The Power of Community

How Cuba survived peak oil

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate.

This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period."

The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.



Watch the full movie here.

Purchase the DVD here.

Skeptical Science now an iPhone app

Skeptical Science

Here is another tool for debating climate change deniers but you have to have an iPhone.

With Tim Lambert debating Christopher Monckton this Friday, there's been no shortage of debating suggestions. One interesting idea was for audience members to have skepticalscience.com on their mobiles. Coincidentally, Skeptical Science has just become available today as an iPhone or iPod app. The app lets you use an iPhone or iPod to view the entire list of skeptic arguments as well as (more importantly) what the science says on each argument. To download the app, go to http://itunes.com/apps/skepticalscience.

How it happened was a few months ago, I was contacted by Shine Technologies, a software development company from Melbourne, Australia. The owners of the company are passionate about climate change and were interested in getting the science from Skeptical Science onto mobile phones. This is a good idea for two reasons. Firstly, because now more than ever it's imperative that the climate debate focuses on science so the more readily available the science, the better. Secondly, well, an iPhone app is pretty cool.

So for the last few months, the boffins at Shine have been developing the app with Apple approving it today. How does it work? You browse arguments via the Top 10 most used arguments as well as 3 main categories ("It's not happening", "It's not us", "It's not bad"):

When you select one of the 3 main categories, a list of sub-categories pop up. You can then select any category to see the skeptic argument, a summary of what the science says and the full answer including graphs plus links to papers or other sources.

A novel inclusion is a feature that lets you report when you encounter a skeptic argument. By clicking on the red ear icon (above left, shown to the left of the skeptic arguments or above right, next to the headline), the iPhone adds another hit to that particular skeptic argument. At the moment, which arguments you report are only available in a My Reports page, shown below. Shine Tech are hoping to play around with the Reports meta-data in future versions of the app - the phrase "heat-map" gets mentioned often.

So if you have an iPhone or iPod, be sure to download the app and post any feedback or suggestions here. If you have friends with iPhones, be sure to let them know of the app. The more people use the app, hopefully the more versions will be developed in the future with snazzy extra features. If anyone encounters any technical problems with the app, please let me know.

Ecosocialism: No dictionary definition

There is no dictionary definition of ecosocialism despite its increasingly common usuage. Until the Dictionary Gurus catch up, we will rely upon our own pluralistic understanding. Wikipedia does not a bad job of summarizing many aspects of ecosocialism.

"Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansion of the capitalist system is the cause of social exclusion, poverty and environmental degradation through globalization and imperialism, under the supervision of repressive states and transnational structures; they advocate the dismantling of capitalism and the state, focusing on collective ownership of the means of production by freely associated producers and restoration of the commons."

Read Eco-socialism from Wikipedia.

The Three Meanings of Ecosocialism

Guatemala: Anti-Mine Activists Encouraged by Canadian Ruling

By Danilo Valladares

IPS

Ecologists in Guatemala see a recent ruling by Canada's Supreme Court, which ordered Canadian mining companies to carry out rigorous environmental assessments, as a positive precedent that could help improve environmental controls over the mining industry in this Central American country.

In a case that focused on a Red Chris mining company project in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not split projects into artificially small parts in order to avoid comprehensive environmental impact studies.

In its verdict, the Court stated that under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, entire projects must be environmentally evaluated, and the government "cannot reduce the scope of the project to less than what is proposed by the proponent."

The ruling also said the Canadian government had acted unlawfully by excluding public input from its assessment of the planned Red Chris mine, which would process 30,000 metric tons of copper and gold a day in a pristine wilderness area.

The legal decision was met with applause and hope by environmental organisations in Guatemala, where two Canadian mining companies operate, because they believe it could have positive repercussions in terms of environmental safeguards and public participation in decision-making.

"The ruling exerts a kind of pressure for Canadian companies to live up to legal standards and not try to conceal the real impacts of their activities on the environment," Uriel Miranda, legal adviser to the Comisión Pastoral de Paz y Ecología (COPAE - Pastoral Commission on Peace and Ecology), told IPS.

COPAE is a member of the Mesa de Diálogo sobre Minería, a coalition of anti-mining and environmental groups.

In the midst of heavy local opposition, Montana Exploradora, a subsidiary of Canadian mining company Goldcorp, began to extract gold and silver in December 2005 in the Marlin open-pit mine in the highlands of the southwestern department (province) of San Marcos, on the border with Mexico.

Meanwhile, plans by Entre Mares, another of the Canadian gold-mining corporation's subsidiaries, to extract precious metals in the department of Jutiapa, which borders El Salvador in the southeast, have drawn opposition in that country.

Miranda said Goldcorp must respect the Supreme Court ruling because "they themselves talk about corporate social responsibility. So at a minimum, we expect that when they seek approval of an environmental impact assessment, they will do so in line with the same standards ordered by the verdict."

The legal advisers of environmental organisations in Guatemala and other countries are studying the reach of the Supreme Court decision, as well as the possibility of bringing legal action in the courts in Canada for irregularities that Canadian corporations may commit in other countries.

"We are analysing whether there is jurisdiction to file lawsuits for shortcomings in environmental impact reports contracted by Goldcorp, which has two mining projects here and exploration permits for other mines," said Miranda.

The director of the School of Ecological Thought (Savia), Magalí Rey Rosa, told IPS that the Supreme Court ruling set an important legal precedent.

"It should now be possible to turn to a Canadian court to sue companies from that country for failing to do what the verdict ordered them to do," said the activist.

She added that the ruling could also serve as a starting-point to assess the environmental impact studies and procedures of other mining companies, like the Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel, owned by Vancouver, BC-based Skye Resources.

Rey Rosa said the damages already caused by the mining industry in Guatemala are incalculable. "It has brought serious social conflicts, water sources have dried up, houses have suffered cracks and splits, while it has left us a few miserable dollars in return," she complained.

Under Guatemala's mining law, corporations must pay the state a one percent royalty, half of which goes to the municipality where the mine is located.

While Goldcorp reported 100 million dollars in profits from the Marlin mine alone in 2008, San Miguel Ixtahuacán, the municipality where it operates, received around one million dollars that year.

The mining industry's boom in Guatemala has been dizzying.

In 2009 the extraction industries had 259 permits, while another 383 applications were being considered, according to the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Activists see the Canadian Supreme Court ruling as key to improving environmental controls over the mining industry not only in Guatemala, but around the world.

"We hope the verdict will be taken into account in all Canadian mining projects in the hemisphere, because it sets a new standard for operations, in line with international norms and legislation," lawyer Jacob Kopas with the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defence (AIDA) told IPS.

In Latin America, Goldcorp also operates mines in Argentina, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Other Canadian mining companies active in the region are Meridian Gold, Glencairn Gold and Barrick Gold, which runs the controversial Pascua Lama mine along the border between Chile and Argentina in the Andes mountains, as well as mines in Peru that face stiff opposition from environmentalists and local communities.

Kopas said that even though the Supreme Court verdict is not directly applicable, in legal terms, to companies operating outside of Canada, it will have to be taken into consideration to some extent by all mining companies, especially Canadian ones.

The lawyer pointed out that the Canadian parliament is debating Bill C-300, an Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries, which would regulate the Canadian mining industry outside of the country's borders based on international environmental and human rights standards.

Rafael Maldonado, adviser to the Centro de Acción Legal Ambiental y Social (CALAS - Centre for Legal, Environmental and Social Action), said to IPS that the Supreme Court decision is of vital importance not only in terms of improving environmental impact studies, but to order companies to take into account public input from local communities where mines operate.

But the Montana Exploradora mining company argued that the news of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling had been manipulated and distorted.

"We are concerned by the way opposition groups are manipulating information on this case, where the Canadian Supreme Court pronounced itself on the capacity of a federal authority to determine what kind of environmental evaluation process should be followed," said the firm's spokeswoman, Maritza Ruiz.

Community activists, in the meantime, continue raising their voices against the harmful effects of mining.

"This is not mere rebelliousness. We are not opposed to mining itself, but to its consequences, starting with the social conflicts that have left our families divided," Maudilia Cardona, a local leader in the municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacán, where the Marlin mine operates, told IPS.

Climate comeback

Green Herring: An environmentalist responds to red herrings tossed out by denialists

Scientists and those who still believe in science are pushing back on many fronts against the recent wave of attacks against the IPCC.

UN climate panel's errors no excuse to put work on ice by UNEP head Achim Steiner ran in today's Toronto Star (and elsewhere I'm sure.) Steiner hits back directly at the absurd charges that have been flying about, launched by anti-science bloggers and parroted by the talking featherless bipeds on Fox and elsewhere:

One notion promulgated in recent weeks is that the IPCC is sensationalist: This is perhaps the most astonishing, if not risible claim of all. Indeed, the panel has more often been criticized for being far too conservative in its projections of, for example, the likely sea-level rise in the 21st century. Indeed, caution rather than sensation has been the panel's watchword throughout its existence. [...]

The fact is that the world would have to make a transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient future even if there were no climate change. With the world's human population set to rise from 6 billion to 9 billion people in the next half-century, we need to improve management of our atmosphere, air, lands, soils and oceans anyway. Rather than undermine the IPCC's work, we should renew and redouble our efforts to support its mammoth task in assembling the science and knowledge.

Toronto's own green energy guru Tyler Hamilton also takes on the overheated babble about the IPCC sinking and/or burning in his Clean Break column today:

In Canada, the Financial Post's resident libertarian Terence Corcoran wrote a column in late January with a headline that shouted "Climate agency going up in flames," while The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente wrote early in February that "the science scandals just keep on coming" and that the entire climate-change movement has been discredited. Columnist Rex Murphy, who has fittingly moved on to the National Post, is pretty much saying the same thing, only with bigger words.

Wishful thinking doesn't make it so.

Hamilton notices both Terrence Corcoran and Margaret Wente point for support to leading Canadian climatologist Andrew Weaver at UVic. One problem: Weaver doesn't agree with them at all. As Hamilton writes:

Here's what Weaver had to say when asked by the Star about the recent coverage. "It would be nice if they actually called me," he said.

He said his comments from an earlier CanWest News Service story have been cherry picked and twisted. "It's all utterly ridiculous. The way it's being spun is that there's this sinking ship and the rats are trying to leave."

But the true sinking ship is the Earth's climate system, he said. [...]

Weaver points out that the 2007 IPCC report was, in fact, conservative with its conclusions. At the time it didn't have access to more accurate satellite data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission.

The new GRACE data, said Weaver, "has revealed that Greenland has been melting rather dramatically. Also, not only is Antarctica melting, but West Antarctica is melting quite rapidly."

As Hamilton sums this up:

Is this alarmism? Sure it is, and so it should be. Do climate-change scientists sometimes get worried and show it? Sure they do. Do we really expect them to go about their scientific duties with Mr. Spock-like precision that's void of emotion and human imperfection?

So we've got a top Canadian climatologist telling us there's a serious problem, and then three highly visible non-scientists editorializing that the problem is just "alarmists" and trying to point to Weaver as being with them on that. Hmmm.

To see how top Canadian climatologists feel about climate change, check out my list of Canadian climate scientists where Dr. Weaver ranks #1 (by far) in number of climate-related journal papers. Note that the top ten all signed one or both CMOS letters supporting prompt action to cut greenhouse emissions, as did 37 of the top 50; the only skeptic in the top 50 by paper count is an economist.

George Monbiot's Royal Flush

Top 10 climate change deniers

George Monbiot's shortlist of people who have done most for the denialist cause - in playing card form.

Ace of spades

TV presenter David Bellamy. Photograph: The Guardian

Because he was once an environmentalist and a famous broadcaster, David Bellamy is used as the mascot of climate change deniers all over the world. Like most mascots he is cute, furry and apparently incapable of rational thought. He has claimed that global warming is "poppycock", that "the global warmers are telling lies – carbon dioxide is not the driver" and that "555 of all the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980" (the WGMS responded that this was "complete bullshit").

He maintains that "since I said I didn't believe human beings caused global warming I've not been allowed to make a TV programme." This is odd because he stopped making TV programmes in 1994. He was making public statements in support of mainstream climate science until at least 2000, and his first public statement to the contrary was in 2004. But the conspiracy extends even further. "Have you noticed there is a wind turbine on Teletubbies?", he asked in the Daily Express. "That's subliminal advertising, isn't it?"

See the rest of George's deck here.

Video: Birth of a Climate Crock

London Day of Action

Social and environmental justice activists in London, Ontario, held a demonstration in downtown London on Saturday, 13 February. The protest was part of a larger Cross-Canada day of Action Against Olympics and Tar Sands Greenwashing, called by the Indigenous Environmental Network, and other groups.

Besides the London event, there were also protests held in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, Kitchener-Waterloo, Montreal, and other cities and towns across the country. (There was even an event in London, England, timed to coincide with the Canadian protests.) In each city, the focus was the same: we were trying to raise awareness about and to protest against the social dislocation and environmental destruction associated with the Olympics and its leading sponsors, including RBC (the leading financier of tar sands projects) and PetroCanada/Suncor (which directly operates six tar sands projects).

The tar sands, in Alberta, are the world's most environmentally destructive energy source. 'Tailing ponds' of toxic waste from the tar sands are known to be poisoning the drinking water and food sources of Indigenous communities downstream along the Athabasca River, leading to demonstrably elevated cancer and death rates in those communities, not to mention the massive contribution of tar sands projects to climate change.

The notorious National Post editorial board, responding to the protests, denounced us as "spoilsports" for demanding social and environmental justice. If nothing else, we can take some pride in that.

The London event was organized out of the Activist Assembly, with the support of Mobilization for Climate Justice-London and other groups and individuals.

All together, about 20 people participated in the London protest. We began with a 'die-in' inside the downtown RBC branch, in which several of us participated while several others stayed outside to continue leafletting passersby. Inside the branch, about two dozen customers using ATMs stopped and discussed the issues we were raising and took our literature. A security guard demanded that we leave the RBC building and called the police when we declined to do so. We stayed there for another half hour, before moving on to our second target: the McDonald's down the street.

Outside the McDonald's we used our megaphone to lead ourselves and a number of sympathetic passersby in chants, including, "What do we want? Climate Justice! When do we want it? Now!"

Over the course of the day, hundreds of Londoners were given copies of various leaflets exposing the corporate greenwashing and social and environmental injustice associated with the 2010 Olympics and their leading sponsors. And the campaign to put a stop to the disastrous tar sands mega-project received a very real boost.

After the demonstration, about a dozen participants in the protest went for coffee to discuss how to move forward with our ongoing efforts to drive RBC out of the tar sands. We are planning to return for more actions in the weeks and months ahead.

Check out some great photos from the event here.

The author of this report is an activist in Mobilization for Climate Justice-London.

The impact of uranium mining on indigenous communities.

by Heather Tufts
Peace, Earth and Justice News

The climate change debate positions nuclear power as a partial solution to carbon emissions according to some scientists and politicians. Uranium mining speculation lacks comprehensive health and safety regulations while the ethics of Canadian exported uranium, which can lead to depleted uranium used in zones of war, needs greater scrutiny. Abandoned uranium mines and the subsequent hazards experienced in forgotten communities have also been virtually ignored in Canada leading to tragic, unmitigated circumstances.

The long-term negative impacts of uranium mining can be witnessed in the small, rural community of Déline (North West Territories) which has a Dené population of 800 people. They are located right on the shore of Sahtu (Great Bear Lake) about 300 miles north of Yellowknife. Great Bear Lake is considered to be one of the last great fresh water lakes in the world. This area on the north shore of Sahtu was the site of radium mining from 1934 to 1939, and then a uranium mine from 1943 to 1962.

During the mining era the Dené of Déline, mostly men worked as labourers and as coolies carrying gunny sacks of radioactive uranium ore and concentrates on the transportation route. Waste from both radium and uranium mines were dumped directly into the lake and used as landfill. Port Radium was owned and operated by a Canadian crown corporation but uranium ore and concentrates were extracted, milled and sold to the US Government for the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb during the Second World War.

Déline in the North West Territories.

The mine initially operated under the emergency regulations of the War Measures Act. The circumstances and time-line mean that retroactive mitigation and compensation are an enormous legal challenge and decades later the Dené continue to pay a high price in environmental and health effects. No warnings were issued at the time about the hazardous and toxic nature of these ores and so people took no precautions regarding their drinking water or their traditional foods.

In 1975 young men from Déline were sent to work in the tunnels on a Government training program without masks for radon gas exposure. In 1997 ten young men were sent with only two hours of training to clean up "hot spots" of radioactive soil in Sawmill Bay without shower or decontamination facilities. Once again the Dené people of Déline were not informed of these hazardous exposures but recent information mean that they now live in constant fear of their contaminated land, water, animals with ongoing concerns about their health and survival.

Déline is known as the “village of widows’ because most of the men who worked as labourers in the mines have died of some form of cancer. The widows, who are traditional women, were left to raise their families without husbands and breadwinners. As a result they became dependent on welfare and relied on the young men who remained in the community to help supply them with their traditional foods. The women are struggling and the village is seeing the first generation of young men in the history of the Dené to grow up without the guidance and teachings of their grandfathers, fathers and uncles. This unfulfilled tradition threatens the cultural and spiritual survival of the only community on the Great Bear Lake.

In 1998 the Dené First Nation lobbied the federal government for compensation and mitigation. On September 6, 2005, Déline community members were given the disappointing findings of a five-year study to examine the health and environmental impacts of the government-owned radium and uranium mine which had operated for almost thirty years in Déline. Although the community had lost 15 former ore transport workers to cancer the report stated that the numbers of deaths were insufficient to prove unequivocally the link to the mine.

By not acknowledging the full health consequences of uranium mining the government offloads the responsibility to compensate or provide justice to the Dené First Nation. To date consultations with government are still underway with anticipated costs for remediation in the millions of dollars. An agreement about cause and affect has not yet been reached. In a related situation in Port Hope Ontario, NDP MP Nathan Cullen called for an investigation in 2007 into Health Canada’s denials of the health risks of uranium contamination with the accusation that profits are influencing policy. These issues remain unresolved in 2010 even though increased uranium mining is imminent in some Canadian provinces.

Climate Cover-up book still on top

“Canadian environmental activists Hoggan and Littlemore pull no punches in this spirited indictment of global warming deniers.” --Publishers Weekly

Climate Cover-Up:  The Crusade to Deny Global Warming
By James Hoggan, Contributions by Richard Littlemore

Canadian #1 Bestseller in Public Policy

An insider’s view of how the energy industry has fuelled a bogus controversy about climate change.

This book rips the lid off the campaign to discredit scientists, confuse journalists, and deny climate change. The tactics have been slick, but pr expert James Hoggan and investigative journalist Richard Littlemore have compiled a readable, accessible guidebook through the muck. Beginning with leaked memos from the coal industry, the oil industry and the tobacco-sponsored lie-about-science industry, the authors expose the plans to “debunk” global warming; they track the execution of those plans; and they illuminate the results – confusion, inaction, and an epidemic of public mistrust.

Climate Cover-Up names names, identifying bogus experts who are actually paid lobbyists and flaks. The authors reveal the pr techniques used to misinform, to mangle the language, and to intimidate the media into maintaining a phony climate change debate. Exposing the seedy origins of that debate, this book will leave you fuming at the extent, the effect, and the ethical affront of the climate cover-up.
Greystone Books

Celebrate Darwin Day

Darwin Day is an international celebration of science and humanity held on or around February 12, the day that Charles Darwin was born on in 1809. Specifically, it celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin -- the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor. More generally, Darwin Day expresses gratitude for the enormous benefits that scientific knowledge, acquired through human curiosity and ingenuity, has contributed to the advancement of humanity.

Darwin Day link

Albert Einstein - Why Socialism?

This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

But historic tradition is, so to speak, of yesterday; nowhere have we really overcome what Thorstein Veblen called "the predatory phase" of human development. The observable economic facts belong to that phase and even such laws as we can derive from them are not applicable to other phases. Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future.

Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. Science, however, cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings; science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with lofty ethical ideals and—if these ends are not stillborn, but vital and vigorous—are adopted and carried forward by those many human beings who, half unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of society.

For these reasons, we should be on our guard not to overestimate science and scientific methods when it is a question of human problems; and we should not assume that experts are the only ones who have a right to express themselves on questions affecting the organization of society.
Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group, small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supra-national organization would offer protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me: "Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?"

I am sure that as little as a century ago no one would have so lightly made a statement of this kind. It is the statement of a man who has striven in vain to attain an equilibrium within himself and has more or less lost hope of succeeding. It is the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days. What is the cause? Is there a way out?

It is easy to raise such questions, but difficult to answer them with any degree of assurance. I must try, however, as best I can, although I am very conscious of the fact that our feelings and strivings are often contradictory and obscure and that they cannot be expressed in easy and simple formulas.

Two US Firms Wash Hands of Canada's Tar Sands

By Mitch Potter
Toronto Star

Canada’s controversial tar sands industry took its first retail blow Wednesday as two Fortune 500 companies announced plans to eliminate the high-carbon Alberta fuel from its supply chain.

The U.S.-based firms Whole Foods Market Inc. and Bed, Bath and Beyond Inc. both unveiled new fuel policies designed to wean themselves off “higher-than-normal greenhouse gas footprints” inherent in feedstock from the Alberta tar sands.

The decisions are not expected to seriously hamper the southbound flow of Alberta oil, which represents a fifth of all U.S. energy imports.

But they mark a turning point in environmental activism against synthetic crude from Alberta, as climate campaigners work company by company to discourage consumption of Canadian energy.

“This is the first clear demonstration that companies are concerned about the brand damage of Alberta Tar Sands,” said Andrew Franks, a Vancouver-based spokesman for ForestEthics, which agitated for the policy changes at Whole Foods and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

“These are the first companies to send this market signal but they won’t be the last. Our campaign continues and we are in talks with other retailers to follow suit.”

The policy change is more easily said than done, given the complexities of the fuel supply chain. Whole Foods officials told the Toronto Star the company will continue to use fuels derived from Alberta tar sands “in the Rocky Mountain region because as of now there is no alternative source.

“We are switching fuel vendors at as many of our 10 distribution centres as possible. But in some cases there just aren’t vendors who can offer something else,” said Whole Foods spokesperson Libba Letton.

Whole Foods, the organic and natural foods empire, operates 289 retail outlets, including six in Canada. The company said it reserves the right to reverse the policy if Alberta succeeds in its pursuit of experimental carbon capture and storage technology to reduce the greenhouse gas impact of tar sands production.

“We have an entire team dedicated to environmental responsibility and we are always looking for a better option. If there is an actual breakthrough in tar sands technology that makes a difference we will want to know about it,” said Letton.

*Photo: The Syncrude oil sands extraction facility is reflected in a lake reclaimed from an old mine near Fort McMurray, Alta.