Angela V. Carter

Numerical simulations of the spread of floating passive tracer released at the Old Harry prospect

The Gulf of St Lawrence is under immediate pressure for oil and gas exploration, particularly at the Old Harry prospect. A synthesis of the regulatory process that has taken place over the last few years indicates that important societal decisions soon to be made by various ministries and environmental groups are going to be based on numerous disagreements between the private sector and government agencies. The review also shows that the regulatory process has taken place with a complete lack of independent oceanographic research. Yet, the Gulf of St Lawrence is a complex environment that has never been specifically studied for oil and gas exploitation. Motivated by this knowledge gap, preliminary numerical experiments are carried out where the spreading of a passive floating tracer released at Old Harry is examined. Results indicate that the tracer released at Old Harry may follow preferentially two main paths. The first path is northward along the French Shore of Newfoundland, and the second path is along the main axis of the Laurentian Channel. The most probable coastlines to be touched by water flowing through Old Harry are Cape Breton and the southern portion of the French Shore, especially Cape Anguille and the Port au Port Peninsula. The Magdalen Islands are less susceptible to being affected than those regions but the probability is not negligible. These preliminary results provide guidance for future more in-depth and complete multidisciplinary studies from which informed decision-making scenarios could eventually be made regarding the exploration and development of oil and gas at the Old Harry prospect in particular and, more generally, in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Securing Alberta’s Tar Sands: Resistance and Criminalization on a New Energy Frontier

Unconventional oil is frequently presented as the future of petroleum-based energy resources.1 Critics, in contrast, denounce unconventional oil as a major factor of environmental insecurity for local ecosystems, communities and the planet. In particular, they claim that unconventional hydrocarbon sources are frequently associated with deregulation of oil extraction and petroleum commodity chains, have negative environ mental impacts, and increase the number and intensity of energy and environment-related conflicts.

Joining Up and Scaling Up: Analyzing Resistance to Canada’s “Dirty Oil”

Canada’s energy superpower ambitions depend on the continuation and expansion of Alberta’s tar sands industry, but this industry comes at a cost of extensive environmental, political and economic impacts. While dissent is difficult in the new Canadian petrostate, a growing civil society movement is resisting tar sands production, its ecological and social implications, and the petro-capitalist political culture legitimating the industry. This chapter analyzes the discursive and action-oriented strategies of four kinds of social movement organizations leading the critique and opposition of the tar sands: Aboriginal, environmental, religious, and labour organizations. While these often local or provincially oriented organizations make valuable contributions to the tar sands debate, we argue the movement began to have political impact when broader cross-organizational coalitions were formed among unlikely allies and when the movement crossed local and provincial boundaries to the national and international level. One important success of this “joining up” and “scaling up” strategy was the creation of critical consensus around future oilsands developments and the seeds of a post-carbon development approach. Dominant political and industry actors were largely able to overlook the movement until a diverse and influential set of social movement actors began collaborating and shifting these local struggles transnationally. Yet while the anti-oilsands movement triggered a reaction by political elites, it was primarily rhetorical and reactionary – translating the movement into real social, environmental and political change remains a challenge.

Policy pathways to carbon entrenchment: responses to the climate crisis in Canada’s petro-provinces

Abstract This paper examines the diverse policy strategies that Canada’s largest oil-producing provinces have used to protect their oil sectors from constraints on emissions. Building from the literature on Canada’s staples/carbon trap, the paper explores how, over the most recent oil sector boom and bust period, Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan moved towards, but then avoided, constraining oil sector emissions. At the same time, Alberta implemented ostensibly pioneering climate policies but ultimately permitted significant emissions growth from the tar sands industry. The paper explains this variation by reviewing major institutional, interest group, and ideational conditions in each province, emphasizing the importance of non-oil interests contesting the oil sector and dominant notions of staples-led economic development.