60 Minutes - The New Boom (shale oil/oil sands)

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by ave a go, Jun 16, 2008.

  1. ave a go

    ave a go Junior Member

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    Did any one else see 60 minutes last night.

    Link to the above story here https://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=578851

    Made me very angry :evil:

    If you didn't see it, have a quick read and make up your own mind.

    Basically we will have oil for a while to come, but at what cost to the environment??? I don't think people understand what we do to environement actually does affect us....

    Makes you think about giving up, are we fighting a loosing battle, people only seem to care about here and now and not what will be left for future generations.

    Anyway, better get back to work, hope my whinge made some sort of sense.....
     
  2. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    Re: 60 Minutes - The New Boom (shale oil/oil sands)

    g'day matt,

    yes i saw that segment, devastating results for the canadian habitat and all that heavily polluted water they create. it's not cheap oil so all it will do apart from the devastation is keep us fueled up, and make profits for oil companies and taxes for gov'.

    they aren't doing anything about alternatives and waht laternatives would serve to move food from habitat destroying broadacre/factory farms to where the people need it which can be up to 800k away from those hungry bellies. and the pm on his "being seen to be green" promo' of attracting toyota to build hybrid cars in melbourne or where ever? who can afford them? and unless you almost over night replace most of the cars on road then what effect will there be? NONE. they still use oil they still use fuel, they still have rubber tyres, and upholstry and insulated coatings on wiring systems all products derived from oil in some way.

    our communities have been built on the need for people to have a vehicle, there are no farms just down the road.

    funny realy although much is said about the cost of food being out of the reach of the masses there is no mention of food miles, if they are going to redesign communities with community market farmers then we should have started to do so 20 years ago, not 20 years hence when it is too late.

    len
     
  3. thepoolroom

    thepoolroom Junior Member

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    Re: 60 Minutes - The New Boom (shale oil/oil sands)

    This is how it begins. As petrol prices rise, and transport costs rise, and food costs rise, it makes alternatives (solar, wind, growing your own food, using public transport, insulating your house, etc) much more economically viable. And that's the only real way to get people to change en masse.

    My town is surrounded by farms, but they're all dairy. There's practically nothing else grown/raised. No vegetable crops, no orchards, very little meat cattle, no market gardens where you can buy locally-grown fruit and vegies. If petrol, transport and food costs continue to rise like they have been I can see that situation changing rapidly, and I'd welcome that change.

    Every time I see oil prices rising, I think "good - that's another step closer to dismantling this whole silly centralised food production system".
     
  4. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    Re: 60 Minutes - The New Boom (shale oil/oil sands)

    yes i would agree with what you say to a point, that point being farmers now can't ,move back into our communities (where the majority of the populas lives), we can't go back to the 40's & 50's when our market garden farmers lived in our suburbs, this included dairy and chooks. farmer can't even move any nearer the cities, so how do we feed the hapless city dwellers some of which are living on or near the povery line?

    i don't cut with the shale oil or sand oil ideas either, but realy the community (too busy being manipulated into watching sattelite tv sports 24/7), which then becomes the gov' has no action whatsoever on producing a more earth friendly fuel or powered vehicle, the masses will never afford those waht will be poor performing and delivery of real benefits vehicles, which are at best part of the "being seen to be green" process. the gov' allowed our communities to be developed this way they indoctrinate all to accept it, and those of us with other ideas have not many options but to share in these un-eco' frindly homes and estates.

    we live in a community called australia we need to look for changes all of those in the community can afford, and do it sustainably, raising fule and power prices to force the issue will only creat a larger and alrger poorer calss who concievably might not be able to afford the absics ie.,. a home to live in and power an water let alone a vehicle they can afford to buy and fuel (it matters not how you look at it most public transport systems are an inefficient sham they don't even provide the service the purport to do, look at our premier over in teh USofA checking out systems to force motorist who have no real alternatives to be penalised even more by ahving to pay even more into gov' coffers).

    sorry soap box came out a bit but hey??

    we are pensioners, already planning life without a vehicle due to rising service and fuel costs along with exhorbitant registration costs, we have a little 1300cc vehicle 5 years old (can't afford to replace it eitehr many in our boat), our only alternative shuffle about 500 metrs to a bus top and then sue a inefficient fueled cab to bring our groceries home, which limits our choice of where we buy fresh vege's etc as thos shops are further away including butchers who sell grass fed meats (the closest is a 20 minute highway drive away), none close handy.

    len
     
  5. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    Re: 60 Minutes - The New Boom (shale oil/oil sands)

    Interesting thoughts len, I too am a bludging pensioner living on $230 a week. I think the government gives us just enough to keep us out of jail; otherwise they would have to pay that, per day, for room and board.

    Gone are the days of backyard gardens, in fact of backyards. The stupid planning laws of NSW hardly allow for room for a sliver of a cane of bamboo. Our best land, with the highest rainfall, is being covered in concrete.
    This does not happen everywhere. I blame our (Oz) stupid rating laws for fuelling unbridled development.
    For example, in sight of Disneyland some years ago I was amazed to see a five acre strawberry farm among all the motels. It was explained to me that rates were charged on land IMPROVEMENTS not the intrinsic or perceived value of the land. So older people who wanted to keep the family farm until they fell off the perch could do so. It seems a much fairer system. Locally a 20 story waterfront hotel and the local fish shop are charged almost the same rates.The hotel has the capacity to pay much more. A similar system to the Yanks is in place in Britain. This has helped them preserve a lot of their wonderful countryside. Mean while we continue our massive urban sprawl with pretentious, environmentally disastrous, ugly MacMansions 'cheek by jowl'. No sympathy for the climate, environment or the local area.

    I despair at the deserts of local schools all with million dollar security fences that would be ideal to grow things on.
    Kids can learn so much (ecology, botany, biology, chemistry, genetics, etc. etc) with a garden, yet 98% of schools do not teach gardening or agriculture.
    i despair at check-out-chicks and guys who have to look up their computer screen to find out what a common fruit or vegetable is. The latest was a kid who had never seen a fig before, as for different varieties of greens -always great confusion. What do they eat?

    Sorry len et al I too got on my soap box and forgot what this thread was about
    1 Fuel can be made by the fisher tropsch process from coal. Good enough for Hitler; and South Africa has been using it for many, many years
    2. Biomass. it is possible to make fuel from the woodchips we send by the boatload to Japan. The Japanese must be laughing all the way to the bank, as we destroy our trees and native forests for them.
    A carbon credit system can't come fast enough.
    3.Biofuels have not been sufficiently exploited or researched. For example I remember reading about an American plant "Gopher Weed" that is basically "growing oil" plant. The US research I saw (some years old now) said it would not be viable until oil reached $60 a barrel. Even allowing for inflation we must be well past that point now with oil at $130 a barrel
    Personally I think using food crops (other than sugar cane)for biofuels silly; but I am sure a lot of the opposition and anti-biofuel, anti- alcohol hysteria is being promulgated and promoted by BIG OIL Company's PR departments..
    I would love to see fuel being taken out of the hands of the few multinationals and obscenely rich Sheikdoms and decentralised to thousands of family farms

    There is no reason we can't all make our own alcohol. The Arabs (ironically) invented the process 1,000 years ago and it is not hard if you have access to some rotting peaches or other biomass. Lots of fruit and vegetables (such as mangos from far north Queensland and oranges from the Riverina were left to rot as it was too expensive in fuel costs to truck them to market.
    The is no such thing as "waste" a use can be found for everything, especially now with the new pyrolysis technology.
     
  6. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    Re: 60 Minutes - The New Boom (shale oil/oil sands)

    g'day Michaelangelica,

    yes the farmers are rated out of close in land to the point that the developers offers huge as they are are far more attractive, then the farmer moves to rural 100's of k's away and causes more habitat destruction on larger land mass purchased courtesy of big offer on their old land, and so the circle continues.

    yes the young are missing our 600sq/mts and less blocks the norm (hey no matter size of block council gets same rate hey, so the more they squeeze in using street that are little wider than most driveways the better for them. they have no idea wah most fruits and vege's are, or where they come from ie.,. milk comes out of bottles (well little more than white paint peddled as milk, they would never know real milk if they slipped over in it)), pineapples come off of trees and sun ripened home grown tomato's stink, eggs that spread all over the pan are fresh, imagine if they ever got a daily fresh egg hey??

    we have 750sq/mt block with a compact macmansion spread over, over 2/3's the block but we do have a couple gardens and room for another, when ever finances allow. but you can only grow so much at any time and brassicas take so long to mature.

    yes lots of land around where crops could be grown for communities and as you say schools in particular, they don't need sports ovals we need food before sport. schools way behind the 8 ball on installing tanks got a school up here could easily ahve 1 x 35/40k litre tank on each building and they have at least 6 opprotunities so they would harvest more than enough water for their toilets and gardens. and like ytou say the education is extended to how things grow. not pokey little patches of garden but big enough ones to provide for local communities especially the needy first, not the greedy. money could be raised to fund purchase of seeds and mulches etc.,. so the kids learn about finances as well, and some understandng of those less fortunate than themselves. adn why not chooks as well?? the gov has no intestinal fortitude or too busy looking after the wealthy end of town.

    don't reckon theme parks and hotels/motels/casino's pay anywhere near a fair share of rates, as the big sops like woolies, myer's etc pay meager floor space rates of rent and the little shops subsidise the difference, now that's fair hey take from the little guy and give it to the big guy.

    in pommie land as i understand it they get lots of green type food packkaged from eatern african farmers who get paid little as do their laboureres, yet when i watch the antiques road show i see these old unsustainable castles and mansions with huge no vast areas of manicured lawns and gardens. there are communites around these places buying imported food, doesn't make sense.

    pensioners like us could be used as advisory whatever? and we could then supplement our food requirements from the gardens, so no money need change hands, if pensioners use their vehicle to distribute food to the needy then that fuel at least should be replaced, maybe a special consideration on registration to help cover other running costs??

    but alas and alak we are few in number who even have any concept outside the box. so those kids who could be growing food most likley will mug us to take our food off of us?

    the envirnment what environment, what habitat the only native birds commonly seen (and they are ferrel's to me) are crows and indain/malaysian minah birds, never hear any kookaburras around here no magpies, the odd black faced cuckoo shrike and butcherbird and a few lorikeets flying overhead at times, at times masses of long billed carella's and sulpher crested cuckatoo's in from, the farm and drought ravished bush that is no more. yep processes like permaculture have lots to offer buit all clouded with the need for greed.

    gee the soap box will wear out at this stage.

    len
     
  7. dancinglight

    dancinglight Guest

    Re: 60 Minutes - The New Boom (shale oil/oil sands)

    I've lived in Alberta all my life. My Dad was in the petroleum refining industry, and I remember growing up that there was a large pill-bottle sized container of very smelly, sticky 'sand' kicking around the "junk drawer'.....a sample of the tar sands from a visit he made up Fort McMurray way. It's hard to imagine how much processing would be needed to turn that substance into something useable.

    My Dad is gone now, but I think even he would be stunned at the development that is taking place up north. And it's coming at a huge cost to this beautiful province, but all people can see are the dollar signs.

    The provincial government of Alberta is reeling from all the criticism it has received about the environmental impact the tar sands are having. The 500 or so migratory ducks that died in a tailings pond was a public relations nightmare for them, and that was just a start.

    https://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/s ... e=&no_ads=

    Now the industry is launching a website and public relations campaign, they are running scared.

    Thought those who commented on this thread might like to see this:

    https://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/s ... 165720e193
     

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