Some Wisconsin residents have been among those arrested in a Washington, D.C. protest over dirty Canadian oil. They’re called tar sands or oil sands, and environmentalists say their development in the Canadian province of Alberta will accelerate the release of greenhouse gasses, the source of global climate change. Eric Sundquist of Madison was arrested outside the White House a week ago, protesting the proposed Keystone pipeline which would bring oil from Canada’s tar sands across the U.S to the Gulf of Mexico. “The way it affects all of us is that it’s very energy intensive just to get the stuff out,” he explained. “You have to recover this stuff, before you can even ship it or refine it. It’s much more carbon intensive.”
Seth Jensen of Madison was arrested at the protest this week. “We were all issued a fine of about 100 dollars,” said Jensen. “Which would be a very small price to pay if by this action we’re able to stop this Keystone pipeline project.” Hundreds have been arrested outside the White House. Organizers say the goal is for the Obama Administration to reject the Keystone pipeline, construction of which would accelerate the development of tar sands in Canada. Jensen suggested some protesters in the path of the pipeline may attempt to block construction, “if Obama does not stop this pipeline project and really kind of fulfill the commitment that many of us understood him to have expressed during the campaign, that he was going to serve as a check on the power of the oil industry.”
Sundquist said full development of the oil sands could be environmentally devastating. He likened the process to mountaintop removal mining for coal in the United States, which has laid waste to large areas of the Appalachian Mountains and has been blamed for contaminating drinking water. “It’s a tarry substance that you can essentially strip mine,” he said. “It’s not the old kind of ‘up from the ground came a bubbling crude’. It’s ingrained in the soil, so it involves digging up a lot of soil, strip mining vast stretches of forest.”