Location of Tar Sands in Alberta by Nellis Kennedy-Howard on Yes! magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.orgWhat does it mean to live in an energy sacrifice zone? For many First Nations of Canada, it means that the land and water your families have lived on for generations is no longer safe.
Nearly every major oil company in the world is participating in making the homelands of indigenous peoples unsafe by investing in the Athabascan tar sands.
In what is called by the Environmental Defense Fund the “world’s most destructive project,” an area the size of Florida is slated for various forms of mining. Locked up in sand, clay, and bitumen, tar sands oil is one of the hardest to mine and refine and is also one of the dirtiest: extracting it creates three times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil.
Mining the tar sands means not only deforestation but also the creation of massive lagoons filled with toxic wastewater. These ponds are leaking 11 million liters of toxic water each day and by 2012 are expected to leak 72 million liters a day.
To read more, go to: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/new-livelihoods/prevent-a-tar-sands-disaster?utm_source=wkly20110819&utm_medium=yesemail&utm_campaign=mrKennedy-Howard
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