Having extracted the less polluting oil, we are now getting to the really dirty sludge. The world needs energy and Canada needs the tar sands, i don’t think people realize how big the sacrifice zone will be. Debate the need to develop the oil sands.
For the Allan Adam, Dene Chief, Fort Chipewyan and generations of his people, the land is life, then one day, the land changed. The worlds largest corporation came looking for oil. A sea of sand soaked with bitumen. Describe how the Alberta oil sands changed everything.
In a world running out of conventional oil, this is what is left, and there is a fortune to be made. Identify the skate holders.
The tar sands now supply more oil to the United States than any other foreign source. Describe the Canadian—US Government arrangements.
Describe how the Athabasca river, which feeds the Athabasca Lake, brings the riches of the land, but 120 Km upstream the river also feeds the tar sands and carries with it the toxins.
Discuss the epidemiological health data that suggest toxin from Albert tar sands are responsible for brain tumours and cancer.
Describe how the community of Fort Chipewyan, which relates heavily on traditional foods has been affected by waterer contamination, illustrate your findings with the physical evidence provided including fish which are inedible, deformed, bend over, crooked, partially eaten by acid.
The Fort Chipewyan family physician found diseases directly connected to toxins in the environment. The physician requested a baseline health study from Health Canada. Describe what happened with this request.
Describe what happened at the Press Conference on Fish Deformities held in Edmonton AB.
If you ask an Environment Canada media spokesperson about contamination resulting from tar sands operation, they will not tell you the federal government has failed to adequately monitor the mega-project’s effects on water. The tar sends are contaminating hundreds of kilometres of land in nor them Alberta with cancer-causing contaminants and neurotoxins. Review the contributions of University of Alberta scientist Dr. David Schindler in exposing the negative effects of tar sands production on local waterways and aquatic species.
Alberta Government claims that the tar sands development leaves the Athabasca Lake unaffected. Provide your opinion based on what you know.
The tar sand development is now the biggest construction project in the world. Summarize the findings published in National Geographic Magazine March 2009 – Vol. 215 – No .3. How did the Politicians react to this published investigation?
According to allen Adam, Dene Chief, Fort Chipewyan “ this development is taking place on private property, if you are going to do anything with the land, you have to ask us. We never sold the land, never gave it up, never surrounded it, but people still think they have the right to come in here and do what they want to do.” Discuss why under Canadian law he owns the land and has the right to hunt and fish. However where the development is taking place, the disruption is so extensive , that it is now fair to say that their properly rights, can no longer be meaningfully exercised, Because the habitat has been destroyed.
