Rather than concentrating on a resource that introduces a miniscule amount into ecosphere, why don't you concentrate on the resources that DO contribute vast amounts? The reason you and the NASA no mind don't is because whining about china and India would be a waste of time whereas whining about Canada scores ya's points.
I'm all for China being required to reduce it's dependency on coal and other fossil fuels, but it's hard for Canada to argue for this when we're not reducing our own dependency. One barrel of Western Canadian Select produces between 3-4 times the amount of greenhouse gases as light crude pumped from the ground. We're producing about 2 million barrels a day now which would give us a greenhouse gas footprint equivalent to 6 to 8 million barrels of light crude, Saudi Arabia produces about 9 million barrels a day. In the future when oil sands production goes to over 3 million barrels a day by 2030 or 5 million by 2050 which it's projected to, that will be the equivalent of around 10.5 million barrels and 17.5 million barrels a day respectively. That's a lot of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere and why many people are concerned about this. It's also why I contacted my MLA and proposed something that would make the oil sands project more viable in the short term. A small nuclear reactor of Gen IV design could replace the use of natural gas at site reducing emissions there and a larger 1,000-1,500 MWe nuclear power plant could replace the use of coal fired power plants for the upgraders. In the long term I think we should develop Gen IV nuclear power, and other sources of power to replace all fossil fuels, this is the 21st. Century, not the 19th.
Really, and then there are those that predict that we are bringing another ice age upon ourselves.
Nobody credible, there was a small amount of conjecture by a few theorists in the early 1970s, but most researchers in global climate studies have accepted the high probability of human driven climate change for decades, certainly since the mid 1990s when the signal clearly rose above the noise of background measurements.
We're already coming up to a wall in terms of oil sands viability, if there's no debate at all on how to meet the valid concerns(at least as far as they're concerned) of other nations then we could lose the whole thing as demand drops.
Alberta’s loathed ‘bitumen bubble’ slams Canada’s rich province - The Globe and Mail
In yesterday’s budget, Finance Minister Doug Horner projected that Western Canadian Select, whose price has been well below global benchmarks because of pipeline constraints exacerbated by the shale boom in the United States, will continue to trade at a marked discount.
WCS, as it’s known, is forecast to sell at an average 27-per-cent below West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, in the 2013-14 fiscal year. That’s projected to shrink to 19 per cent by the next fiscal year, and it’s hitting the province hard.
I seriously doubt the Northern Gateway project is going to go through with an NDP government set to take over in BC, they've already stated they won't support the project. And even if the Liberals pull a miracle off and hold onto power, there's a good chance they won't back it either.
Northern Gateway appears likely to be rejected by next B.C. government - The Globe and Mail
Should the Liberals hang on to power, it’s likely the B.C. legal team will be instructed to say “no” to the pipeline. Even with the draft conditions on Northern Gateway released last week by the NEB, the five conditions for B.C. government approval that were laid out by Ms. Clark have not yet been met. Ms. Clark, at a party fundraiser last week, signalled she will take the pipeline issue to voters as she laid out her campaign priorities in a half-hour speech.
Keeping the oil sands alive means getting WCS to a market that's set up to process it, which means the Texas coast most likely. And if we're totally against any sort of compromise on this issue then we give oursleves no room at all to work with interested parties in the US. This "avoid reality at costs approach" being taken by the current federal government is likely to cost us even limited continued viability of the oil sands project.
Playing with the truth has consequences.