When you think of Canada - and specifically Alberta - it’s difficult not to conjure images of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains and the fresh water lakes and pine forests of the Banff National Park.
But this beautiful, unspoiled landscape and finely-balanced ecosystem is not the only thing Alberta is known for. Alberta is also home to one of the most environmentally destructive projects on Earth – the Alberta tar sands.
Dubbed the ‘other oil disaster’ by environmental campaigners, tar sands are a mixture of sand, water, clay and bitumen, which can be processed into synthetic crude oil, but only at a great cost to the environment. It takes up to four barrels of water to produce just one barrel of tar sands crude and releases three times more carbon than conventional oil.
At present, there are numerous tar sands projects in operation within the province. Not only are they the largest contributors to the growth in greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, but they have already created toxic lakes the size of Glasgow and have adversely affected the lives of thousands, including local First Nation peoples. If they are to expand, as the oil industry proposes, an area the size of England is at risk.
This week Corporate Ethics International launched a campaign called ‘Rethink Alberta’ highlighting the decimation caused by tar sands in Canada and asking British citizensnot to help contribute to the problem. More than 685,800 Britons visit Canada every year so we are appealing to the UK to join us in protesting against tar sands mining.
The campaign, whose advertisements can be seen on billboards in various locations throughout London, will urge Britons to protest against the tar sands by avoiding travel to the Canadian province where oil giants BP, Shell, Exxon and Total all have mining operations.
In addition to asking the British public to take their own stand against tar sands, Corporate Ethics International is also urging the British government to take three clear actions:
1. Work with the EU to reverse – not continue – the concessions made to allow highly polluting Canadian oil into the UK through the next round of trade negotiations.
2. Use the public shareholding in RBS and other big banks to stop investment in the continued expansion of tar sands production.
3. Encourage the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund to stop investing in companies with links to tar sands production.
The campaign has also started to attract wider support, Gordon Roddick, co-founder of the Body Shop and social entrepreneur, added his pledge to boycott Alberta:
“The Tar Sands fiasco is another sorry example of blatant corporate disregard of their responsibility to humanity. It rests within our responsibility to stop them.”
The campaign is supported by multiple environmental groups across the US, Europe and Canada, including Friends of the Earth, Earthworks, Rainforest Action Network and ForestEthics.
It’s clear that much more needs to be done to raise awareness in the UK and across the globe, of the environmental vandalism currently taking place in Alberta. The continued expansion of the tar sands projects are standing in the way of an economy driven by renewable sources of energy and represent an act of ecological irresponsibility. While climate change has rightly been brought to the forefront of people’s minds in recent years, the fight is far from over. No matter who you are or where you are from, everyone has a part to play in securing the planet’s future. You can start right now by re-thinking Alberta.
Britons can send a message now that they don’t want tar sands oil in Britain or used by UK companies by:
Joining the campaign at: www.rethinkalberta.com
Facebook group: Rethink-Alberta
Twitter ID: rethinkalberta
Michael Marx is the Executive Director at Corporate Ethics International
