If a monster iceberg (like those now being formed from the melting of the Greenland ice shield) was to collide with the Hibernia platform, says Michael Klare, a noted American oil expert, author and academic, it could prove to be far more devastating than last year’s BP spill, which dumped almost five million barrels into […]
The risk of a catastrophe on the scale of BP’s offshore Deepwater Horizon disaster happening in Canada poses a real threat to people’s health and the economy. At the Oil: Slick Suits and Sinister Scenarios symposium tomorrow, leading researchers in risk, disaster management, ethics and the environment will provide insights into the murky world of oil and […]
For two weeks in January, two York professors bundled into parkas and flew to Arctic villages along the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline. They were delivering valuable cargo – the results of their International Polar Year (IPY) research. Reporting back to the communities was a condition of receiving IPY research funding in 2007, and after three years […]
The Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Canadian governments are reviewing a section of the Atlantic Accords that critics say lets offshore oil and gas operators veto a wide swath of information from being released publicly, including environmental and safety data, wrote Ottawa’s The Hill Times, Feb. 22: Meanwhile, as governments keep talking, operators continue to use the […]
The federal-provincial agency that regulates oil activity off Newfoundland is mulling changes to required oil spill plans as newly released documents raise safety questions, wrote The Canadian Press July 27: [The documents] include plans for Chevron Canada as it drills the country's deepest exploration well in 2,600 metres of water, about 425 kilometres northeast of St. […]
Gail Fraser, a professor in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies, spoke about concerns over an oil spill response plan for Canada’s deepest offshore well run by Chevron, on CBC TV’s “The National” and other news broadcasts across the country July 21. Her interview with the National is available on CBC.ca. It runs for approximately 2:30 […]
A biologist and researcher is asking why none of the six men on the board regulating oil activity off Newfoundland lists environmental expertise as a prime credential , wrote The Canadian Press June 6: The head of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board has stressed that environmental protection is a top goal. But Gail […]
Newfoundland & Labrador is proceeding with the high-risk game of oil exploration in ultra-deep water, as regulators in the province express confidence in industry’s safety practices despite the ecological catastrophe of BP PLC’s Gulf of Mexico blowout, wrote The Globe and Mail June 3: Canada’s East Coast is now the only region in North America where […]
Newfoundland and Labrador’s natural resources minister is rejecting calls for the overhaul of the agency that regulates the province’s offshore oil industry, even as the United States moves to distance its regulator from the companies it oversees, wrote The Globe and Mail May 12: Scientists and environmentalists argue that the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum […]