Joe notes this piece talking about wikileaks and Canadian tar sands - the Obama Administration is not taking global warming seriously ... but that isn't terribly surprising.
snip
A diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks has revealed that a U.S. diplomat warned the Obama administration about significant environmental impacts stemming from Canada's controversial tar sands oil production program.
The language in the cable contradicts recent statements by U.S. State Department officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that underplay the environmental impacts of tar sands oil while defending a proposed pipeline that would bring the extremely polluting oil from Canada to the U.S.
In the January 2009 cable, which was prepared for President Obama and Secretary Clinton in advance of the president's first trip to Canada, the diplomat states that Canada has "keen sensitivity over the higher environmental footprint of oil from western Canada's oil sands." The diplomat goes on to warn the president that among Canadian officials there is "concern about the implications for Canada of your energetic calls to develop renewable energies and reduce our reliance on imported oil."
This candid admission of the impacts of tar sands oil production, which results in three times more global warming pollution than production of conventional oil, differs markedly from the description of tar sands oil given by the State Department in public documents.
In its draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) prepared to analyze the Keystone XL pipeline project, which would pump tar sands oil from Canada through six U.S. states to refineries in Texas, the State Department claims that tar sands oil is "similar" to other oils and that the impact of increasing reliance on tar sands oil "would be minor." Despite the fact that her agency is still completing its final EIS, Secretary Clinton has stated that she is "inclined" to approve the pipeline.
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