A group of scientists from across North America are calling on the governments of Canada and Alberta to impose a moratorium on future development of the Alberta oilsands.

The recommendation is the result of a consensus document that surveys scientific literature related to the oilsands from across research fields. The clear outcome of the research — as it relates to climate, ecosystems, species protection and indigenous rights — is a need to end oilsands growth, the group states.

“As scientists we recognize that no one can speak with authority to all aspects of this complex topic, which is why we came together to synthesize the science from our different fields,” Wendy Palen, professor of biological sciences at Simon Fraser University, said.

The group of scientists, which include 12 fellows of the Royal Society of Canada, 22 members of the U.S. National Academy of Science, five recipients of the Order of Canada and a Nobel Prize winner, released their consensus position on a website, www.oilsandsmoratorium.org, Wednesday. A ful list of the scientists supporting the moratorium can be found here.

“These decisions are complex,” Palen added, “they transcend national boundaries and national interests and they are far broader than any single scientific study or economic assessment.”

Canada’s Carbon Budget

“Within our carbon budget we have high emission sources such as oilsands and unconventional sources of oil and coal that cannot be developed,” Mark Jaccard, energy and climate economist at Simon Fraser University said.

“Therefor while the existing output of the oilsands should not be shut down tomorrow — we’re not talking about harming the Alberta economy or the jobs that are there now — what the research shows, and that’s why we’re calling for it, is that we shouldn’t be doubling down or quadrupling down on the oilsands,” he said.

The oilsands industry produced just over 2 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) in 2014. The most recent projections released this month from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers projects oilsands production to grow to more than 4.2 million bpd by 2030.

In 2013 Canada’s National Energy Board forecasted 5 million bpd by 2035, although falling oil prices have altered most projections.

Jaccard said other forecasts see production skyrocketing to 6 or 9 million bpd.

“None of this needs to be done,” he said.

Alberta Taking on Too Much Risk

Thomas Homer-Dixon, Professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo said the call for a moratorium shouldn’t been see as an “attack on Alberta.”

“The risks are largest for Alberta in particular continuing on this path,” he said. “This is an ultimately economic dead end because the climate is changing and because there will be, in time, some kind of North American or global pricing regime for carbon.”

Homer-Dixon said a path to “alternative routes for economic development” would involve less risk for Alberta.

“Rather than assuming what we’re suggesting is a risky alternative fraught with uncertainty — which it is in some respects — it’s actually less risky and less fraught with uncertainty in many respects than continuing down the current pathway of doubling down on oilsands extraction.”

This week G7 leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, released a declaration calling for a total decarbonization of the global economy by 2100 and a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Although Canada agreed to these goals in principle, many are left wondering what concrete steps will be taken to reduce Canada’s emissions. The Alberta oilsands are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

“A moratorium makes a lot of sense”

Homer-Dixon said a carbon-constrained future could have severe effects on Canada and Alberta’s economy if we don’t move into low-carbon sources of energy.

“Far sooner than most Canadians expect we may have trouble selling our fossil fuels to the world,” he said.

David Keith, professor of applied physics and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, said there’s a “there’s enormous, direct self-interest here from people who care about a sustainable Alberta economy.”

“I’ve got kids and my own interests here,” he said. “But the more we grow the harder the fall is going to be.”

“If you don’t want to see a crushing downturn and want to see some sort of gradual turn for Alberta —where there’s a healthy Albertan economy when I’m old and my kids are grown — then a moratorium makes a lot of sense, even from a purely self-interested point of view.”

Keith added he doesn’t see a moratorium as the responsibility of industry.

“The fundamental onus is not on proponents,” he said. “The onus is on the regulatory system — the government of Alberta, the government of Canada — to act in the long-term interest of the people they serve.”

Thinking the Oilsands Beyond Climate and Economy

David Schindler, professor of ecology at the University of Alberta, said the group of scientists are making arguments for a moratorium that extend beyond the scope of climate.

The group lists a total of 10 reasons that support a moratorium including broad support for alternative energy and the treaty rights of first nations.

“If you take the focus off carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses for a minute and look at the other points among our 10, oilsands are really a poster child for unsustainable development,” Schindler said.

He added an additional major concern is the risk pipelines destined to carry diluted bitumen to the British Columbian coast pose to salmon stocks. “They cross hundreds of river channels and particularly in winter when those rivers are covered with ice, you cannot remove spilled oil from under ice.”

He said small spills have caused major problems in the Athabasca River. “The technology for removing that oil from under ice doesn’t exist.”

He said caribou are also disappearing from the oilsands region and expansion of development and pipelines will further exacerbate their recovery.

Ken Lertzman, professor at the school of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University, said social justice is yet another reason to support the moratorium.

Lertzman said the production of oil in Alberta and its transit across North America “violates the treaty rights of many indigenous peoples.” He added much of the oilsands development occurs on the traditional territory of First Nations, many of which are still dealing with unresolved land claims.

Both the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation have been involved in protracted battles with the Alberta and federal governments to protect their treaty rights and territorial lands from the cumulative impacts of oilsands development.

“Indigenous peoples live on the frontlines of energy development; it’s their rights, livelihoods, health and cultures that are most at risk,” he said.

Image Credit: Kris Krug

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This is a guest post by Thomas Homer-Dixon, professor of global governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo. It originally appeared in the Globe and Mail and is republished here with permission.

By 2030, Canada’s output from the oil sands will reach about five million barrels a day, more than twice today’s output. Yet, by 2030, chances are also good that the world will have placed a price on carbon emissions to spur energy innovation and wean humanity off carbon-based fuels.

By then, climate change’s impact on global food security will have become starkly obvious. Already, heat waves and droughts in major grain-producing regions have caused food-price shocks and political unrest around the world.

On a planet with a rapidly changing climate, Canada should be figuring out now how to wind down carbon-intensive resource extraction. Otherwise we may soon find that we’re producing masses of stuff we can’t sell.

But anyone who even hints at this idea in Canada is regarded as nuts. Any politician aspiring to national leadership who says such a thing can kiss his or her political career goodbye.

The realities of climate change mean that the oil sands have a best-by date, and that date could come much sooner than industry boosters say. Yet to the extent Canadians are having a conversation about the oil sands, it’s restricted by no-go zones. And in the absence of a full debate, as I wrote recently in The New York Times, we behave like a gambler deep in the hole, repeatedly doubling down on our commitment to the industry.

We do so partly because the industry brings vast immediate benefits to Canadians: billions of dollars of salaries, royalties and taxes that pay people’s mortgages, put kids through school and support government social programs. We do it too because oil sands supporters and the Conservative federal government attack as unpatriotic anyone who criticizes the industry. In the minds of these folks, it seems, the interests of this industry have become synonymous with the interests of Canada.

In January, 2012, for example, in an open letter that is still available on his department’s website, federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver says that “environmental and other radical groups” aim “to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth. No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.”

What nonsense. People opposed to the oil sands don’t want to wreck Canada’s economy. They want to stop an environmental and economic disaster. This kind of statement from an immensely powerful person such as Mr. Oliver only polarizes our society and shuts down democratic debate. It isn’t worthy of Canada’s long tradition of informed and tolerant civil discourse.

Our democratic conversation about the oil sands is constrained in other ways too. Canadians need to understand climate change and its consequences to make fully informed decisions about the industry. But the Conservatives have slashed funding for climate research, closed climate-research facilities, cut research on climate adaptation, reduced or eliminated funding to maintain archives of climate data, restricted online access to federally funded climate studies, and stopped federal climate scientists from talking about their research without advance political approval.

I believe it’s unlikely this assault on Canadian climate science would have happened in the absence of the oil sands industry’s influence – channelled through the Conservative’s powerful Alberta caucus – on federal policy.

When oil sands critics are attacked as anti-Canadian and the flow of scientific information needed to make informed decisions about the industry is restricted, Canada’s democracy is harmed. This is one of the reasons I argued, in my Times article, that Canada is beginning to exhibit the characteristics of a petro-state.

We’ll never become a fully blown petro-state, of course: Among other things, oil extraction doesn’t make up a sufficient fraction of the Canadian economy. But we know that societies highly dependent on resources such as oil have common features: Not only do the extraction industries gain influence over the state, but these societies’ economies often suffer from skewed capital investment and low innovation. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, in its 2012 Economic Survey of Canada, identified exactly these features in the the country’s economy and suggested that they were partly a result of Canada’s dependence on natural resources.

Canadians need to start talking about whether it’s wise to keep putting so many economic eggs in such a fragile basket. Small-c conservatism used to mean a commitment to prudence in public policy. But with respect to the oil sands and the related issue of climate change, the policies of the current Conservative government are radical and reckless. They could cause Canada enormous future harm.

Image Credit: Kris Krug via flickr

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Around the world scientists are not sleeping well. They toss and turn knowing humanity is destroying the Earth’s ability to support mankind. The science is crystal clear and all of us 'ought to shaking in our boots' Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme told me last year.

But hardly any of us are shaking in our boots. Why is that?

The most extensive survey about the scientific consensus that humanity is causing global warming was published Thursday May 16 in Environmental Research Letters (ERL). Researchers looked at 12,000 scientific scientific articles published between 1991 and 2011 on the subject and found 97.1% of the articles agreed global warming is primarily caused by human activities.

The fact there is a consensus on the causes of climate change is not new. Previous studies in 2011, 2009 and even back to 2004 had very similar results. Even during the early 1990s, there was a clear scientific consensus that global warming was underway and that burning fossil fuels was the main cause said John Cook of the University of Queensland and co-author of the peer-reviewed ERL study.

“However the public thinks there is a debate about this; that it's a 50-50 split amongst scientists,” Cook told DeSmog.

A 2012 poll from Pew Research found that less than half of Americans thought that scientists agreed humans were causing global warming. Cook said he's not aware of similar surveys in Canada but expects it might be higher in Canada – but no where close to 100% awareness – that there is a consensus amongst the more than 10,000 scientists from more than 70 countries surveyed in the study.

“The consensus is a global phenomena and it's been around for over 20 years. We should be talking about solutions,” he said.

Cook says he's hoping his study will help the public finally realize this and then they will push their governments to take action.

However, just recently Canada's Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver was widely reported casting doubt on climate change science saying “scientists have recently told us that our fears [about climate change] are exaggerated.”

Oliver cited as his expert source a newspaper columnist and well-known climate skeptic who has no expertise on the subject.

In recent years media rarely challenge false statements from politicians or even bother to fact-check their bland assurances that Canada does take the dangers of climate change very seriously. It is scientifically impossible for Canada to expand the tar sands and meet its climate protection commitments of working to keep global warming to less than 2C.

Nor are plans to dramatically expand the natural gas industry in BC to export LNG or to boost coal exports compatible with Canada's international commitments and moral obligations. Nor is drilling for oil or gas in the Arctic.

It's not just the Harper government's false statements and hypocritical policies that are misleading the public, there is an entire climate mis-information industry. Numerous think tanks, industry CEOs and associations and PR experts, some disguised as journalists, all claim we can burn and sell as much fossil fuel as we like.

And if climate change exists, it's not that big of a deal they say. Besides China is mostly to blame because they have a lot coal plants.

The avalanche of distortions and outright lies has become so bad and the public so confused that various groups have created fact-check websites such as the Oil Sands Reality Check launched today. On this site all facts are cited with sources and checked for their accuracy by a scientific advisory committee.

Expanding the tar sands and building pipelines are inconsistent with Canada's climate change commitments and government policy said Danny Harvey, a climate scientist at University of Toronto.

“There's no room in the atmosphere….we need to slowly phase out tar sands production or risk catastrophe,” Harvey said at a press conference today at the launch of the Oil Sands Reality Check website.

There cannot be a debate over the tar sands without having the real facts and that's what Oil Sands Reality Check site offers said Thomas Homer Dixon of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont.

“There are deep contradictions between tar sands production and the climate change reality,” said Homer Dixon, author of Carbon Shift: How the Twin Crises of Oil Depletion and Climate Change Will Define the Future.

“Canadians have not yet come to grips with this contradiction,” he said.

Image Credit: Harper's visit to NYC, May 16, 2013 by Erik McGregor via flickr.

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