The case for constructing more pipelines from the Alberta Tar Sands Kill Our Biosphere Extravaganza to the rest of the world weakened when a new pipeline, armed with state of the art accident notification system quietly ruptured and had the never not to notify anyone until a couple of football fields worth of sludge poured out.
“Nexen is apologizing for a pipeline break that leaked five million litres of bitumen, sand and water at its Long Lake oilsands facility in northern Alberta this week.
The spill was discovered Wednesday afternoon at Nexen Energy’s oilsands facility near Long Lake, south of Fort McMurray.
The material leaked through what Bailey says was a “visible burst” in the pipeline. a double-walled, high-pressure line installed in 2014. Bailey said the line was shut down immediately after the leak was discovered.
The detection system did not work in this case, so it isn’t known how long the substance was leaking. A contractor walking along the pipeline discovered the spill.”
Well it’s only FIVE million litres of liquid petrochemical death being splashed around. How bad could that be?
“A spokesman for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said a spill this big will have an “extremely serious” impact on the muskeg, which is home to aboriginal medicines, berries and wild game.
“There is no way to clean or reclaim the muskeg,” said Eriel Deranger in a news release Friday. “Destruction and contamination like this that directly affects a key component of our ecosystems is affecting First Nations’ ability to access lands and territories for hunting, fishing, gathering and trapping rights, rights protected by both the Constitution and our treaties.”
Chief Allan Adam said the spill is “dangerously close” to the Clearwater River, which flows directly into the Athabasca River.
“The repercussions from the incident could potentially be felt far and wide by those that rely on the Athabasca basin,” he said.”
Fascinating stuff.
I’m thinking that we need less pipelines and infrastructure that caters directly to the destruction of our biosphere. This is another warning, in a long list of warnings, about how badly we need to divorce ourselves from fossil fuels and the fossil fuel industry.
The funny-sad notion is that with current technology in renewable energy production, we can lessen and then eventually eliminate our dependence on dirty energy. The government, backed by the people, needs to stop all the subsidies to oil and gas industry and redirect investment into renewable energy solutions. This is not a job for the free market because the free market gives exactly no fucks about the our future climate or well-being. This is not the time for cap and trade or any other ‘market based solution’ – because profitability will always trump environmental stewardship.
It is time to make the stewardship of our ecology the number one priority, for the sake of the future and our continued existence on Earth because the Earth’s climate, like Free-Marketers, gives exactly no fucks about the future of humanity.
The authors here at DWR have a mean atheistic streak. There is no denying that. I mean we have a whole day of postings that deal specifically with religion and the goofiness that ensues when you allow magical thinking into your wheelhouse. My readership mostly knows that believing in religion is seen by most rational people, a character flaw at best and a reason to make funny and derisive comments at worst. It is obvious how toxic religion is to critical thinking, progress (social and otherwise) and advancement of the human condition (see the religion/patriarchal ‘love-in’ for instance).
I think there is a bigger problem that religion. Religion has its moments of putting all of humanity at risk (looking at you nuclear Middle East solutions) but you know what is really killing us? State supported neo-liberal capitalism and the “fuck you, I’ve got mine” ethic that goes along with it. This ideology is systematically grinding societies, the climate, and ultimately our future into dust. Is being the last to draw breath on a ruined planet that much of a privilege? I mean the elites that run our system our well insulated from the reality that they create for the rest of us, but eventually, they too will have to bow before the forces they have unleashed.
We’re having a nasty confluence of sorts here, a heatwave combined with the smoke from forest fires in three of the cardinal directions. This is definitely a ‘first world’ complaint as the people with real problems like having your house consumed by wildfire are hundreds of kilometres away.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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