete and outlawed because of their environmental impact. There are stable jobs in green energy available that require less resources. Support of the tar sands is slowing the transition to clean, renewable energy. Canada is so familiar with and dependant on the oil sands that we are not confident to make the jump to green energy and are afraid of losing money on the way. Canada has been trying to sell the oil to foreign countries such as America and China, but we can not develop into an environmentally friendly country if we are supporting the use of unclean fuel.
World leaders need to take action against this casualty to Mother Nature. Stricter laws are required to limit the amount of resources used and CO2 released, as the oil sands are currently releasing 3 times the amount of CO2 as regular and are among the top contributors of greenhouse gasses in North America. Four barrels of water are used to produce one barrel of oil, and mining the tar sands is expected to demolish approximately 149000 square kilometres of forest by 2020. Government officials should also provide monetary endowments or tax rebates for businesses or residents that are installing solar panels or companies creating green sources of energy. Politicians also need to take notice to the amount of environmental damage caused. Habitats are ruined to create pipelines, and chemical ponds are created, which drain into the drinking water of the surrounding towns. This chemical runoff, as well as air pollution, is causing cancer and mutations of animals.
With recent temperatures breaking records across Canada, it is clear we need to do something about our emissions. Either we have to stop mining, or the environment will stop us.
Sources:
http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Editorial:_The_pros_and_cons_of_oil_sands
http://oilsandstruth.org/tar-sands-101
http://stoptarsands.wordpress.com/