The Battle Over Canada’s Tar Sands: Citizens Speak Out

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sep 27 2011 (IPS) - On Sep. 26, normally placid and polite Canadians shouted, waved banners and demanded the closure of the multi-billion-dollar tar sands oil extraction projects in northern Alberta to protect the global climate and the health of local people and environment.

The civil disobedience followed two weeks of protests in front of the White House in Washington DC at the end of August over the proposed 3,100-km Keystone XL pipeline to ship tar sands oil from northern Alberta to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Climate scientists have said there is so much carbon in the tar sands that if most it is extracted and burned, there is no chance of stabilising the climate. This means humanity will suffer the effects of an ever-hotter world, with megadroughts, megaflooding, and megastorms.