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Canada’s version of liquid coal

Canada has about as much recoverable oil in its tar sands as Saudi Arabia has conventional oil. They should leave most of it in the ground.

Tar sands are pretty much the heavy gunk they sound like, and making liquid fuels from them requires huge amounts of energy for steam injection and refining. Canada is currently producing about one million barrels of oil a day from the tar sands, and that is projected to triple over the next two decades.

The tar sands are doubly dirty. On the one hand, the energy-intensive conversion of the tar sands directly generates two to four times the amount of greenhouse gases per barrel of final product as the production of conventional oil. On the other hand, Canada's increasing use of natural gas to exploit the tar sands is one reason that its exports of natural gas to U.S. are projected to shrink in the coming years.

So instead of selling clean-burning natural gas to this country, which we could use to stop the growth of carbon-intensive coal generation, Canada will provide us with a more carbon-intensive oil product to burn in our cars. That's lose-lose.

A look at Tom Tancredo’s environmental platform and record

Update: Tom Tancredo dropped out of the presidential race on Dec. 20, 2007. Environmental and energy issues don’t seem to be top priorities for Republican presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo. He rarely mentions them on the stump and he doesn’t highlight them on his campaign website. When he does talk about his vision for America’s energy […]

Endangered birds may trump Donald’s golf-course plans

Donald Trump is fired. Fired up, that is, about his plans to build “the world’s greatest golf course” in Scotland. But seven endangered bird species may fly in his way. Which is just silly, says The Donald: “Each and every golf course I have built has got awards for environmental protection. … When we are […]

My brush with medical reality, on a bike

My fella and I have been living a one-car life for the last year, and overall it’s going pretty well. Helps that I’m a telecommuter, and helps that we have made the choice to live near a commuter rail and a small but semi-useful downtown. I also succeeded in finding a doctor and a dentist […]

Raising a ruckus about agrofuels at the Chicago Board of Trade

From the The Chicago Tribune: Police this morning arrested five people who scaled the Chicago Board of Trade building in the Loop and unfurled a banner to protest the destruction of the world’s rain forests. The demonstrators, members of the Rainforest Action Network … displayed a 50-foot banner protesting three U.S. agriculture companies. The protest […]

New report reveals lead content in lipsticks

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics today released a report revealing that a number of name-brand lipsticks contain lead, some at levels up to six times the FDA limit for lead in candy.

Warmer weather causes Big Retail to lower profit forecasts

A dozen leading U.S. retailers are reducing profit forecasts and blaming warmer weather for contributing to slumping sales. Retailers plagued by lower-than-expected September earnings included Nordstrom, Target, American Eagle Outfitters, Limited Brands, and JCPenney, all of which have had trouble moving autumn and winter clothing. Our suggestion: prove those reduced-profit predictions right by buying your […]

An interview with Tom Tancredo about his presidential platform on energy and the environment

This is part of a series of interviews with presidential candidates produced jointly by Grist and Outside. Update: Tom Tancredo dropped out of the presidential race on Dec. 20, 2007. Tom Tancredo. Photo: VictoryNH Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo — best known for his zealous opposition to illegal immigration — bills himself on his campaign website […]

Brit judge claims to find errors in Gore movie

This just in from Fox News:

A High Court judge in London has turned film critic, highlighting "nine scientific errors" in Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The judge said some of the errors had arisen in "the context of alarmism and exaggeration" to support the former US vice-president's thesis on global warming.

The Government's decision to show the film in secondary schools had come under attack from father-of-two Stewart Dimmock, a Kent school governor and a member of political group The New Party, who accused the Government of "brainwashing" children with propaganda.

Justice Burton ruled at London's High Court that the film, much acclaimed by environmentalists, could be shown in schools as part of a climate change resource pack, but only if it was accompanied by new guidance notes to balance Gore's "one-sided" views.

Here's my take on this: there is no question that there are a few statements in Gore's movie that make me flinch. Had he run the script by me, I would have suggested he rephrase a few of his points.

Why has Gore suddenly left the country?

There’s been some blogospheric buzz over this item on the San Fran Chronicle blog. Al Gore was going to appear today at a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer, but he abruptly canceled. Here a bit from the note Boxer sent out: I just got a call from Vice President Al Gore. He told me that […]