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Canadian activists in action against Syncrude’s toxic tar sands
Posted by saunvedan on 25 July 2008.
What do you do when oil prices rocket?
- Swap the car for public transport?
- Burn more energy to extract oil from sand while leaving behind toxic wastelands?
Well, if you are Syncrude Canada Ltd operating near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, Canada, you choose option B. But since Greenpeace would rather go ahead with option A; we decided to show Syncrude how wrong their tar sands project really is.
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Greenpeace Blocks Pipe At Syncrude Oil Sands Waste Pond
Environmental protesters blocked a pipe to a waste water pond at Syncrude Canada Ltd.'s oil sands development in northern Alberta, Greenpeace Canada said Thursday, as the group continues to demand a halt to oil sands production.
Smell the sulphur, taste the toxins
Posted by bex on 9 July 2008.
Canada's Tar Sands project has been suffering from a bit of a PR problem, what with it being one of the most ludicrous and environmentally catastrophic schemes ever to have occurred to humankind and all.
(If you haven't heard of it yet, the plan is to extract crude oil from bituminous sand and clay in Northern Alberta. To produce one barrel of oil, up to four tonnes of rock and soil - plus the pristine boreal forest on top of it - need to be removed and four barrels of surface and ground water need to be used. The process is so energy intensive that tar sands produce up to five times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil.)
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At last some action on bottom trawling
Posted by jossc on 9 May 2008.
Bottom trawling, possibly the most destructive fishing method yet devised by man, is to be regulated across the whole North Atlantic ocean. The process, which involves dragging nets weight down by metal girders across the seabed, is notorious for its wastefulness. Besides legitimate target species such as cod, plaice and sole, vast quantities of corals, sponges and other deep sea creatures are destroyed as bycatch. The devastation caused is so great that Greenpeace has been calling for some time for a moritorium (suspension of activity) on bottom trawling. Now it looks as though some progress may be being made.
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Greenpeace report reveals Hachette is buying Boreal Forest destruction
A new Greenpeace report released today reveals that Hachette USA is one of a number of North American and European corporations fueling the destruction of Canada’s Boreal Forest.
The report, 'Consuming Canada’s Boreal Forest: The chain of destruction from logging companies to consumers', details the environmentally destructive and socially unjust logging practices of Abitibi-Consolidated, Bowater and Kruger. It reveals that more than 68 per cent of the Boreal Forest under the collective management of these companies has already been degraded or fragmented – an area totalling nearly 200,000 km2 - 100 times the size of London. Hachette’s US book arm uses 'alternative book cream' paper manufactured by Abitibi consolidated, which uses pulp from intact Boreal forest areas and Caribou habitat.
Greenpeace UK Forest Campaigner, Mariana Paoli said: "The Hachette Book Group USA is contributing to the destruction of the Canadian Boreal Forest, the largest ancient forest in North America. The company must suspend its contract with Abitibi as a matter of urgency until action is taken on the ground to protect the forest and end destructive logging."
She continued, "In the UK Greenpeace is urging Hachette to follow progressive publishers in the industry and commit to phasing out all paper from dubious sources and move towards ancient forest friendly papers instead."
While other parts of the book industry are making real progress in sourcing ancient forest friendly papers, Hachette has consistently failed to act.
In the UK alone, over 40 per cent of the book industry has adopted good environmental policies – including Random House, Harper Collins, Bloomsbury and Egmont - as part of the Greenpeace Book Campaign. (1) These companies are now well on their way to phasing out fibre from ancient forest destruction and printing their books on recycled paper and paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). (2) Similar progress is being made by publishers in Canada, North America and Europe. Meanwhile, Hachette, which controls 17 per cent of the UK market alone, continues to source ancient forest fibre and has not made any similar commitment to go ancient forest friendly.
Canada’s Boreal Forest contains a quarter of the world’s remaining intact ancient forests and stores 47.5 billion tonnes of carbon in its soils and trees. It is the largest ancient forest in North America and provides habitat for threatened and endangered species such as woodland caribou, lynx, grizzly bear and wolverines. The forest is also home to nearly a million aboriginal peoples.
The report can be downloaded online.
Broadcast quality video and photos available upon request.
For more information, please contact the Greenpeace Press office on 0207 865 8255
NOTES TO EDITORS:
(1). The Greenpeace Book Campaign encourages book publishers to stop printing their paper linked to ancient forest destruction and instead to print their books on ‘ancient forest friendly’ paper. Such paper maximises post consumer recycled content with any virgin fibre coming Forest Stewardship Council certified sources.
(2) The Forest Stewardship Council certification scheme is the best way to ensure that the virgin fibre you use comes from forests that have been managed in an environmentally and socially responsible way.
The Boreal Forest of North America
Stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic, the Boreal Forest of North America is a colossal expanse of temperate rainforest covering some 5.6 million km2 and accounts for 28 per cent of the remaining intact forest on the planet.
Solving the oil crisis: "We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant"
Posted by bex on 15 June 2007.
Exxon's PR campaign (which seems to run along the lines of "we may fund climate change deniers and oppose Kyoto but we're quite nice really") suffered a slight setback yesterday, when 300 people from the oil industry apparently believed that Exxon's newest fossil fuel was made out of human flesh - belonging to the victims of climate change.
Enormous reserve protected from chainsaws in Canada
Posted by admin on 7 February 2006.
It's rare that success comes on such a scale so this is one worth celebrating. The provincial government of British Columbia in Canada has announced the protection of 2 million hectares of ancient forest with strict ecological management for the rest.
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Kyoto Protocol moves ahead as Bush's wrecking tactics fail
Danger Flood Evacuation Warning copyright Sipa Press/Rex Features
Montreal, Canada 10 December 2005 - Greenpeace today congratulated the 157 countries, who have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, as they moved the landmark climate change treaty towards deeper emissions reductions after 2012.
"The Kyoto Protocol is stronger today than it was two weeks ago. This historic first Meeting of the Parties has acknowledged the urgency of the threat that climate change poses to the world's poorest people, and eventually, to all of us. The decisions made here have cleared the way for long term action," said Bill Hare, Greenpeace International Climate Policy Advisor in Montreal.
The parties have agreed the following:
- To start urgent negotiations on a new round of emission reduction targets for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2013-2017). A special group has been established to ensure that these negotiations are concluded "as soon as possible". This is necessary to ensure the continuity of carbon markets, and to allow governments to put policies and measures in place to ensure that the new, deeper emission reduction targets are met.
- To start now to review and improve the Kyoto Protocol. Mandated under the existing treaty, this review will formally begin at next year's meeting.
- A Five Year Plan of Action on Adaptation, to assist least developed countries to cope with the impacts of climate change. This programme will begin to address the fact that climate change already impacts the world's poorest, and that it will get much worse in the coming decades. It is the ethical, political, and legal responsibility of the industrialised countries to provide for this.
As expected, the Bush administration attempted to derail the process, at one point even walking out of the negotiations, but the rest of the world showed a resolve to move ahead regardless. For once, the Bush administration was forced back to the table and into agreement with the international community. No doubt the overwhelming presence of US civil society at these talks has had a positive effect.
The US has continued to attempt to lure countries away from the UN multilateral climate regime with its international emission trading to an ineffective approach based on voluntary actions and 'partnerships'. Today, however, governments have agreed to hold substantive talks beginning in May 2006 on the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period, sending an unmistakable signal that we are on the road to new and more ambitious targets.
