Beyond Eco-terrorism examines the root causes of the problems in Alberta's oilpatch that have received substantial media attention in the last few months. In the midst of the controversy over isolated acts of sabotage, fundamental concerns about the health and environmental impacts of pollution from the oil and gas industry have been largely ignored.
This short paper, prepared by the Pembina Institute's Energy Watch staff,
- identifies the broad range of environmental and health issues that are known to be associated with the oil and gas industry,
- discusses the findings of several independent scientific studies that corroborate the experiential evidence submitted by rural residents,
- describes some of the key factors that are increasing the risk of impacts and exacerbating tensions,
- offers some concrete recommendations for action by government and industry to respond to these issues, and
- briefly describes the potential social and economic risks of inaction by government and industry.
