Tar sands bumpf at convention
Tar sands bumpf at convention This article is more than 9 years old

Tar sands bumpf at convention

Photo: @Josh_Wingrove These buttons are making the rounds at the Conservative Party convention. A more apt slogan is, “I love GHG emissions.” Here’s what we know about Canada’s tar sands.  The goal of the Conservative government is to triple tar sands production by 2035, even as Canada keeps missing its greenhouse gas reductions targets.  After walking […]

These buttons are making the rounds at the Conservative Party convention. A more apt slogan is, “I love GHG emissions.”

Here’s what we know about Canada’s tar sands. 

The goal of the Conservative government is to triple tar sands production by 2035, even as Canada keeps missing its greenhouse gas reductions targets

After walking away from the Kyoto Protocol, Canada signed on to a more modest target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020. But we’re still waiting for the government’s twice promised emissions regulations for the oil and gas sector. 

But even with these regulations, we know Canada will miss these modest targets.

And that’s the rub here: as the late Peter Lougheed noted, the lack of a plan for any orderly development is the problem. The tar sands must be contextualised in a broader national pollution reduction framework, and their development can’t just proceed in a gold-rush style that exports Canadian jobs. 

But Canada lacks this framework, so we’re seeing development without a meaningful plan.

“They’ve increased significantly and are projected to continue to do so,” University of Alberta professor Andrew Leach points out.

Calgary Herald columnist Don Baird characterizes this trend line as “Alberta’s pathetic record on cutting greenhouse gas emissions,” saying it’s “moved into a critical red zone.”

A new study by researchers at UC Irvine and the University of Michigan paints a picture of what this looks like in areas downwind of “Canada’s main fossil fuel hub in Alberta”: higher incidence of blood cancers among men in the area.

With all this talk of the tar sands and greenhouse gas emissions, here’s another question: how many millions of dollars did the oil industry spend on rebranding the tar sands, so “oil sands” ended up on buttons at the Conservative Party convention?

Our journalism is powered by readers like you.

We’re an award-winning non-profit news organization that covers topics like social and economic inequality, big business and labour, and right-wing extremism.

Help us build so we can bring to light stories that don’t get the attention they deserve from Canada’s big corporate media outlets.

 

Donate
PressProgress
PressProgress is an award-winning non-profit news organization focused on uncovering and unpacking the news through original investigative and explanatory journalism.

Most Shared

thumb-2023-03-05-doug-ford-education News

15 Surprising, Strange and Troubling Details Buried in the Emergencies Act Inquiry’s Final Report

Related Stories

News

Ontario Budget 2023: Doug Ford Pulled a Sneaky Move to Quietly Cut Education

View the post
News

Twitter is Censoring Canadian News Outlets and Politicians Tweeting About Civil Liberties in India

View the post

Explainers

Human rights & inclusion

Amira Elghawaby

Here’s The Problem With Hoping Corporations Will Be Socially and Environmentally Responsible On Their Own

View the post
Politics & strategy

Jeremy Appel

The battle of the PACs in Calgary’s municipal election

View the post
Politics & strategy

Jeremy Appel

27 Different Candidates are Vying to be Calgary’s Mayor. Here Are the Biggest Issues at Stake.

View the post
Newspapers always have a business section – why not a labour section? We’ve launched a free newsletter covering labour issues in Canada.
Get Canadian Labour News You Won't Find in Corporate Newspapers.
We’ve launched a free newsletter covering labour issues in Canada.
Get Canadian Labour News You Won't Find in Corporate Newspapers