Even in a recession, the majority of Canadians believe that minimizing the environmental impacts of the oil sands is more important than maximizing profits from them, according to a recent Nanos poll.
The poll randomly sampled 1,002 Canadians. Fifty-nine percent thought minimizing environmental impacts was very important, versus 35 per cent who thought maximizing economic prosperity was very important. These results were fairly consistent across regions.
There was greater disparity on a question about the impact of the oil sands on Canada's international reputation. Interestingly, 36 per cent of western Canadians thought the oil sands had a negative impact. Only Quebec had a greater percentage -- 46 per cent -- of people who felt the same.
Atlantic Canada had the greatest number of people, 40 per cent, who felt the oil sands had a positive impact on Canada's reputation abroad.
The results of the poll can be found here.
Colleen Kimmett reports for The Hook
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Van Isle
4 years ago
We all know that when it's
We all know that when it's time to clean up that mess, the tax payers will pay for it and the oil companies will be laughing all the way to the bank.
G West
4 years ago
Colleen - please don't fall for the nomenclature gambit
They are TAR SANDS....calling them oil sands is Orwellian double speak.
Even the Economist hasn't fallen for it:
http://www.economist.com/world/americas/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12932252&source=hptextfeature
Colleen K
4 years ago
I used oil sands because
I used oil sands because that was the term the poll used, so to do otherwise in this article would have been inaccurate, IMO.
In previous articles, I refer to the 'tar sands.'
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Environment/2009/01/08/Syncrude/
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Environment/2009/01/22/OilGateway/
I wonder if using 'tar sands' instead would have made any difference to poll results...
realisticman
4 years ago
Oil Sands is Correct
Colleen, don't fall for the propaganda. Oil sands is the correct term when one understands the chemical composition.
The Alberta deposits contain at least 85% of the world's total reserves of natural bitumen. They could be called Bitumen sands. Naturally occurring or crude bitumen is a sticky, tar-like form of petroleum, but it's not tar.
The word 'tar' refers to the black viscous material obtained from the destructive distillation of coal and is chemically distinct from bitumen.
Tar: Tar is modified resin produced primarily from from the wood and roots of pine by destructive distillation under pyrolysis.
TERM MISUSE
The word "tar" is often used to describe several distinct substances which are not actually tar. Naturally occurring "tar pits" (e.g. the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles) actually contain asphalt rather than tar. Tar sand deposits contain various mixtures of sand (or rock) with bitumen or heavy crude oil and not tar, as does the Tar Tunnel in Shropshire. "Rangoon tar", also known as "Burmese Oil" or "Burmese Naphtha", is actually petroleum. "Tar" and "pitch" are sometimes used interchangeably; however, pitch is considered more solid while tar is more liquid.
You were right all along. They are more closely oil sands and they are absolutely not tar sands. It's strange that so many opposing development of the oil sands seem to think that they are tar sands. Perhaps they imagine tar sounds worse and therefore it aids their cause, which, of course, it doesn't because they are merely displaying their ignorance.
Fiat lux
4 years ago
The worst kind of ignorance
The worst kind of ignorance is to believe that the destruction caused by the extraction is really an "economic benefit".
I wish I could have run my businesses without having had to pay the bills, but according to the neoclassical theory, everything is GDP and "income", and there ain't no deductions for costs.
Ed Deak,