Audio: The struggle against tar sands extraction in Alberta

international | environment | news report Monday November 16, 2009 10:23 by Andrew andrewnflood at gmail dot com

As conventional sources of oil become rarer the energy corporations have started the mass extraction of oil from the tar sands of Alberta. This is a filthy process that involves vast open cast mines, tailing ponds that can be seen from space and the use of huge quantities of water and energy making it a major cause of climate change. On Saturday Heather Milton Lightening of the Indigenous Environmental Network spoke to a national Shell to Sea meeting in Dublin about this struggle (last night she spoke in Inver, Erris). This is a 50 minute recording of that talk and the discussions that followed it.

Heather at a tar sands protest in Toronto (from ruckus.org)

These are some of the areas the talk covers

What is tar sand
The mining / extraction process
effect on the watershed
the pipeline network
energy security and NAFTA
resistance to the pipelines
First Nation treaty process
impact of the recession
high cancer rates
low regulation standards of Alberta
Why this trip to Europe
Action at Copenhagen COP15
Bear Butte gathering
Big NGO's, community accountability
indigenous people speaking for themselves
Carbon trading in Canada
Koyto targets and the tar sands
International ban on tar sands development
employment in the tar sands
communities not wanting to take public positions
gap between community leadership and grassroots
watershed issues
fallout of uranium mining
uranium company buying out opposition
lack of environmental monitoring
tailing ponds and wildlife kills
difficulties of direct action
how are the legal actions being fought
melting ice caps and the pipelines
victories against Shell has seen them switch to tar sands
Olympics in BC
Red Oil network in Alaska
tar sands and Copenhagen
arrests and colonialism

You'll find more information on the Indigenous Environmental Network at http://www.ienearth.org/cits