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Harper’s concern for environment is laughable |
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Written by associate news editor rodney Venis
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Sunday, 11 May 2008 |
He somehow refrained from ordering the flag on Parliament Hill to be flown at half-mast but Prime Minister Stephen Harper nevertheless called the oilsands' death of 500 ducks a national "tragedy" last week and lamented the damage done to Canada's environmental image.
Now the prime minister has taken enough grief over his over-enthusiastic use of the word "tragedy." Really, when compared anything from the Chinese occupation of Tibet to the Vancouver Canucks, the only tragedy is the star-crossed waterfowl should have drowned in l'orange sauce instead of the toxic foulness of a Syncrude tailings pond. What's more egregious is any member of the Conservative government, let alone Harper, even daring to mention caring about Canada's "good environmental record and good environmental image."
C'mon. This is the government that defiled the Kyoto agreement in front of the whole world. The Tories could put Daffy and Donald through a woodchipper in front of the CNN building in Atlanta and it still wouldn't match the damage they've done to Canada's international reputation.
But, in Harper's defence, he wasn't concerned so much about the country's green credentials as its profile as an "emerging energy superpower." He'd one day like the world to see the oilsands as sustainable and eco-friendly.
That's right. The oilsands. As sustainable. And eco-friendly. It's like arguing one day cigarettes will one day be a source of Vitamin C and ginseng.
Not to put too fine a point on it (and not to ignore the government surpluses and massive economic stimulus) but, in terms of the environment, the oilsands is one of the foulest, most poisonous enterprises ever devised by humanity. According to an, admittedly, worse case scenario from the Edmonton Journal, a patch of forest the size of Florida could be disturbed by the oilsands if it grows as projected while thousands of plants, pipelines and roads tied to the development could eventually cover 21 per cent of the Alberta. Since the oilsands takes two to four barrels of water to produce each barrel of oil, it sucks up almost 16 per cent of the Athabasca River in the winter alone, when the waterway is at its most vulnerable. Then, of course, there are the greenhouse gases, where it's estimated the oilsands will produce almost half of Canada's emissions growth between 2003 and 2010.
That's also not to forget the aforementioned toxic tailings ponds that killed the ducks, which all told are so large they can be seen from space. The reason the ducks died is that, according to World Watch, the ponds contain pollutants such as napthenic acids in concentrations 100 times the natural level.
The list of horrors goes on -- from diverted rivers and streams to wetlands being drained to the influence of the Calgary Flames -- and they're enough that the UN put the oilsands in the world's top 100 "hot spots" of environmental degradation. (OK, the UN failed to mention the Flames.) But they're not enough to stop either Harper or his provincial counterpart, Premier Ed Stelmach from putting a smiley face on the whole endeavour. Indeed, Stelmach's government even launched a $25 million "branding" campaign to put a less sickly shade of green on the damage.
Hopefully that money will be used to grease a lot of palms in the U.S. Congress and Senate because it's hard to imagine how such a campaign would work. Possible slogans include: "What Happens in the Oilsands, Stays in the Oilsands", "You Wanna Walk?", "It's only Canada Anyways", and "Alberta: Cleaner than Chernobyl, Better than Bhopal."
But here's good luck to both of them. After all, they're dealing with a tragedy: just when everyone was content to turn a blind eye to the oilsands, 500 ducks dropped dead in their lap.
-- Associate news editor Rodney Venis
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 11 May 2008 )
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PS. Next time you refer to Harper as a idiot, remember that this area has sent conservatives to Ottowa for decades. Calling down Harper calls down the vast majority of voters in PG and Northern BC. I would think that the Citizen is smarter than to call its readers idiots.