The Americans have us boxed in! TIME FOR GLOVES OFF!

The short version:

The US is self-sufficient in oil. It doesn’t need Canada’s oil and more importantly, it does not want Canada shipping into what they consider their marketplace with what they again consider their product.  Meanwhile, we allow them to take our bottom priced oil and ship it onward through their refineries.

On the supply end, they have changed the price structure to a starvation price.  Better the oil be left in the ground.  On the West Coast where we need to get to tidewater shipping, US organizations are financing the environmental groups and have the full support of the Republican northern chapter, the Conservative Party.  24 dollars a barrel oil will not buy rail cars!

I will suggest we change our national anthem back to “Our true land, strong and free” away from the Americanized “Our true north, strong and free.”

The Mechanics:

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a far corner of North Dakota, just a few hundred miles from the proposed path of the Keystone XL pipeline, 84,000 barrels of crude oil per day recently began flowing through a new line that connects the state’s sprawling oilfields to an oil hub in Wyoming.

In West Texas, engineers activated a new pipeline that cuts diagonally across the state to deliver crude from the oil-rich Permian Basin to refineries near Houston. And in a string of towns in Kansas, Iowa and South Dakota, local government officials are scrutinizing the path of pipeline extensions that would pass nearby.

While the Keystone project awaits a final decision, scenes like these are unfolding almost every week in lesser-known developments that have quietly added more than 11,600 miles of pipeline to the nation’s domestic oil network.

Overall, the network has increased by almost a quarter in the last decade. And the work dwarfs Keystone. About 3.3 million barrels per day of capacity have been added since 2012 alone — five times more oil than the Canada-to-Texas Keystone line could carry if it’s ever built.

The pipeline build-out provides a little-noticed counterpoint to the fierce political battle being waged over the 1,179-mile TransCanada project, which is still in limbo seven years after it was proposed. During the long wait for Keystone, the petroleum industry has pushed relentlessly everywhere else to get oil to market more efficiently, and its adversaries have been unable to stop other major pipelines.

“There’s been a lot of growth — we’re really positive on it in general,” said Rob DeSai, an equity analyst with Edward Jones who focuses on the energy industry. “The oil that’s being produced in the U.S., in many cases, it’s basically in the middle of nowhere. You need new infrastructure to get that oil to market.”

Environmental groups have fought Keystone by citing the risk of leaks and the climate-change consequences of fossil fuels. They hope to make cleaner energy options more appealing. Their success has inspired local protest groups to challenge more projects.
But those efforts, while slowing a few pipelines, have not stopped any because the regulatory path is smoother when a pipeline does not cross an international border, as Keystone would.

But those efforts, while slowing a few pipelines, have not stopped any because the regulatory path is smoother when a pipeline does not cross an international border, as Keystone would.

In Minnesota, local opponents succeeded last year in getting state regulators to consider rerouting a 616-mile pipeline proposed by Toronto-based Enbridge around pristine lakes and forests, delaying it for at least a year.

More typical, though, was an Enbridge project to double the capacity of a 285-mile stretch of pipeline in Michigan. Groups like the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands fought the proposal, citing a spill in 2010 that caused serious environmental damage. But the Michigan Public Service Commission ruled the project acceptable, and the expansion went ahead.
In Texas, Magellan’s BridgeTex Pipeline, designed to take up to 300,000 barrels of crude per day from Colorado City to refineries in Houston, was recently completed over landowners’ protests about its path. Local officials cleared the way for the company to use the state’s eminent domain law to condemn land for the pipeline. It came online last year.

Some environmentalists acknowledge that changing a pipeline’s route often may be the best they can hope for.
“I’m telling people I don’t think it’s going to stop,” said Paul Stolen, a retired state biologist who has been working with groups opposing the Enbridge project in Minnesota. “I think it’s going to escalate and get bigger.”

In most states, opponents have to prove a project does not serve the public interest or poses a clear environmental threat.

In states that depend on energy jobs, regulators tend to be receptive to the industry. Supporters also argue that transporting oil by pipeline is safer than by train, noting recent accidents and spills.

Since 2012, more than 50 pipeline projects have been approved, completed or are under development, including the just finished 600-mile Enbridge Flanagan South line, which runs through four states.

The recent surge in oil production, from roughly 5 million barrels a day in 2008 to 8.9 million barrels in 2014, has pushed new webs of pipe across regions that until recently had few. Dozens of new lines ranging up to 700 miles connect drill sites in the Upper Midwest to refineries in the region or to hubs in Oklahoma and along the Gulf Coast.

Even TransCanada has been busy. The company unveiled a 200-mile, $600 million proposals late last month that would carry oil from North Dakota’s Bakken field north to Canada and connect to other lines that can take it to the East Coast.

“When Keystone was first announced, I think that was something like a third of (TransCanada’s) expected budget,” said DeSai, the Edward Jones analyst. “TransCanada now has had so many projects that now Keystone’s a much smaller percentage.”

President Barack Obama has said his decision on Keystone, which would take Canadian tar sands oil to Gulf Coast refineries, would depend in part on its possible contribution to global warming. He is awaiting a State Department report on its environmental impact.
But the State Department does not review pipelines that are entirely inside the United States, which is the vast majority of them.

Pipeline companies also soften resistance by paying landowners for access and by assuming all liability for leaks. But some opponents say they believe that the new resistance inspired by Keystone will eventually raise more public concern about oil shipments.

From <http://www.pennenergy.com/articles/pennenergy/2015/03/fight-over-keystone-xl-project-doesn-t-stall-oil-pipeline-boom.html?cmpid=EnlWeeklyPetroMarch202015&gt;

The Pipeline Conundrum.

The US runs (I think), 7 different bulk oil storage facilities across the US.   Cushing Ill. is the largest of these and draws of ships in the Gulf as well as inland pipelines.  Obama took bold strides in securing the US supply by building over 12,000 miles of new pipeline to hook these storage facilities together. Cushing can now draw off the other facilities like North Dakota, for supply. This takes a huge pressure off the supply and demand scenario visited for so many years. This also gives the reason why the US wants to keep the oil on rail.  After cars are in the US the oil companies can re-route them any place they want.

As I pen this, Cushing Ill. Refinery and storage are expected to be full within the next 10 days or so.  US refineries are producing close to 22,000 barrels per day of the refined product of which they report 5000 barrels per day as being imported.

While this is going on the US is building more pipelines into Mexico to move more natural gas, condensate and crude.  

They can tweak supply while they play market magic. Obama cut off Saudi Arabia from the Gulf states opening the refineries to Mexico. Trump mitigated this.

Condensate out of the Balkan presented a problem. It is high in the condensate.  The Condensate is used to make Airplane gas and Car Gas and to blend P50 and so on. It cannot be re-injected as this simply thins out the crude and adds costs to refining as the condensate is put through several times. Condensate is actually a surplus to the refinery action which is designed to make heating and fuel oil. Not every refinery produces gasoline (condensate)

The export of Condensate from the US was illegal by US law. So, Trump opened up the export of Condensate to Mexico for the first time in US history! Now Mexico can produce all the gasoline blends and diesel blends and will enter into export agreements for the same, something Canada can't do because of the US protestors active in Canada.   I'm pretty sure there will be no resolution in the Eastern pipelines any time soon and I am just as certain a harsher stand will have to be taken against the protesters who don't really know what they are protesting against, or for. 

From <https://ipolitics.ca/2018/11/16/cracking-the-puzzle-of-canadas-pipeline-problem/>

From <https://wordpress.com/post/cyberclark.me>

Lawyers, go to work!

Our Democracy in these technical times rests on a vibrant and open news media. Stephen Harper removed that from us!  This is why the Conservatives and right-wing Governments took office in New Brunswick and Quebec.  We should be able to set aside these elections and have fair contests. Lawyers have no spare time!

Harper installed Bell Media into Canada.  This company would assume control over our IP providers (costs for services will escalate now) and involved themselves in the mainline printed media in much the same way.   They used this position to block posts critical of the Conservatives allowing an unfair if not illegal votes to take place in eastern Canada.

The Conservatives are after 6 provinces in which case they will be in a position to rewrite our constitution! Their goal is to permanently set Canada as the hewer of wood and the hauler of water.  Any advancements will go to the US Republican body.

All this is being propelled by the LDS (Mormon) Church of Southern Alberta who has spun off The Wild Rose Party, the Alliance party and the Alberta

Backgrounders:

The Conservative Party of Canada was annexed by the US Republican party in 1908. They used the LDS (Mormon) church in southern Alberta as their vehicle.

John Diefenbaker gave the Avro Aero to the US then, had the prototype destroyed costing some 47,000 jobs in Canada, mostly in Ontario. This was the only supersonic fighter platform in the world!  Diefenbaker made sure Canada would never again have an aircraft industry.  He was a Traitor!

Harper and Kenny were thrown out of every trade negotiation they entered into.  No one could be that unlucky!  They were there to throw the advantage to the US!  Making sure, Canada remained subservient.

Harper, sold the Wheat Marketing Board to a private company to fill one of the demands of the US Republicans even though, the dairy farmers in the US were making their own marketing boards to control over production.

All this time, the Conservatives have known the ramifications of climate change and used this knowledge as a divisionary tactic to steal our country from us.

This travesty has gone on long enough!

Bell Media still protecting Conservatives on West Coast Print media!

The Vancouver Province, a Post Media paper is blocking comments contrary to the Conservatives.  West coast media still being monitored by Bell Media, a US company brought into Canada by Stephen Harper to take control of Canadian media.

For the record, if there is a challenge to set aside the Eastern Conservative Wins.

More than ever we need to examine the role of such companies in Canada's politic and bring in legislation to counter industrial espionage with billion dollar fines!

Harper Changing Canada - Almost.

You may well remember Harper, prior to his taking office, saying "I will change Canada so you will never recognize it."  And he almost did!

He invited the Bell media company whom we all think we know, into Canada in a leadership role.  Bell media now has oversight on this country’s IP providers, plus 200 newspapers including Post Media if not outright ownership.

The Conservatives, using climate change as a diversionary tactic hope to get 6 provinces in this country.  That will give them the platform from which they can re-write the constitution.  And, you won’t like that!

Meanwhile, Bell media involved in printed press(Post Media, Global and Montreal Gazette) now runs articles with Scheer outright lies and makes sure there is no room for comments allowing his BS to fly rather than have it buried as the misinformation he puts out.  And, in some cases refuses membership and subscriber fees or simply blocks some posters (myself included).

With Canada’s mainstream communication indirect control of the Conservatives and the US Republicans, I say it is time for the Feds to examine the rules surrounding foreign ownership and open further the influence of the CRTC to set parameters on activities of the printed press, assuring they are open.   

With the advent of the computer and mass media at this level, it is not enough that we accept financial papers as being right-wing and miscellaneous papers as being left-wing.

Better we do away with the labels and put in rules that assure all print papers and online renditions of same are open, not partisan.

Huge risk if global warming passes 1.5C, warns landmark UN report

A key finding of the new IPCC report is the dramatic difference that restricting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels would have on the global environment.
The scientists found:
• By 2100, the global sea level rise would be 10cm lower with global warming of 1.5C compared with 2C.
• Extreme heatwaves will be experienced by 14% of the world's population at least once every five years at 1.5C. But that figure rises to more than a third of the planet if temperatures rise to 2C
• Arctic sea ice would remain during most summers if warming is kept to 1.5C. But at 2C, ice-free summers are 10 times more likely, leading to greater habitat losses for polar bears, whales, seals and seabirds.
• If warming is kept to 1.5C, coral reefs will still decline by 70-90% but if temperatures rise to 2C virtually all of the world's reefs would be lost

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We must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero or face more floods

Nicholas Stern

Read more

“It’s a line in the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and we must act now,” said Debra Roberts, a co-chair of the working group on impacts. “This is the largest clarion bell from the science community and I hope it mobilizes people and dents the mood of complacency.”
Policymakers commissioned the report at the Paris climate talks in 2016, but since then the gap between science and politics has widened. Donald Trump has promised to withdraw the US – the world’s biggest source of historical emissions – from the accord. The first round of Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday put Jair Bolsonaro into a strong position to carry out his threat to do the same and also open the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness.
The world is currently 1C warmer than pre-industrial levels. Following devastating hurricanes in the US, record droughts in Cape Town and forest fires in the Arctic, the IPCC makes clear that climate change is already happening, upgraded its risk warning from previous reports, and warned that every fraction of additional warming would worsen the impact.
Scientists who reviewed the 6,000 works referenced in the report, said the change caused by just half a degree came as a revelation. “We can see there is a difference and it’s substantial,” Roberts said.

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At 1.5C the proportion of the global population exposed to water stress could be 50% lower than at 2C, it notes. Food scarcity would be less of a problem and hundreds of millions fewer people, particularly in poor countries, would be at risk of climate-related poverty.

Attendees take a photo before the opening of the 48th session of the IPCC in Incheon. Photograph: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

At 2C extremely hot days, such as those experienced in the northern hemisphere this summer, would become more severe and common, increasing heat-related deaths and causing more forest fires.
But the greatest difference would be to nature. Insects, which are vital for pollination of crops, and plants are almost twice as likely to lose half their habitat at 2C compared with 1.5C. Corals would be 99% lost at the higher of the two temperatures, but more than 10% have a chance of surviving if the lower target is reached.

Sea-level rise would affect 10 million more people by 2100 if the half-degree extra warming brought a forecast 10cm additional pressure on coastlines. The number affected would increase substantially in the following centuries due to locked-in ice melt.

Oceans are already suffering from elevated acidity and lower levels of oxygen as a result of climate change. One model shows marine fisheries would lose 3m tonnes at 2C, twice the decline at 1.5C.
Sea ice-free summers in the Arctic, which is warming two to three times fast than the world average, would come once every 100 years at 1.5C, but every 10 years with half a degree more of global warming

The final tick box is political will

Jim Skea

Time and carbon budgets are running out. By mid-century, a shift to the lower goal would require a supercharged roll-back of emissions sources that have built up over the past 250 years.
The IPCC maps out four pathways to achieve 1.5C, with different combinations of land use and technological change. Reforestation is essential to all of them as are shifts to electric transport systems and greater adoption of carbon capture technology.

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Carbon pollution would have to be cut by 45% by 2030 – compared with a 20% cut under the 2C pathway – and come down to zero by 2050, compared with 2075 for 2C. This would require carbon prices that are three to four times higher than for a 2C target. But the costs of doing nothing would be far higher.

“We have presented governments with pretty hard choices. We have pointed out the enormous benefits of keeping to 1.5C, and also the unprecedented shift in energy systems and transport that would be needed to achieve that,” said Jim Skea, a co-chair of the working group on mitigation. “We show it can be done within laws of physics and chemistry. Then the final tick box is political will. We cannot answer that. Only our audience can – and that is the governments that receive it.”
He said the main finding of his group was the need for urgency. Although unexpectedly good progress has been made in the adoption of renewable energy, deforestation for agriculture was turning a natural carbon sink into a source of emissions. Carbon capture and storage projects, which are essential for reducing emissions in the concrete and waste disposal industries, have also ground to a halt.
Reversing these trends is essential if the world has any chance of reaching 1.5C without relying on the untried technology of solar radiation modification and other forms of geoengineering, which could have negative consequences.











A nearly ice-free Northwest Passage in the Arctic in August 2016. Photograph: VIIRS/Suomi NPP/Nasa

In the run-up to the final week of negotiations, there were fears the text of the report would be watered down by the US, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries that are reluctant to consider more ambitious cuts. The authors said nothing of substance was cut from a text.
Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, said the final document was “incredibly conservative” because it did not mention the likely rise in climate-driven refugees or the danger of tipping points that could push the world on to an irreversible path of extreme warming.
The report will be presented to governments at the UN climate conference in Poland at the end of this year. But analysts say there is much work to be done, with even pro-Paris deal nations involved in fossil fuel extraction that runs against the spirit of their commitments. Britain is pushing ahead with gas fracking, Norway with oil exploration in the Arctic, and the German government wants to tear down Hambach forest to dig for coal.
At the current level of commitments, the world is on course for a disastrous 3C of warming. The report authors are refuseing to accept defeat, believing the increasingly visible damage caused by climate change will shift opinion their way.
“I hope this can change the world,” said Jiang Kejun of China’s semi-governmental Energy Research Institute, who is one of the authors. “Two years ago, even I didn’t believe 1.5C was possible but when I look at the options I have confidence it can be done. I want to use this report to do something big in China.”

The IPCC global warming report spares politicians the worst details

Bob Ward

The timing was good, he said, because the Chinese government was drawing up a long-term plan for 2050 and there was more awareness among the population about the problem of rising temperatures. “People in Beijing have never experienced so many hot days as this summer. It’s made them talk more about climate change.”
Regardless of the US and Brazil, he said, China, Europe and major cities could push ahead. “We can set an example and show what can be done. This is more about technology than politics.”
James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist who helped raised the alarm about climate change, said both 1.5C and 2C would take humanity into uncharted and dangerous territory because they were both well above the Holocene-era range in which human civilisation developed. But he said there was a huge difference between the two: “1.5C gives young people and the next generation a fighting chance of getting back to the Holocene or close to it. That is probably necessary if we want to keep shorelines where they are and preserve our coastal cities.”
Johan Rockström, a co-author of the recent Hothouse Earth report, said scientists never previously discussed 1.5C, which was initially seen as a political concession to small island states. But he said opinion had shifted in the past few years along with growing evidence of climate instability and the approach of tipping points that might push the world off a course that could be controlled by emissions reductions.
“Climate change is occurring earlier and more rapidly than expected. Even at the current level of 1C warming, it is painful,” he told the Guardian. “This report is really important. It has a scientific robustness that shows 1.5C is not just a political concession. There is a growing recognition that 2C is dangerous.”