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Tar Sands – dirty oil, dirty profits, dirty planet.

news release

Photo opportunity: Location: 2.00pm, Saturday June 18th 2011, Platt Fields Park, Wilmslow Road, Fallowfield. (phone contacts below for exact location within the park)
Opportunity: The public adding their black tar-sands oil hand print ‘signatures’ to a giant maple leaf petition to Norman Baker, Transport Minister.

On Saturday 18th June, Manchester Friends of the Earth is inviting people in Manchester to join the worldwide protests calling on the Canadian government to stop extracting Tar Sands oil (1).

As part of the International Day of Action on Tar Sands the group will be asking people to add their oily black hand-prints to a giant maple leaf as a way to represent all those people involved in the fight to stop tar sands. (2)

The giant maple leaf will be delivered to Norman Baker, Transport Minister, urging the UK government to stand up to lobbying from the Canadian government and support a ban on the importation of fossil fuels derived from tar sands into the European Union.

Friends of the Earth believe that the exploitation of Tar Sands are a disaster for the
environment because of :

· Climate Impacts: Tar sands oil production emits 3 times more carbon dioxide compared to the production of the average barrel of conventional oil consumed in the United States.

· Ecosystem Destruction: Tar sands oil extraction requires total destruction of pristine areas within the Canadian Boreal Forest, one of the few large, intact ecosystems on Earth. The forest is clear cut, the wetlands are drained, and living matter and soil are hauled away to expose the tar sands. Oil companies remove and dump four tons of sand and soil for every one barrel of oil they extract from tar sands.

· Water Waste: Extracting the fossil fuel in tar sands from the associated sand, silt, and clay requires enormous amounts of water. It takes about 3 barrels of water to extract one barrel of oil. Over 90% of this water, 400 million gallons per day, ends up as toxic waste dumped in massive pools that contain carcinogenic substances including cyanide.

· Disruption of Native People: The tar sands are being mined in a region home to many native northern american people. They have trouble practicing their cultural traditions because of the destruction caused by tailing ponds and strip-mining operations. The people downstream from the toxic tailing ponds have high rates of rare cancers, renal failure, lupus, and hyperthyroidism. (3)

Manchester Friends of the Earth campaigner, Colette Humphrey said:
“Tar sands oil extraction is the biggest ecological disaster of our time. We must take this opportunity to let our government know that we will not be buying into this dirty industry which is devastating not only to Canada’s local environment but to our planet as a whole.”

ENDS

CONTACTS FOR COMMENTS
Colette Humphrey, Co-ordinator, Manchester Friends of the Earth. Mobile: 07754
042716. email : colette@manchesterfoe.org.uk

Catherine Thomson, Co-ordinator, Manchester Friends of the Earth.
Mobile 07951 642858. email : cat@manchesterfoe.org.uk
Notes to Editors:

(1) The Say No to Tar Sands event will take place in Platt Fields Park, as part of the Envirolution Festival, between 12 noon – 3pm, on Saturday 18 June.

(2) For more details of the International Day of Action on Tar Sands and the UK Tar Sands Network see http://www.no-tar-sands.org/2011/06/uk-is-blocking-tar-sands-progress-take-action-on-18th-june/

(3) Tar sands oil is a high carbon fuel strip-mined from beneath Canada’s Boreal forest. Fuel from tar sands represents an increasingly significant portion of the fuel used in cars in the United States. To extract oil from tar sands, companies must destroy fragile forest ecosystems and then use a very energy-intensive upgrading and refining process to turn that oil into transportation fuel. Tar sands mining and production harm the boreal forest’s fragile ecosystem, waste enormous amounts of water, and disrupt the lives of indigenous people in the area. For more details see www.foe.org/energy/tarsands

(4) UK Involvement: Although very little Tar Sands oil is currently reaching UK petrol pumps, UK banks and corporations are investing in the industry. Shell is already heavily involved, and BP have announced their entry into the Tar Sands via the Sunrise project. The Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC and Barclays are also major financers. For more information on the UK’s involvement, see the reports by Platform and Greenpeace & Platform. To see how the Canadian government is justifying Tar Sands, see Greenpeace Canada’s report ‘Government Fiction vs. Tar Sands Facts’.

(5) Manchester Friends of the Earth is an award-winning environmental campaign group, raising awareness and lobbying for policy changes at a local, regional, national and international level. The group consists entirely of volunteers, and its campaigns are funded by membership fees and individual donations. Up-to-date information is available on the groups website: www.manchesterfoe.org.uk.

Manchester Friends of the Earth is a Licensed Local Group of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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