Globe and Mail June 24, 2008

The Age of Abundance is over. It started its decline when crude oil careered through $80 a barrel last year. Most of us were too busy enjoying the late-summer weather to notice. Crude oil has more than doubled in price over the past 12 months, and every other form of energy is following suit. (Keep reading…)

Winnipeg Free Press June 18, 2008

Deputy Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff is thinking the unthinkable; saying the unsayable. He’s publicly questioning Canada’s energy policy; or more accurately, its complete lack of one. Ignatieff compared a national oil pipeline in the 21st century to the national railway in the 19th. The railway was ridiculed in its day as economic madness. “But without it, we wouldn’t have a country… I look at the east-west linkages that tie our country together,” he told Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin, “and I do wonder whether they are strong enough to offset the north-south flows that dominate our economy. The oil, the natural gas, the hydro — it all flows south. Where is the national grid to share our power, the east-west pipeline to share our oil and to guarantee our energy security as a nation?” (Keep reading…)

Special to Canadian Dimension June 9, 2008

In 2004 when Post Carbon Toronto was initially formed the data supported scientific theories of peak oil and gas were considered by the media and most economists as only slightly less deranged than a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Today that situation has changed far more quickly than we thought possible, in this we have much company. The reason for this change however has much less to do with the work of groups like ours, PCI, GPM, Parkland and ASPO, than it does with the price of gasoline. (Keep reading…)

The Tar Sands, Downstream: Who pays price of pollution?

TheTyee.ca May 20, 2008

When 500 ducks died earlier this month after landing on a tar sands tailings pond, Canadians got a glimpse into how unfettered tar sands development is taking its toll. (Keep reading…)

ZNet May 12, 2008

Even for Americans, constitutionally convinced that there will always be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New Start — even for us, the world looks a little Terminal right now. (Keep reading…)

Globe & Mail May 8, 2008

A who’s who of major U.S. and Canadian environmental organizations is urging the U.S. Senate to keep in place a rule banning the United States government from buying fuel from Alberta’s tar sands on the grounds that it is too environmentally tainted. (Keep reading…)

Special to Canadian Dimension April 9, 2008

The vast tar sands of northern Alberta have entered the global stage. In the context of U.S. concern about “energy security” and the five fold expansion of tar sands development proposed through the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) , the tar sands are no longer an issue only for Albertans. All Canadians have an interest, not only as global citizens, but also because of the big implications of tar sands development for our national economy and the environment. (http://www.environmentaldefence.ca/reports/tarsands.htm) (Keep reading…)

Winnipeg Free Press April 2

OTTAWA — Gasoline-powered cars are driving humanity to the end of the oil age, leaving electric vehicles as the best weapon against global warming. (Keep reading…)

The Economist Updated: March 17

There is no exaggerating China’s hunger for commodities. The country accounts for about a fifth of the world’s population, yet it gobbles up more than half of the world’s pork, half of its cement, a third of its steel and over a quarter of its aluminum. It is spending 35 times as much on imports of soybeans and crude oil as it did in 1999, and 23 times as much importing copper — indeed, China has swallowed over four-fifths of the increase in the world’s copper supply since 2000. (Keep reading…)

Z-Net March 12, 2008
Source: TomDispatch

On Monday March 3, the price of crude oil reached $103.95 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, surpassing the record set nearly 30 years ago during another moment of chaos in the Middle East. Will that new mark prove distinctive in the annals of world history or will it be forgotten as energy prices drop, just as they did following their April 1980 peak? (Keep reading…)