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Oil sands

Make climate change history

There’s nothing certain about our ability to shape the future, as much as we’d like to believe that we alone control our destinies. And yet, there are moments where we have the opportunity to create history – if not with certainty, at least with confidence that we will make a difference.

We seem to be in one of those moments when it comes to climate change. There is an opportunity now in Poland, and over the next year leading up to Copenhagen, to reverse the course of our destructive behaviours and stop the trends of increasing global warming. Read more »

Harper, Obama and Climate Change: A Tale of Two Elections

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States last Tuesday was a historical event, and has in many ways ushered in a new era of relations between Canada and the U.S. This was evident only the day after the election, when Ottawa announced its intention to seek a climate-change pact with our American neighbours. Read more »

Tar sands fever threatens Edmonton farmland

Cheryl Mahaffy goes in-depth into how oil upgrader plants are threatening the existence of farms around Edmonton. Talking to farmers in the area, she reveals how this unique farmland could be steamrolled by these expansive developments. Read more »

Further resources on the Oil Sands debate

Articles from CPJ, video resources, Parkland Institute Documents, Pembina Institute Studies and Resources from KAIROS Read more »

Excavating the Alberta Oil Sands with Public Justice

The massive oil sands developments currently unfolding in northeast Alberta are yielding complicated energy and economic paybacks as well as presenting many social, economic, political and environmental risks and costs. How should society analyze, interact and respond to these enormous developments? How can we discern whether the implicated actors are being responsible, or determine whether governments have historically, and are currently, playing appropriate public justice roles? In other words, how can we develop stewardly, equitable, and just policy responses and action-plans in response to the oil sands boom? Read more »

Excavating the Oil Sands with Public Justice: Serviceable Method or Past its ‘Best-Before’ Date?

Alberta tar sandsCPJ has long used public justice to analyze critical policy questions. How can this approach help us make sense of the explosive, global issues growing out of the oil sands? Dr. John Hiemstra examines if it is time to explore new approaches, and begins to develop what the public justice approach can do to help us figure out what we and our governments ought to do about this expanding issue. Read more »

The paradox of the Promised Land

John Hiemstra writes about the illusion of the Albertan oil sands milk and honey. Read more »

The high cost of the oil sands

As the world's supply of natural oil and gas is being depleted, Canada started producing synthetic crude - an unconventional type of fuel. Sandra Mooibroek claims that there is an alternative to this environment unfriendly solution. Read more »

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