2. Enbridge pipeline:<\/strong> A proposed route over the Rocky Mountains, across Canadian boreal forests, wild watersheds, and indigenous territory to the marine port at Kitimat, British Columbia for export. And:<\/p>\n\n 3. Kinder-Morgan TMX Trans-Mountain pipeline:<\/strong> Also over the Rocky Mountains, into the port of Vancouver, British Columbia. This pipeline\/tanker route is already operating and Kinder Morgan has applied for an expansion. In 2010, 71 large oil tankers shipped tar sands crude oil through the Port of Vancouver and the Georgia Strait to global markets.<\/p>\n\n These three pipelines threaten to detonate the world\u2019s biggest carbon bomb, but they face resistance from indigenous nations, rural communities, farmers, unions, scientists, and private citizens in Canada and the United States.<\/p>\n\n In August 2011, in front of the U.S. White House, police arrested 1,252 citizens \u2013 including Athabasca Chipewyan indigenous leader Gitz Deranger, NASA meteorologist Dr. James Hansen, writers Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben, actress Daryl Hannah, and Greenpeace USA director Phil Radford \u2013 demanding that US President Barak Obama refuse the Keystone pipeline expansion. Nine Nobel Peace Prize winners \u2013 including the Dalai Lama, South Africa\u2019s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Iran\u2019s Shirin Ebadi \u2013 signed a letter urging U.S. President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone proposal.<\/p>\n\n Two major US unions joined the protest. James Little, president of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and Larry Hanley, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) issued a statement opposing the pipeline expansion. \u201cWe call on the State Department NOT to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline or to take any actions that lead to the further extraction of Tar Sands oil [and] impacts to groundwater resources from pipeline spills [and] the high levels of GHG emissions… The Tar Sands has destroyed vast areas of boreal forest and inflicted havoc on local communities\u2026We need jobs, but not ones based on increasing our reliance on Tar Sands oil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Athabasca Chipewyan leader Gitz Deranger declared, \u201cI have seen the devastation of our environment and people’s health with increased cancer deaths\u2026 If Obama approves this pipeline, it would only lead to more of our people needlessly dying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \u201cA movement is being born right here in front of the White House,\u201d said Bill McKibben, 350.org founder, who helped organize the protest. \u201cWe’re at the White House because Keystone is the pipeline Americans have a real hope of stopping, because our president must give his specific approval. Tar sands mining has wrecked native land in Alberta; endangers farms, wild areas, and aquifers along its prospective route; and poses a danger to the whole planet. Keystone XL is one of three pipeline routes that lead back to the world\u2019s biggest carbon bomb, so we\u2019re working in solidarity with the indigenous people and other citizens in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n\n In 2010, in British Columbia, 61 Indigenous nations signed an historic \u201cFraser River Declaration<\/a>,\u201d promising to stop a proposed Enbridge pipeline from Alberta to the port at Kitimat, B.C. Chief Jackie Thomas of Saik\u2019uz Nation declared, \u201cEnbridge has spills all over North America\u2026 We refuse to be next.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Enbridge attempted to purchase indigenous consent with a \u201cpartnership\u201d deal worth millions of dollars, but in September, the Yinka Dene Alliance \u2013 Nadleh Whut\u2019en, Takla Lake, Wet\u2019suwet\u2019en, Saik\u2019uz and Nak\u2019azdli nations \u2013 turned down the Enbridge offer, which they called a \u201cdesperate and disrespectful attempt to buy our support for this pipeline.\u201d Chief Larry Nooski of the Nadleh Whut\u2019en said, \u201cThe Enbridge pipeline would risk an oil spill into our rivers and lands that would destroy our food supply, our livelihoods, and our cultures\u2026 There is not any amount of money that compares to the possible damage should an oil spill happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n The proposed pipeline would deliver tar sands crude oil to tankers. From Kitimat, these tankers would travel 150 kilometers down narrow Douglas Channel and around coastal islands, through treacherous waters and severe tidal currents, in a region of extreme weather. Thirty-four years ago, in 1977, Greenpeace joined an alliance with fishermen and the Gitga\u2019at indigenous nation at Hartley Bay, B.C. to blockade an oil consortium vessel at the mouth of this channel. Four years later, Greenpeace vessels blockaded an oil tanker entering Georgia Strait.<\/p>\n\n The oil companies have persisted, but the indigenous nations of western Canada have taken up the challenge, insisting that this pipeline will never be built.<\/p>\n\n The third main pipeline from the tar sands runs over the Rocky Mountains into the Port of Vancouver, B.C. This Trans-Mountain (TMX) pipeline, owned by US company Kinder Morgan, is already operational.<\/p>\n\n In 2005, Kinder Morgan bought BC\u2019s Terasen Pipelines, part of a privatization scheme by the BC Liberal government to sell public and natural assets. Kinder Morgan received approval to increase pipeline capacity to 260,000 barrels per day and began turning Vancouver into a tar sands shipping port. In 2007, without any public or indigenous consultation, tar sands crude oil began leaving Vancouver on Panamax and Aframax oil tankers. The US company has applied to dredge Vancouver\u2019s Burrard Inlet to make way for 1-million-barrel Suezmax tankers.<\/p>\n\n Company founders Richard Kinder and Bill Morgan are ex-Enron billionaires. Enron swindled some $11 billion from their own shareholders. Richard Kinder was chief counsel for Enron from its founding in 1985 until 1996, when he received a $30 million retirement package and left Enron to start his pipeline company. He is now worth over $2.4-billion. The company has left a trail of oil spills<\/a> and environmental disasters throughout the US.<\/p>\n\n The Burrard Inlet is home to three indigenous nations: The Musqueam on the Fraser River, the Squamish along Georgia Strait and Howe Sound coastlines, and the Tsleil-Waututh, the \u201cPeople of the Inlet.\u201d The Musqueam Nation signed the \u201cFraser River Declaration<\/a>,\u201d which declares they will help protect their lands, territories, watersheds, and \u201cthe ocean migration routes of Fraser River salmon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Rueben George<\/a>, Sundance Chief and Director of Community Development at Tsleil-Waututh Nation recently told the Vancouver City Council and mayor, who have launched a \u201cgreen city\u201d project: \u201cWe came from these waters\u2026 We took care of the Inlet and only took what we needed. How can we be the greenest city when there are oil tankers going through our traditional territory \u2026 which we share with every one of you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n In August 2011, Squamish Elder Robert Nahanee<\/a> welcomed and blessed a \u201cNo Tankers, No Pipelines, No Tar Sands\u201d gathering at the Kinder-Morgan oil port. \u201cWe\u2019re going to protect the sacredness of our dear Mother in a good way,\u201d he said, and led a song his ancestors sang when they rescued white settlers from a fire a century ago.<\/p>\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve been fishing in BC since 1973,\u201d said Canadian fisherman, Ron Fowler, who serves on the Pacific Salmon Commission and as Director of the Area-F Trollers Association on BC\u2019s west coast. \u201cIf we get an oil spill anywhere in these waters, it would wipe out every fishery we have, shellfish, salmon, herring, and the plankton that they feed on. There is no sound reason for floating oil and risking our entire coastline.\u201d<\/p>\n\n The reason these companies risk oil spills to float oil is simple: Money. Right now, the European price for crude oil is about $24 more per barrel than the North American price. For a million-barrel Suezmax tanker, that price difference is worth $24-million per tanker. For this reason, all tar sands oil is destined for global markets where it will fetch the highest price. Thus, the producers want the pipelines to ports in Texas and British Columbia. It is a deception that this oil will help US or Canadian \u201cdomestic energy security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Promoters of the Keystone pipeline claim in the US that there is \u201cno global warming impact\u201d to the pipeline because if the US doesn\u2019t approve the Keystone line, they will lose the business to Canadian pipelines. This is another deception. The three pipelines are not mutually exclusive; they are cumulative, and tar sands operators want them all and more. In a Financial Times<\/a> article, Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert acknowledged the tar sands goal of producing 4-5-million barrels of crude oil per day. To move this oil, the producers need the Canadian pipelines and, according to Liepert, \u201cBy 2020, we may need three Keystones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Every pipeline or tanker that is stopped represents ancient carbon that stays in the ground and less global heating impact. More pipelines mean more tar sands development, more atmospheric carbon and more heating of Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n Links to pipeline, tanker, and tar sands actions international<\/p>\n\n Tanker Free BC<\/a><\/p>\n\n Wilderness Committee<\/a><\/p>\n\n Greenpeace Canada: pipelines and tankers in B.C.<\/a><\/p>\n\n Council of Canadians, Tar Sands Action<\/a><\/p>\n\n Four Worlds International<\/a><\/p>\n\n Indigenous Environmental Network<\/a><\/p>\n\n Fraser River Declaration<\/a><\/p>\n\n Rueben George Speaks to Vancouver City Council<\/a><\/p>\n\n Squamish elder Robert Nahanee, pipeline\/tanker protest<\/a><\/p>\n\n Fake \u201cEthical oil\u201d campaign<\/a><\/p>\n\n Tar Sands Action, US<\/a><\/p>\n\n![\"Suncor](\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/static\/planet4-international-stateless\/2021\/05\/2fb6747e-gp01z13-1024x683.jpg\" "\\"Suncor")
Resistance<\/h3>\n\n
Canadian pipelines and tankers<\/h3>\n\n
Floating oil<\/h3>\n\n
Follow the Money<\/h3>\n\n
\n\n