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The true cost of oil
Garth Lenz, TEDXVictoria
What does environmental devastation actually look like? At TEDxVictoria, photographer Garth Lenz shares shocking photos of the Alberta Tar Sands mining project — and the beautiful (and vital) ecosystems under threat.
Garth Lenz’ touring exhibition, “The True Cost of Oil”, has played a major part in the fight against Alberta Tar Sands Mining.
(February 2012)
To the Last Drop
Filmmakers: Niobe Thompson and Tom Radford, Al Jazeera
The small town of Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta is facing the consequences of being the first to witness the impact of the Tar Sands project, which may be the tipping point for oil development in Canada.
The local community has experienced a spike in cancer cases and dire studies have revealed the true consequences of “dirty oil”.
Gripped in a Faustian pact with the American energy consumer, the Canadian government is doing everything it can to protect the dirtiest oil project ever known. In the following account, filmmaker Tom Radford describes witnessing a David and Goliath struggle…
View video
(8 March 2012)
The film shows no understanding of peak oil – this is all about investigation of the human and environmental cost of tar sands production.
Exxon in spotlight after Papua New Guinea landslide
Reuters, The Guardian
A deadly landslide in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, near where Exxon Mobil is building a $15.7bn gas project, has raised new questions about the global energy industry’s scramble for ever harder-to-reach resources.
The landslide tore through a quarry used by Exxon in January, killing at least 25 people in the poor South Pacific country, but it has stirred little international publicity, even though an expert report had questioned the safety of the excavations.
The controversy also raises some familiar issues aired by critics of “big oil” in previous disasters: a pressure to deliver results, contractors found to have cut corners and remote operations that limit government oversight…
Exxon, which was using the quarry to produce rock and gravel needed to develop the upstream end of its gas-export project, has said it is unclear what caused the disaster in Papua New Guinea’s steep, heavily wooded Southern Highlands.
The Papua New Guinea government has denied the quarry contributed to the landslide, but local residents, environmental activists and an international landslide expert are unconvinced and want a thorough, independent investigation – something that shows no sign of happening despite evidence that quarrying work was being rushed to meet tight construction deadlines…
(6 March 2012)
