The Polaris Institute endorses UK re-think Alberta campaign
For Immediate Release
August 18, Ottawa, Ontario – On the heels of its endorsement of a July ad campaign aimed at branding Alberta as one of the world’s dirtiest energy producing places to visit, the Polaris Institute welcomes Corporate Ethics International’s re-think Alberta campaign encouraging people in the United Kingdom to think twice about visiting Alberta.
Today, eleven digital ads highlighting the environmental and human rights catastrophe caused by the Alberta tar sands were placed around London by Corporate Ethics International. The billboards, which will be accompanied with strategic web-based advertising, are designed to raise awareness about the well documented impacts of the Alberta Tar Sands by asking Britons not to contribute to the problem.
Polaris Institute statement regarding Enbrige's Michigan oil spill
July 28, 2010--The news of an Enbridge pipeline spilling 20,000 barrels (3 million litres) of crude oil from the Alberta tar sands into a tributary of Lake Michigan is disturbing, but sadly not surprising.
Enbridge has a questionable track record across Canada and United States of recurring pipeline leaks that have caused serious environmental damage and harm to workers. Between 1999 and 2008, across all of Enbridge’s operations there were 610 spills that released close to 132,000 barrels (21 million litres) of hydrocarbons into the environment. This amounts to approximately half of the oil that spilled from the Exxon Valdez after it struck a rock in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1988.
The recent spill in Michigan is the largest spill to occur on an Enbridge pipeline in the United States in the last ten years. Enbridge’s largest spill in Canada in the same time period occurred in Alberta in 2001 when 23,900 barrels (3.8 million litres) spilled into the environment.
General Assembly declares access to clean water and sanitation is a human right
UN News Center, 28 July 2010 - Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the General Assembly declared today, voicing deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.
The 192-member Assembly also called on United Nations Member States and international organizations to offer funding, technology and other resources to help poorer countries scale up their efforts to provide clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for everyone.
The Assembly resolution received 122 votes in favour and zero votes against, while 41 countries abstained from voting.
Conservative MPs accused of killing damaging committee report on oil sands
Kristen Shane, Hill Times, July 26th, 2010 - The House of Commons Environment Committee killed a report it was drafting on the oil sands last month because Conservative members wanted to hide testimony showing the government has failed to live up to its environmental protection responsibilities and the opposition parties were too poisoned by partisanship to reach consensus, say some witnesses who testified during the study.
But Conservative MPs say their government is acting on its obligations and the testimony is public knowledge.
"I think it's a total coverup," said University of Alberta ecology professor and water expert David Schindler last week of the Environment and Sustainable Development Standing Committee's decision to scrap tabling a formal report to the House on its more than two years of study of how Alberta oil sands projects affect the quantity and quality of surrounding water bodies.
Who Killed the Tar Sands Water Report?
The following article written by Andrew Nikiforuk provides a good explanation for why the Government of Canada's Environment and Sustainable Development Committee decided to destroy a report on the impacts of tar sands projects on water.
More information on the impacts of the Alberta tar sands industry on water can be found here.
What Those Who Killed the Tar Sands Report Don't Want You to Know
Why did a parliamentary committee suddenly destroy drafts of a final report on tar sands pollution? Here's what they knew.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, 15 July 2010, TheTyee.ca
Just two weeks ago the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development abruptly cancelled a big report on the tar sands and the project's extreme water impacts. The parliamentarians even destroyed draft copies of their final report.
Protest at Coca Cola plant in India reaches 3,000 days
Thursday July 8, 2010 marked the 3,000th day of action against the Coca Cola plant in Plachimada in the Indian State of Kerala where the local population has been struggling against the company over its water takings.
For more information and ways to take action visit the following websites:
India Resource Center
Killer Coke
Agitation against Coke plant crosses 3,000 days
G. Prabhakaran, 12 July 2010, The Hindu PALAKKAD - The agitation against alleged exploitation of groundwater by soft drink major Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. at Plachimada, a remote village in Perumatty grama panchayat in Chittur taluk, completed 3,000 days on Friday.
The agitation has been described as a struggle by the local people to establish their right to natural resources such as soil and water and a fight to protect their livelihood of agriculture.
G8/G20 Information
Here are a few links to sources of news and analysis from the G8/G20:
G20/G8 Breakdown: http://www.g20breakdown.com
Toronto Media Co-op: http://toronto.mediacoop.ca
G20 Alt Media Centre: http://2010.mediacoop.ca
Dampening Debate
Bill O'Driscoll, Pittsburgh City Paper, June 3, 2010 - It's called World Environment Day. But critics say speakers at host city Pittsburgh's key WED event over-represent one small part of the world -- the corporate part often implicated in abuses of environmental and human rights.
The June 3 "Water Matters!" Global Water Conference is intended as the serious, issues-oriented face of WED, a United Nations-inspired program whose highlights include an attempt to set a record for kayaks and canoes on the river.
Water is a political issue as well as an environmental one: Fresh water is increasingly scarce globally, and getting scarcer as population grows and industrialization increases. One debate is whether access to water is a human right -- requiring governments to ensure such access -- or simply another commodity, like oil.
In Mexico, fear of tap water fuels bottled-water boom
Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers, May 27, 2010, MEXICO CITY — It's a simple warning — don't drink the tap water — and Mexicans take it to heart as much as any foreign tourist does.
Mexicans drink more bottled water than the citizens of any other country do, an average of 61.8 gallons per person each year, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp., a consultancy. That's far higher than Italy, and more than twice as much as in the United States.
A rising mistrust of tap water is behind the thirst for bottled water. Other factors are also at play, however, including clever advertising campaigns by multinational corporations and the failure of the Mexican government to provide timely data on water safety.
Bottled water has high levels of bacteria
Carly Weeks, Globe and Mail, May 26, 2010 - Another strike against bottled water.
New findings show that several types of bottled water sold in Canada contain high levels of bacteria, raising questions about the cleanliness and quality of bottling plants.
The health concerns add to the backlash against plastic-bottled water that has led several cities and school boards to impose bans.
Canadian researchers from C-crest Laboratories Inc., a pharmaceutical product-testing lab in Montreal, tested nearly a dozen brands of bottled water and discovered that 70 per cent had high levels of heterotrophic bacteria. The findings were presented Tuesday at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego.
“This amount of bacteria is alarming, as if we are ingesting a cup of culture,” said Sonish Azam, a researcher involved in the study who works at C-crest.
