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New Canadian Ambassador to US, Gary Doer, on Alberta Oil Sands

by Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke | October 19, 2009 at 04:08 am

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After a decade as the Premier of the Province of Manitoba, Gary Doer will assume his duties as the Canadian Ambassador to the United States today. Mr. Doer brings a lot of credentials to this job, as he has been involved in many crossborder negotiations with border state governors.

One of the main issues, no doubt, will be to convince American Lawmakers and business community that the "Buy America" clause also hurts American businesses because of the integrated nature of the North American market.

An issue of great importance to North America, Canada and Alberta specifically, are the Alberta Oil Sands. These have been recently labeled as Dirty Oil by Environmentalists and heavyweights like Barrack Obama and Al Gore.

Gary Doer will try to convince the American administration that the Oil Sands have received a disproportionate amount of criticism in the climate change debate. Doer says that North America risks missing the big picture on global warming if singled out as the chief carbon emission culprit.

Doer contends that the Oil Sands represents a very small amount of overall carbon emissions. He thinks that we miss the point if we don.t look at all sources of carbon emission.

The claims against the Oil Sands by Al Gore and the new Administration in Washington, coupled with smear campaigns by Greenpeace, including recent interference at Fort MacMurray this month has prompted Syncrude to launch a public relations tour across Canada.

The tour named Oilsands now, An Open Discussion about the Oilsands, the Environment and You, is scheduled across Canada to permit public input and answer questions as to what is being done to protect the Environment.

The site links to a u-tube video , which I found quite interesting, depicting how oils sands mining is conducted from the birth of a bitumen mine to reclaiming the environment, a process that takes 30 to 40 years.

WASHINGTON - Canada's new ambassador to the United States said Alberta's oil sands are facing a "disproportionate amount" of criticism in the climate-change debate -- arguing North America risks missing "the big picture" on global warming if Canadian oil is singled out as the chief carbon emissions culprit.

"One of the concerns that I have is that it represents so little of the emissions in North America. It's getting a disproportionate amount of chatter," Gary Doer said in an interview Sunday with Canwest News Service.

"The question is: How much does the oil sands represent as a percentage of emissions in North America? It's a very small amount. If we don't deal with all sources of emissions, we are not going to have a solution that's comprehensive."

8 See all footage | View Slideshow

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Hugh Askew

at 05:06 on October 19th, 2009

Doer appears to be a good choice for the job. Let's hope he fairs well against the environmental thugs.

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 05:41 on October 19th, 2009

Let's hope so

a211423

at 14:26 on October 19th, 2009

"It's a struggle to balance the needs of today and tomorrow when you look at the environment we're going to live in," he says. In northern Alberta the question of how to strike that balance has been left to the free market, and its answer has been to forget about tomorrow. Tomorrow is not its job.

People concerned about the environmental impact of extracting the Oil Sands are not thugs, nor are they self serving. Please read the following article from National Geographic. It presents both sides of this argument. The only item they left out of the article is interests that China has in the Oil Sands.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/canadian-oil-sands/kunzig-text/1

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 14:54 on October 19th, 2009

a, thank you for your link.

I think to be fair the article gives mention of the industries' position but does not lay it out. I don't consider most environmentalists thugs. While I won't or can't speak for Hugh, I think he may be referring to some of the over the top actions by Greenpeace in the Fort Mac area.

To be fair people need to look at the presentation of Syncrude.

Gary Doer, the new ambassador to the United States, is member of the New Democratic Party. The environment is high on the list of that party. His point is, that the Alberta oilsands have received a disproportionate amount of criticism when you look at the whole picture of environmental sins in North America. I think he thinks it.s unfair that the Oilsands should be singled out as the chief carbon emission culprits.

I also contend, while we all like to demonize big oil for the destruction of the environment, we all still run around in our gas guzzling vehicles or at least the majority do.

a211423

at 15:14 on October 19th, 2009

cowpoke

Thank you for not beating me up for my opposition opinion. What bothered me the most in the nat geo article is the liver duct cancer in people living near there. The U.S. has had more than their share of these kinds of disasters. Some of them years later when it was too late to do anything about it. The Love Canal in Niagara Falls New York is probably the most famous, but there are many.

There is town in Kentucky right now whose water is so polluted that most of the towns people have moved away in fear. Below is the story of one family who refuse to leave and are fighting against King Coal.

http://www.linktv.org/programs/the-real-mccoys