Blog 5: September 30th Lauren Epperson The United States, Canada, and resource debate

The United States and Canada and the oil industry are about to launch a new program if the United States legislation passes the right legislation. The project would expand the oil pipelines from the Gulf Coast to Canada. The Canadian Government is excited about the expansion of the pipeline because it will bring new jobs and increased economic activity. The talk of the expansion has raised concern in environmental groups. Some environmental groups are protesting by creating at the government. The environmental groups fear that the expansion will cause major destruction to land, water, and other resources. The government is doing all it can to take precautions. Environmental research has been conducted. One study showed that greenhouse gas emission has grown by 300 percent since 1990. It is the number one source of pollution in Canada. The future of what is going to happen is unclear. The Political Director of the Council of Canadians said “There is so much concern across the country around the tarsand, the destruction of water, the impacts on the first nations people and the amount of climate emission release”. I am taking Introduction to Environmental Studies. We talked about the tarsand and extraction to get the oil. Basically, the United States has such a high energy demand that we have run out of resources of places to get oil to meet the high demands. We are looking for new sources. The deal with Canada will provide more oil but the catch is that it will require a third of the energy to extract the oil than the amount that we can get from the source. In other words, it is not going to be that beneficial for us to make this deal with Canada. If this deal does go through it will change the kinds of social environment problems we will have and some of the relationships that the United States. If the United States decides to pass the legislation we will have more relations with Canada and depend less on other foreign sources. The relationship with the Middle East Oil Companies might change. This could shift the global market and globalization. This shift to tarsand would create more environmental destruction in the United States and Canada because the pipelines cover so much area. If there was a problem with the pipelines it would cause environment all across the United States. It would effect a large of the population and people already see the expansion of the pipelines as a problem. We will waste what little resources we have.