Tar Sands Column

So I have a column in the Diamondback today. I want to correct a couple of small things that the editors changed. I put “tar sands” everytime I discussed them, but they were changed to “oil sands” for some reason. Other thing is when I mention natural gas is being used to extract the oil from the sands, I say I would rather us be using that natural gas to replace coal plants because it is cleaner than coal. For the record I do recognize natural gas is not clean and not what we should be pursuing, I just would rather us burn it to replace coal rather than burn it to extract tar sands oil.

http://media.www.diamondbackonline.com/media/storage/paper873/news/2009/03/03/Opinion/Energy.A.TarNished.Reputation-3656037.shtml

Energy: A tar-nished reputation

Matt Dernoga

Issue date: 3/3/09 Section: Opinion

Last week, President Barack Obama met with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss energy. The United States and Canada share the largest energy trade partnership in the world, with Canada supplying the United States with more oil and natural gas than any other country. A major point of interest has been the Canadian oil sands, from which Canada is extracting increasing amounts of oil to export to the U.S.

There has been a lot of talk from Obama regarding climate change, environmental protection and clean energy. This has concerned the Canadian government, which wants any climate agreements to exempt their oil sands from regulation. What was Obama’s reaction to this? He folded faster than a caffeinated origamist and agreed that the U.S. and Canada should work together to make the extraction and burning of the oil from the oil sands “clean.” I’ve also heard the tobacco companies are working on a healthy cigarette.

Oil sands production is the dirtiest on Earth. Thousands of acres of forests in Alberta have to be destroyed to get to the oil, and then vast amounts of natural gas need to be used to separate the oil from the sand and clay. The waste from this flows into waterways as toxic sludge. Then we burn the oil. Ironically, since natural gas is used to extract the oil, less of it is shipped from Canada to the U.S.. where it could be used to replace some coal plants and meet America’s growing energy needs. I’d prefer renewables, but natural gas is far cleaner.

This laundry list of environmental crimes is why a Catholic bishop whose diocese includes part of the oil sands released a harsh letter to Canadian oil companies and government leaders. After going into depth about the environmental liabilities I listed above, he concludes that “any one of the above destruction effects provokes moral concern, but it is when the damaging effects are all added together that the moral legitimacy of oil sands production is challenged.”

While Obama and Harper have been tap dancing around oil sands, Mexico has announced one of the boldest plans from developing countries in addressing climate change. A couple of months ago, they put forth an initiative to halve emissions below 2002 levels by 2050 through investments in alternative energy sources and a cap and trade system that puts a price on pollution. They’re working to convert coal and oil plants to natural gas, upgrading their bus fleets and providing strong incentives for forest preservation.

Here’s an idea. Instead of getting tarnished by Canada and shown up by Mexico, Obama should forge a new kind of energy partnership with our neighbors. Negotiate a North American regional climate agreement that eliminates tariffs for clean energy technologies and the products used to make them. At the same time, put a price on pollution from trade that reflects the true cost of activities such as the use of the Canadian oil sands. Share the money generated from this price tag, and use it to invest in new technologies to create jobs, rather than wasting money on trying to make the oil sands clean.

Matt Dernoga is a junior government and politics major. He can be reached at mdernoga@umd.edu

Powershift Coverage

This will be my last post on Powershift.  There was a very well done news article today by my school paper the Diamondback about all of the great stuff that happened this weekend in DC.

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=bc4697d3-51e3-4370-aa4e-934527ec0bcf

WASHINGTON – If the youth voice doesn’t matter, somebody forgot to tell the thousands of environmental activists at Power Shift.

This weekend, 12,000 college-age activists, including more than 130 students from the university, converged in Washington for Power Shift 2009, an event to push for environmental policy reform and to prioritize climate change as a major national issue. Organizers said they hope the students in attendance from around the country will return to their home districts after the event ends today to mobilize community members and campus officials.

“College students have the ability to be at the forefront of this movement,” said Jessy Tolkan, executive director of the event’s organizer, Energy Action Coalition. “They have the power to make their campuses models showing these policies are possible.”

Andrew Nazdin, a junior government and politics major and campaign director for the Maryland Student Climate Coalition, was one such student.

“We want to send those 10,000 students back to their campuses like a trained army,” Nazdin said. “Representatives are going to go back to their home districts, and we’ll be there waiting.”

The conference began Friday and featured more than 200 seminars, workshops and lectures designed to provide attendees with the tools to lobby their elected officials more effectively, including “Wasting our Future: Trash, incinerators, and other dirty stuff” and “Faith, Justice, Morality, and Climate Change.

Power Shift, which was last held in Nov. 2007 on the campus, had attendance explode from 5,500 in 2007 to about 12,000 this year, said Kim Teplitzky, national field director for the Sierra Student Coalition. Despite being less than 30 minutes from the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where most Power Shift sessions occurred, and Clean Energy for UMD offering to subsidize registration costs, this university’s 131 registrants ranked fourth among attending colleges.

About 50 university students attended the “state break-out” on Saturday, in which attendees split into groups according to state. The Maryland contingent had a quorum of about 200, 50 of whom were from the university.

“I wanted to come together with students that have a common purpose,” said Leah Weiss, a sophomore environmental science major.

Graduate student Shannon Simmons said she was motivated to work harder because some members of her family don’t believe global warming exists.

“If I can’t convince my family, maybe I can convince some other people that global warming is a real threat,” she said.

Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) reaffirmed the power of the youth voice in her keynote speech Saturday night.

“It was young people who got themselves a president,” she said. “It was young people who got a new Congress. And it is young people who put climate change on the agenda.”

Excitement was high among university students at the conference – after Saturday night’s keynote speeches and a performance by The Roots, more than 1,000 conference-goers left the convention hall, chanting: “This is what democracy looks like.” They made a spontaneous march to the White House in the middle of the night, Nazdin said.

Tolkan said young people are a new political force to be reckoned with.

“Twenty-four million young voters came out this past election,” she said. “We showed that we could make political change in this election. It is critical that we flex that new political muscle and demand bold legislation.”

Power Shift may have had political impact before the conference even started: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) released a letter Friday imploring the Capitol architect to switch the nearby Capitol Power Plant from coal to natural gas by the end of the year.

Politicians looking at a power plant that has burned coal for 103 years and demanding change hours before Power Shift started was a huge sign of the conference’s power, said Bill McKibben, co-founder of environmental website 350.org.

“That’s not a coincidence,” he said. “That’s a movement.”

A march attempting to peacefully shut down the plant is planned for this afternoon, an action not associated with Power Shift but tacitly approved by conference organizers.

“Our movement is growing,” Tolkan said. “There is increasing demand for public action.”

Today’s activities consist of a rally on the west lawn of the Capitol Building and meetings with more than 350 members of Congress, including House Majority Leader and university alumnus Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). The rally will feature a speech from Pelosi and is expected to draw 6,000 activists, Teplitzsky said.

“It doesn’t end on Monday,” she added. “People are going to go home and continue working with their legislators and urge them to pass bold climate legislation.”

A meeting with Hoyer today is open to the public, Nazdin said, and interested students are meeting at 2:15 p.m. in Hoyer’s office in the Longworth House Office Building.

The conference has exceeded turnout expectations since day one, Teplitzky said, and that momentum will most likely continue through the lobby day.

“Young people voted in record numbers,” she said. “Now, they’re looking for what’s next: This is it.”

Checkin out the Solar BackPack!