Energy and Resources News

The 33rd Annual Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers was held in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada on September 14-15 and was co-chaired by host Premier Shawn Graham and Maine Governor John Baldacci.  Throughout the years, the governors and premiers have forged a partnership and expanded economic ties, including cooperation on energy and environmental issues.

As a result of NAFTA, North America is already a well-integrated energy market with Canada and Mexico among the U.S.’s top energy trading partners.  Through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the North American Energy Working Group has further integrated a continental energy strategy.  Other initiatives are also pushing towards a single North American energy policy.

The Western Governors’ Association annual conference was held in Park City, Utah on June 14-16, 2009. The meetings were attended by three Canadian western premiers.  Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall spearheaded plans to develop a cross-border Western Energy Corridor.  Both have announced that they intend to establish a Western Energy Corridor Coalition to further promote the initiative.  The proposed energy corridor would be the largest of its kind in the world. 

http://www.borderfirereport.net/dana-gabriel/towards-a-north-american-energy-corridor.php

There may be as many as 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation that runs under Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota and Montana

60,000 tons of waste in the form of used reactor fuel with nowhere to go......
 

“We are poor, but we are not stupid peasants......"

Re: Revisiting NAFTA threatens oil sales to U.S.: Cannon, Nov. 15.

Newly minted Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon recently expressed his fear that "revisiting NAFTA", the controversial trade deal with the U.S. would, "... threaten (Canadian) oil sales to the U.S.

His fears are somewhat justified, but only in the narrow confines of the existing deal, which was designed to be flexible. It is not heresy to suggest that Canada needs new markets for its surplus crude oil and refined petroleum products.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/letters/story.html?id=4a831209-41fd-4241-b36f-1a2701621c36

U.S. oil companies in Alberta can use NAFTA to sue the Canadian government if any level of government passes a law restricting their profits, says Maude Barlow, a senior advisor to the United Nations.

Barlow, the UN’s official expert on water policy and founder of the non-profit Council of Canadians, says Chapter 11, a relatively obscure clause in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) allows companies from member countries to sue national governments for lost profits if any new laws adversely affect their profit. Barlow is especially concerned because of the sheer power of the oilsands economy, which she calls “the biggest capital project in the world.

http://www.srj.ca/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=88&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=3206&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1957&hn=srj&he=.ca

Canadian activist Maude Barlow has been appointed as the United Nation's first senior adviser on water issues, a role she hopes to use to establish water as a human right and to convince Canada to "change its shameful position" on the issue.

Barlow, chair of the citizens' advocacy group Council of Canadians, will work with the current president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to advance a more democratic and transparent method of policy making around water at the global level than now exists," Barlow said in a press release. "Water is a commons, a public trust and a human right."

• Self-reliance beckons for communist state
• Estimate means reserves are on a par with US

Friends and foes have called Cuba many things - a progressive beacon, a quixotic underdog, an oppressive tyranny - but no one has called it lucky, until now . Mother nature, it emerged this week, appears to have blessed the island with enough oil reserves to vault it into the ranks of energy powers. The government announced there may be more than 20bn barrels of recoverable oil in offshore fields in Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico, more than twice the previous estimate.

There is little doubt that NAFTA has brought about the loss of Canadian sovereignty over its own resources and further threatens its water supply. Through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), bulk water transfers are being discussed. The SPP is carrying on where NAFTA left off, and this includes further gaining access to Canadian oil, gas, electricity, and water. The Montreal Economic Institute, which is a think tank, is now urging Canada to export its fresh water for financial gain. This will mortgage Canada’s future for possible short-term benefits. A continental resource pact, which includes energy and water, is all part of deeper integration into a North American Union.

http://intelstrike.com/?p=298

Mother Earth's Triple Whammy

Gas prices are above $4 a gallon; global food prices surged 39% last year; and an environmental disaster looms as carbon emissions continue to spiral upward. The global economy appears on the verge of a TKO, a triple whammy from energy, agriculture, and climate-change trends. Right now you may be grumbling about the extra bucks you're shelling out at the pump and the grocery store; but, unless policymakers begin to address all three of these trends as one major crisis, it could get a whole lot worse.

JUST ASK THE NORTH KOREANS.

In the 1990s, North Korea was the world's canary. The famine that killed as much as 10% of the North Korean population in those years was, it turns out, a harbinger of the crisis that now grips the globe -- though few saw it that way at the time.

Part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) objectives include further removing barriers and securing access and control to Canadian resources. NAFTA has already seemingly granted the U.S. unlimited access to Canadian energy. The SPP will bring about the further deregulation and privatization of Canadian institutions. There are also fears that under the SPP, Canada will become nothing more then a resource colony. If this agenda is not stopped and a North American Union is allowed to manifest, it will bring about the complete raping of Canadian resources and a once proud and vibrant sovereign nation will cease to exist.

The proposal to build a deep underground dump (DUD) for radioactive wastes on the shoreline of the Great Lakes is unacceptable.  Water is the most likely dispersal medium for toxic materials in general, and for radioactive wastes in particular.  Help stop the creation of the waste dump by signing on to a statement opposing it!

 Nuclear energy, the sequel, is opening to raves by everybody from John McCain to a Greenpeace co-founder. Don't be fooled. It's the "Ishtar" of power generation.

 Although the nuclear industry is marketing itself as a "clean" energy source due to the low greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power plants, a persistent problem with nuclear energy is the creation of highly radioactive nuclear waste--something to consider carefully as the Canadian government jumps on the nuclear bandwagon:

Macomb County officials are leading the charge in opposition to a proposed nuclear waste dump near Ontario's Lake Huron shoreline, upstream from the county's drinking water plants.