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Drawing the Line: Continental grassroots resistance #Idle No More surmounts Harper's tar sands pipeline expansion
Blog posts reflect the views of their authors.
#Idle No More
By Lucid
January, 2012
The Alberta tar sands controversy has had a relatively short, but tragic lifespan that has worsened drastically with recent announcements of a national pipeline expansion program. Canada as a nation, under the leadership of the Harper government, has attracted stern condemnation on the part of socially conscious and scientifically minded global village as a result.
Prominent climatologists warn that under the current greenhouse emission levels, the planet has already been committed to a steady increase in temperature of up to an additional four degrees within the next century. Tar sands extraction, they warn, could push the planet over the tipping point.
The northern Alberta tar sands, situated on a stretch of land encompassing nearly twice the size of New Brunswick, may be expected to produce up to 175 billion barrels of oil. Yet, in its raw form, derived at through in-situ processing, it comes as a thick and sandy substance, useless without expensive refinement facilities; refinement facilities lacking in Alberta.
For tar sands bitumen to reach refinement, it must be diluted into a condensate --otherwise known as dilbit-- which is corrosive, and more toxic than normal crude. It is this dilbit, that is expected to be shipped over a massive pipeline infrastructure network spanning out from the extraction zone to the west coast, to the southern Gulf of Mexico, and eastward through Ontario, to other various distribution hubs.
Despite the costs, which include the contamination and depletion of pristine waters and wholesale destruction of Canadian old-growth Boreal Forests, the Harper government --in sidestep with a marginally numbered cluster of elite-oil transnationals and energy exploiters-- have been doggedly committed to the project, while refusing to address the impacts to stakeholder communities affected by the aftermath very seriously.
First Nations communities, environmental NGOs and ally communities across Canada and U.S. alike have been ringing the alarm bells persistently to the point to which it has become a household issue, not to be ignored. Many feel offended by the prospect of having pipelines that pump a dangerous and objectionable substance through their communities, putting their lands, waters, and livelihoods at great risk. Indigenous people have been particularly harmed by Canadian resource extraction operations, making the pipeline expansion even more acutely reprehensible.
A massive mobilization effort to resist the pipelines throughout the North American continent been steadily gaining steam, from the Keystone XL protests in Washington last year to the occupation of Parliament Hill in Ottawa last fall, to what we are now seeing in the resurgence of the the #Idle No More simultaneous flash mobs taking place across the various Canadian cities and towns.
We are called upon, here in Toronto, to lend our support and advocacy for the halt Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline reversal expected to ship dilbit into Ontario. Ontario ranks topmost, for it’s Great Lakes supply of fresh water. Another Enbridge pipeline rupture could spell contamination and sickness for millions of people.
As Canadians, we need not feel disempowered. Rather, it is imperative that we make our voices heard. In showing our solidarity with traditional sovereign Indigenous communities, we risk nothing, but in remaining silent we risk everything. By becoming informed and lending our voices, united on a demand that government set policies respecting ecological diversity, we can collectively realize a plan that includes a sane and sustainable energy future for all Canadians and for all people enjoying the benefits of a clean and safe environment.
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