US government officials overseeing plans for this deposit, which has no comparison in the world, describe Alberta as their “template.” What exactly is that template? It’s not simply about dumping enough carbon into the atmosphere to fry the planet, though that is one of its least pleasant features. It’s also about hollowing out your country’s manufacturing industry, hitching your public finances to a disastrous boom-and-bust resource cycle, poisoning downstream indigenous communities, and fostering an increasingly authoritarian government that is willing to dismantle any regulation in the way of the oil barons while treating dissent like criminal behaviour. If you thought the Canadian government might be quietly sheepish about their new status as an international extreme energy role-model, you’d be very wrong. Its politicians have eagerly promoted their extraction technologies to their allies. Canada’s Natural Resources minister recently struck up a pact to collaborate on research, development and joint ventures with Israel, which is pegged to have 250 billion barrels of recoverable crude – another mini-Alberta. “Israel’s current state of oil shale resource development has similarities to the early days of Canada’s oil sands and we are pleased to share Canada’s experiences with respect to policy and regulation,” the minister has said.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 21:43:20 +0000
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