Tar Sands Armageddon

I used to think that our Northern  neighbor, Canada, was one of the most civilized (and civil) industrial countries. And then came Tar Sands Oil extraction. The current Republican-like government is betting the ship on this single project, without any realization of the enormity of the disaster it will help bring about. Here are some tidbits of information obtained from "DeSmogBlog":

- Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.
 - At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in the tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.
- Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes.
- The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. -The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.
- Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.

We have a stock in this Canadian enterprise, not only as habitants of a country through which the Canadian company wants to run a pipeline, but also as habitants of this planet suffering from climate change, but also  The proposed Keystone pipeline route through the US passes through the Ogawalla Aquifer, which provides water for 27% of the irrigated farmland in the US but also provides drinking water for 27% of the people living in this aquifer region. Jim Hansen, one of the most respected climatologists in the world, has said that giving permission to build this pipeline is a test case for  how serious the Obama Administration is about stopping or slowing climate change. In 2012 the atmospheric CO2 concentration showed, not a slow down, but a huge increase to the present value of 395 pmm.

It is not too late to stop this project! Lets call our Congressmen and Congresswomen.