Anyways it done, I think that in the future, Canada should just not deal with the American's like they an honest broker, or go out of the way to offer much of anything.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
It wasn't Obama that made Keystone the symbol of climate change problems, it was environmental activists that managed to bring it into the mainstream. He then had to handle the issue as such. It was the lowest of low hanging fruits "the dirtiest oil" on earth and so forth. Canada a "laggard" on emissions comittments, etc.
If the pipeline never became that symbol, the project would have been quietly approved years ago (like many other projects).
The Oil Sands do not produce the "dirtiest oil on earth", that distinction belongs to California. Alberta actually is home to some of the cleaner oil on earth via SAGD methods which is the most common method of extraction, and it is only getting cleaner.
As others have stated, this was a misinformation war. It's primary backers being people with economic interests in stoping our oil from flowing anywhere but Chicago, loopy hard core environment nuts, and celebrities. This was not about facts, if it was they would be in California or the coal belt. XL fate was determined long ago, this has been a farce for quite a while and everyone has known it.
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In terms of Canadian interests, has there been a worse president of the the US than Obama? For our sakes, I'm glad he's gone soon. Lets just hope Clinton isn't the one elected next.
In terms of Canadian interests, has there been a worse president of the the US than Obama? For our sakes, I'm glad he's gone soon. Lets just hope Clinton isn't the one elected next.
Absolutely terrible president for Canadians. Didn't do much for America either.
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In terms of Canadian interests, has there been a worse president of the the US than Obama? For our sakes, I'm glad he's gone soon. Lets just hope Clinton isn't the one elected next.
George W Bush?
Crippled BC's softwood lumber industry, banned beef imports from Canada just off the top of my head.
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The Oil Sands do not produce the "dirtiest oil on earth", that distinction belongs to California. Alberta actually is home to some of the cleaner oil on earth via SAGD methods which is the most common method of extraction, and it is only getting cleaner.
Of course. But it's not what was believed to be true. How come our industry and government did not do a better job in dispelling the myth? I don't believe it was an impossible task - Harper, our own provincial government's approach was by and large straight forward cheerleading. Obama's spokespeople called it "some of the dirtiest energy on earth" today in its justification for the decision.
It wouldn't have mattered who Canada's Prime Minister was or what was offered, I'm convinced that Obama would have put the kybosh on this unless Canada agreed to something like stopping Oil Sands production.
Obama wanted us to change our Environmental policy not in lock step with American policy because he's not really doing much internal, but to please him.
could Canada have been more progressive in terms of working on their emissions stuff? Sure, but that's been a failure of the Conservatives and the liberals before them who both made big promises and then promptly forgot the file and did nothing.
but frankly unless Canada was willing to outbid Obama's backers this was never getting approved unless Canada radically changed their energy production policies to please Obama.
Perhaps Uncle Sam should be looking at his own global emissions? (USA: 19% of global emissions. Canada: just 2%)
2% for a highly developed country, heavy into manufacturing and resource development, and that is frozen basically half the year is not too bad in my book.
I even question the 2% and 19% , I think Canada's emissions are lower and the US 's are higher. From my understanding the global emission numbers from that graph are received from each country's government doing their own measurements and then using an IPCC calculation. If that's wrong I'd like to see how they got those percentages as that's how I understood it.
If it is true then the numbers are skewed, North Dakota for example does not have to measure their flaring and venting emissions for the first year of production on a new shale oil well and since there isn't enough infrastructure in North Dakota to process the natural gas that is produced with the oil, the majority of these wells are flared (and the flares are massive , anyone who has ever seen them will tell you).
So if the gas emissions from the first year of production when the well is at its peak for production is not measured in North Dakota while in Alberta flaring and venting is strictly measured and enforced to not exceed a set standard, I don't see how you compare global emissions unless everyone is using the same standards or a third party takes the measurements. I don't even want to know how Russia comes up with their numbers.
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In any event it's over for now. If Republcian becomes president in a year the project will be a go.
On the Canadian project front listening Notley, her approach is certainly stronger actions on rmissions to try and gain the social licence and the procide the political cover for Trudeau to help advance the other projects like Energy East. We'll see if it works.
To me one of the best ways to do this will be to phase out our coal plants for electricty as soon as is feasible (maybe with help from the Feds?) so we can grow the oil and gas sector while still realizing absolute reductions in emissions.
The Oil Sands do not produce the "dirtiest oil on earth", that distinction belongs to California. Alberta actually is home to some of the cleaner oil on earth via SAGD methods which is the most common method of extraction, and it is only getting cleaner.
As others have stated, this was a misinformation war. It's primary backers being people with economic interests in stoping our oil from flowing anywhere but Chicago, loopy hard core environment nuts, and celebrities. This was not about facts, if it was they would be in California or the coal belt. XL fate was determined long ago, this has been a farce for quite a while and everyone has known it.
Not to be picky, but your above statement is not actually true.
While it is true that the majority of the reserves will ultimately need to be produced using alternative production to mining, as they are too deep. with current production, mining currently outproduces SAGD.
Also "home to some of the cleaner oil on earth" is a bit of an unsubstantiated claim. This is certainly not true for the oil sands, either mining which as obvious environmental costs, or SAGD where copius amounts of fuel gas need to be burnt in order to produce the steam needed to produce the oil. I don't have any proof, to the matter, but if we were throwing out unsubstantiated claims about clean oil, I would probably lean towards southern saskatchewan, where they are pulling out heavy oil using conventional methods. or even some of the offshore production that occurs in the atlantic ocean, or gulf of mexico.
At any rate even though it doesn't sound that way, I am on the side of oil. I work in the industry, in both SAGD and Conventional Oil, and rely on it to feed my family.
It does bug me though when people on either side of the debate start throwing out "facts" when they haven't done any due dilligence or fact checking. It reduces the credibility of everyone on that side of the argument.
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I find people being upset with Obama on Keystone XL a little disingenuous. I mean sure, he could've approved it and help poor old Alberta out, but when we can't get a pipeline built in our own country then we have to face some facts and realities about the perceptions of the oilsands. I'm not sure how upset we can get at Obama and the US in general for not loving the pipeline when they stand to gain very little from approving it. By the same token you would expect a federal government here to ram through a pipeline in Canada to get our oil to markets because they stand to gain a lot.
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The reality is the industry (and Country) didn't take environmental activism seriously, dismissing it as fringe, failed to take as much real action as they needed to address emissions levels, and as a result we allowed ourselves (fairly or unfairly) to become a global environmental pariah.
Obama's decision is entirely based on pandering to the special interest groups that comprise his base and not on rational thought. To think that this decision would be any different had Canada implemented different environmental policy is foolish.
The president's entire rationale for rejecting the project does not make sense. In 2013, he stated that the project should only be approved if it should be approved only if it doesn't exacerbate carbon pollution. The existence of a pipeline has no impact on carbon pollution levels and Alberta's oil sands will be developed regardless of whether Keystone XL exists or not. In fact, by reducing the spread between WTI, the potential exists to make additional emission reducing technologies economical to implement for Alberta oil.
Way to pander for more donations just to keep your democratic 'team' in power. Obama can get stuffed. Maybe we need to become better friends with Russia.
This is a BS reason, this was all about targeting what they think is the biggest public relation stick that his backers like with the Oil sands. Tell me that Obama is a serious player in the environmental game when he still allows incredibly dirty oil production (California) in his own country and addresses it. Continues to build internal pipelines to carry it. Continues to ship dirty coal in mass quantities world wide. Has still done very little in terms of emission standards in his own nation, but expects other nations to do it.
He wants us to do emissions changes and put pricing on carbon, but he won't do anything significant in the States.
He's a hypocrite, he's the fund raising president, and he just satisfied the people writing him checks.
Not a BS reason at all. I totally agree Obama is being hypocritical here but the fact that the "Tar Sands" have become the poster child for environmental impact gives him all the cover he needs.
Previous governments here completely dropped the ball by not addressing or even being seen to be addressing environmental concerns.
