Das BOOM

Baghdad Burns, Calgary Booms
By Naomi Klein - May 31st, 2007

The invasion of Iraq has set off what could be the largest oil boom in history. All the signs are there: multinationals free to gobble up national firms at will, ship unlimited profits home, enjoy leisurely "tax holidays" and pay a laughable 1 percent in royalties to the government.

This isn't the boom in Iraq sparked by the proposed new oil law—that will come later. This boom is already in full swing, and it is happening about as far away from the carnage in Baghdad as you can get, in the wilds of northern Alberta. For four years now, Alberta and Iraq have been connected to each other through a kind of invisible seesaw: As Baghdad burns, destabilizing the entire region and sending oil prices soaring, Calgary booms. [more]


How Canada Went from 21st to 2nd in World's Oil Reserves
By Dan Woynillowicz, World Watch. Posted September 17, 2007.

In 2002 the Canadian government ratified the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, legally committing to a target of reducing the country's greenhouse gas pollution by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. But the rapid growth of tar sands development and oil industry lobbying have undermined efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution for over a decade.

Since 1990, Canada's total emissions have risen 25.3 percent, a pace far exceeding the 16.3 percent increase in the United States, the second-fastest-rising nation, according to United Nations data. Regulations introduced in early 2007 are so fraught with loopholes and gaps that greenhouse gas pollution from tar sands is predicted to triple by 2020. Canada's greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are projected to be 2 percent above 1990 levels. The environmental consequences of tar sands development hardly stop with climate change. Nowhere in the world is there a form of oil extraction and processing with more intense impacts on forests and wildlife, freshwater resources and air quality. [more]