Humanists for Social Justice and Environmental Action supports Human Rights, Social and Economic Justice, Environmental Activism and Planetary Ethics in North America & Globally, with particular reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other Human Rights UN treaties and conventions listed above.

Sunday

News: China buys majority in TarSands

Treehugger: "A huge Chinese tar sands investment has been formally approved by the Canadian Federal government. It's up to Chinese engineers and managers, now, to make the oil extraction and distribution cost-efficient enough to get the desired financial returns. With state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. reporting an investment of up to $1.7 billion in the tar patch they'll have a good shot at it.

I assume they will pump Tar Sands oil over the Rockies, either directly across western Canada, or by routing south and then west toward US ports. (Update: TransCanada pipeline extension to US Gulf Coast a possibility.) I'm also assuming that the Chinese managers will do the bare minimum for pollution control in Canada. For US citizens, this eliminates the once-comforting notion that we could solidly depend on our 'friendly neighbor to the north' to keep the cheap oil flowing to us. Scratch that condescending idea. China will get dibs in the event a global oil shortage or a North American oil price dip, relative to the global average. Welcome to the reality show of Geopolitical Peak Oil."

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