Tar Sands Quotes & Sayings

The tar sands boom has become the world's largest energy project, the world's largest construction project, and the world's largest capital project. — Andrew Nikiforuk

I believe we will see a biofuels resurgence. While gas prices skyrocket and we continue to wage wars for oil, while spills, fracking, tar sands and the oil madness of our empire continue, people are waking up and realizing that you can't be against petroleum and against fuels that come from nature. — Josh Tickell

If you are living a life that feels right to you, if you're willing to take creative chances or a creative path that feels like it's mostly in keeping with your sensibilities, you know, aesthetic and artistic, then that's what matters. — Tracy Chapman

There's no question that tar sands in Canada are probably the largest source of oil available to the U.S. over a long period of time. There's as much oil in the tar sands probably as there is in Saudi Arabia. The problem is, there's a huge capital requirement to develop that. — T. Boone Pickens

Bitumen is junk energy. A joule, or unit of energy, invested in extracting and processing bitumen returns only four to six joules in the form of crude oil. In contrast, conventional oil production in North America returns about 15 joules. Because almost all of the input energy in tar sands production comes from fossil fuels, the process generates significantly more carbon dioxide than conventional oil production. — Thomas Homer-Dixon

Probably no single event highlights the strength of Campbell's argument (on peak oil) better than the rapid development of the Alberta tar sands. Bitumen, the world's ugliest and most expensive hydrocarbon, can never be a reasonable substitute for light oil due to its extreme capital, energy, and carbon intensity. Bitumen looks, smells, and behaves like asphalt; running an economy on it is akin to digging up our existing road infrastructure, melting it down, and enriching the goop with hydrogen until it becomes a sulfur-rich but marketable oil. — Andrew Nikiforuk

The carbon emissions from tar shale and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren. — James Hansen

And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her still. — J.M. Barrie

The destructiveness of the tar sands is not inevitable. But Canadians and Albertans have become too tolerant of the politicians who compromise the nation's energy security as well as the next generation's future. — Andrew Nikiforuk

Bitumen, the new national staple, is redefining the character and destiny of Canada. Rapid development of the tar sands has created a foreign policy that favours the export of bitumen to the United States and lax immigration standards that champion the import of global bitumen workers. — Andrew Nikiforuk

The tar sands has changed Canada in the same way the fur trade has changed Canada. — Andrew Nikiforuk

We need policy change, and the most important thing people can do is to contribute and participate in the political process. We have to vote climate change deniers and people who will create subsidies for the fossil fuel industry out of office. We have to protest when bad decisions are being made about fracking or tar sands. — Josh Fox

Passionate and forcefully argued, Tar Sands is a wake-up call not just to Canadians but to the wider world to take a serious look at what is happening in northern Alberta. To call this book a polemic is a compliment. — Margaret MacMillan

If you have never known happiness and sorrow, then you have not fully experience life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Nobody, but nobody, is going to tell me I'm not the most. I am. I was the most when everybody else was struggling bitterly to become a little. — William, Saroyan

I have visited people whose health has been endangered by tar sands oil. I have watched neighbors struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy. I have seen solar panels and wind turbines become an increasingly familiar part of the landscape. — Frances Beinecke

Her sample drawings were clipped, rather subordinately, to her photograph. All of them were arresting. One of them was unforgettable. The unforgettable one was done in florid wash colors, with a caption that read: 'Forgive Them Their Trespasses.' It showed three small boys fishing in an odd-looking body of water, one of their jackets draped over a 'No Fishing!' sign. The tallest boy, in the foreground of the picture, appeared to have rickets in one leg and elephantiasis in the other--an effect, it was clear, that Miss Kramer had deliberately used to show that the boy was standing with his feet slightly apart. — J.D. Salinger

If we are really to live at all we must put our convictions into action. — Margaret Sanger

I suggest we take our heads out of the tar sands and look up to see the sun. We don't own it, but it provides us all with great, endless value. So, too, the wind. These free, renewable sources of 'energy currency' are perfect partners to what we own together. — William McDonough

Alberta's two largest cities collected more in library fines than two higher levels of government levied against polluters in 2006-2007. — Gordon Laird

But unlike this book, the dictionary also discusses words that are far more pleasant to contemplate. The word 'bubble' is in the dictionary, for instance, as is the word 'peacock,' the word 'vacation,' and the words 'the' 'author's' 'execution' 'has' 'been' 'canceled,' which makes a sentence that is always pleasant to hear. — Lemony Snicket

Back in the days when I was a teenager,
Before I had status, and before I had a pager,
You could find The Abstract, listening to hip-hop,
My pops used to say it reminded him of be-bop.
I said, 'Well daddy don't you know that things go in cycles.
The way that Bobby Brown is just ampin' like Michael.
It's all expected, things are for the lookin',
If you got the money, Quest is for the bookin'. — Q-Tip

I have found a way to beat myself
I win by losing, something like that
I'm told that I'm stupid
So ok, I'll be stupid
If I can't register the pain
Then it's not there
I'm not so stupid after all
I'll show them — Henry Rollins

Young people are already leading on climate action. I see it at rallies to reject the Keystone XL dirty tar sands pipeline. I see it in the push to demand justice for communities being run over by fracking operations. — Frances Beinecke

Much of the U.S. Midwest is already running on bitumen. Do we want to extend this addiction? And at what cost? Or should we set other goals and say one to two million barrels of oil a day from the tar sands is all we really need to make the transition? — Andrew Nikiforuk

Extracting oil from the tar sands is a nasty, polluting, energy-intensive business. — Jeff Goodell

You can't turn on your television without seeing these advertisements about clean coal, clean tar sands and the claim that there's more jobs associated with fossil fuels than other industries. That's of course not true. But they're hammering that into the voters' heads. — James Hansen

What makes tar sands particularly odious is that the energy you get out in the end, per unit carbon dioxide, is poor. It's equivalent to burning coal in your automobile. — James Hansen

Tar sands oil is the dirtiest fuel on Earth. Because producing it consumes so much energy, a gallon of tar sands crude generates 17 percent more carbon pollution than conventional crude oil. — Frances Beinecke

The more people learn about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the worse it looks. — Frances Beinecke