Group cites concerns about carbon pollution, environmental contamination, aboriginal rights
More than 100 Canadian and U.S. researchers are calling on Canada to end expansion of its oilsands, for 10 reasons that they describe as “grounded in science.”
“Based on evidence raised across our many disciplines, we offer a unified voice calling for a moratorium on new oilsands projects,” said a statement issued Wednesday by the group, led by academics at the University of Waterloo, Simon Fraser University and the University of Arizona.
The statement, signed by a range of researchers including biologists, political scientists, physicists, economists and geographers, including a Nobel Prize winner and several Order of Canada recipients, is being sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, MPs and the Canadian media.
The group says it has requested meetings with federal politicians to discuss the science behind their reasons in favour of the moratorium. Those include concerns about carbon emissions making climate change worse, hampering the shift to clean energy, environmental contamination, aboriginal rights, and potential effects on international policy. The researchers also cited evidence that stopping oilsands expansion won’t hurt the economy.
Marc Jaccard, a professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University who co-authored the statement, said the group is targeting the oilsands primarily because most of them are Canadian.
“So of course you try to clean up your own backyard before you start pointing your finger at others,” Jaccard said.
Carbon deal signed
He added that the scientists are not calling for existing oilsands projects to shut down — they just don’t want new ones to start up.
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