An international study lead by Timo Vesala (University of Helsinki) was published on Jan. 3, 2008. It studied 30 monitoring stations in northern forests (Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and Europe), with twenty years of data from 1980. They found that as the temperature increases the boreal forests are switching from a carbon sink to a net source of carbon earlier in the autumn.

In Canada, the environmental groups seemed to go into damage control and flooded the media with their message that the boreal forest is indeed a carbon sink.

CanWest News (Jan. 5, 2008) ran the headline “Canada’s Boreal Forests Fort Knox of Carbon”. There were quotes from Natural Resources Defense Council (Canada Program) and ForestEthics whose spokesperson said the boreal forest “is to carbon what Fort Knox is to Gold”.

The Globe and Mail (Jan. 4, 2008) ran the headline “Boreal Forest is a critical shield against global warming.” It stated how the Pew Trust has invested $ 40 million over the past seven years to protect the Canadian boreal forest, “one of the world’s largest carbon storage systems.” There were quotes from the Canadian Boreal Initiative. The findings of the international study were not referenced.

It is all very curious.

As well, I do not understand why at The Ethical Funds Company annual Portfolio Managers Symposium (July 9, 2007 in Vancouver) the keynote address was given by the Canadian Boreal Initiative. The other presentations were given by Suncor and Domtar. The Ethical Funds Company is Canada’s leading manager of socially responsible mutual funds. Company staff had produced a Sustainability Perspectives (March 2007) titled “Head in the Oil Sands? Climate Change Risks in Canada’s Oil and Gas Sector.” The report states that four oil and gas companies are responding appropriateley to the challenges of climate change (Suncor Energy, Shell Canada, Royal Dutch Shell Group, BP plc), and are rated as “Low Risk Companies” for investors. “We believe that, with effective action and the right market incentives, this sector can be viewed not as the enemy but as a key ally in tackling climate change.” Strange.

There is lots of stuff going on here to merit another article, if not a book. What I believed were environmental groups working towards what I thought was their goal are not what they appeared to be. I will not be donating again this year.

great blog post

Having said this, over a month AFTER my article was published and AFTER former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed called for a moratorium himself, the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society did call for a moratorium on further tarpit development on August 1, 2006 in their report ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’ (http://www.oilsandswatch.org/doc.php?id=1262). Thus far, WWF and Ducks Unlimited, the other ‘partners’ in the Canadian Boreal Initiative, have not called for a moratorium.

We do indeed live in strange times, when Canada’s timid mainstream environmental organizations, who are coincidentally now bankrolled by petroleum interests, cautiously wait to follow the lead of arch-conservatives like Lougheed before daring to speak their minds on public policy.

I did a bit of my own digging - investment capital on the table for oil sands in Alberta - more than $100 billion according to most recent news reports. Who’s basically the only voice standing up for the environment in all this? - a few of the ENGOs disparaged in this piece.

The Pembina Institute’s excellent http://www.oilsandswatch.org website it actually the best expose of the oil sands I have seen. Dozens of hard-hitting papers to download, movies and pictures of oil sands impacts, and a declaration from December 2005, pre-dating this Cizek’s opinion piece calling for a moratorium on all new projects and approvals.

Not bad for a purported lacky of the oil sector.

Its not the enviros to blame, nor is it these industries - they are just doing what they can get away with. We set the rules through the elected representatives we let do this to us. Lets stop fighting among ourselves and the holier than thou attitude, and make our elected officials protect us with development rules that respect the environment.

Shell Canada is attempting to develop a coal bed methane project on Klappan Mountain in northwestern BC that will pollute the headwaters of the Stikine, Nass, Skeena, and Finlay Rivers. The massive volume of methane for tar sand conversion appears to be one of the reasons.

Respectfully submitted,
Stan Tomandl, Chair, Friends of the Stikine Society

The gold rush brought people and cities into a region where they could not otherwise afford to populate. The oil sand rush applies pressure to do the same to northern Alberta. This behavior has, since the dawn of man, reduced overcrowding in old cities by building their younger sister cities. For modern examples look at California, Oregon, and British Columbia.

The idea that Canada’s North should remain pristine, unproductive, and vacant places population density pressures on the less affluent peoples of Canada and the world. This also places economic pressure on aboriginal peoples to move into more crowed regions where they are more likely to lose their heritage and “status” which may be Canada’s most sinister conspiracy in operation. This would leave northern Canada open as the number one wilderness playground for the rich 2% of the world.

In the light I have shed, this article seems elitist at the very least.

Have you heard of reactions to your “j’accuse” from any of the eco groups or the Pew itself?

Chris