This is from CBC.ca, an exclusive interview Jian Ghomeshi does with Neil before the latest Massey Hall show. Neil Young talks about his Honour the Treaties tour — a series of benefit concerts raising money to fight an expansion project at the oilsands in northern Alberta. Neil talks about the First Nations, the oil sands in Fort McMurray, being political as a musician, freedom of speech…
Short clip:
Audio of the full interview (aired on CBC TV this Wednesday):
“The fact is, Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima,” … “Fort McMurray is a wasteland. The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying.” ~Neil Young
FORT MCMURRAY, Alta. – Neil Young can keep on talking in the free world, but Fort McMurray won’t be listening.
A local rock radio station stopped playing the Canuck singer’s music for a day after he compared the northern Alberta oilsands city to Hiroshima after the atomic bomb.
On-air personality Chris Byrne at Rock 97.9 then asked his listeners if the ban should be extended indefinitely.
Neil supporters were in the majority, but when station staff looked at their email addresses, most came from out of town.
So with local opinion firmly against him, Young has been pulled from the station’s playlist. No more Heart of Gold in the heart of the oilsands.
“We’re going to continue with our ban,” said Byrne, who said he used to play two or three Young tunes a day.
Byrne had declared Wednesday to be a “No Neil” day after a news conference Young held the previous day in Washington, D.C..
Here’s a little short and sweet. The link here is to a cut-down version of a film produced by Lawrence Carota through the NFB (National Film Board of Canada). It speaks to many of the issues under discussion here. It’s not easy to digest but it is right on the money:
Crude Sacrifice
I keep looking for indie films that shed a good light on the tar pit. Something produced by someone other that CAPP (Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers) or the Big Oil companies directly. So far it’s been very hard to find anything from independent sources. And the stuff produced by CAPP and Big Oil reminds me too much of the crap the tobacco industry spin machine flooded onto the marketplace when they were trying to convince us that smoking was a good thing.
Crude Sacrifice is the title of the film.
Onward The Passenger
More videos about this subect:
To the Last Drop: Canada’s Dirty Oil Sands
Residents of one Canadian town are engaged in a David and Goliath-style battle over the dirtiest oil project ever known.
– Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61X4IQqnmd0
Once pristine wilderness, Alberta is now a world of poisoned water, polluted air, and rare cancer. VICE travels to the oil sands of Canada to investigate the impact of digging for this previously unobtainable oil.
I was amazed to find that Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, my home country, has his head stuck in the tar sands of Alberta and has forgotten about his responsibilities to Canadians. Trans Canada, a company he backs, is actively pursuing the goal of crossing the United States with the Keystone Pipeline, a money maker for a chosen few that will cause incredible environmental damage. If it goes through it will be the shame of Canada, an environmental disaster that could have been stopped by responsibility and wisdom. It will not benefit America with energy or new jobs. The oil is for China and the world market, not the USA. With only 35 permanent jobs the added US employment is so small as to not even count.
In light of the United Nations concluding that Climate Change is definitely a result of man’s activities, I think it’s a good idea to learn as much as I can about it. One thing I did was visit http://www.keystonetruth.com/ to learn about the Keystone Pipeline and its direct relationship to Climate change. It’s very informative. If you are on the edge and might want to know more, then it’s a great place to go.
As our Zuman friend Pat indicated, Canada forgot to muzzle their scientists.
Elizabeth Willoughby at Look to the Stars World of Celebrity Giving wrote that a Canadian federal government report by scientists working with Environment Canada estimated last week that Alberta oil sands are polluting ground water and toxic chemicals are seeping into the Athabasca River at rates higher than previously suspected.
Oil companies in Alberta’s oil sands create lakes, called tailings ponds, to contain the processed water and chemicals used to separate the bitumen from the sand. Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation has been complaining for years that their fish have become deformed and inedible, that wildlife has disappeared and that cancer in the community has risen dramatically since the oil sands began production.
The scientists took 20 groundwater samples from areas at least one kilometre upstream and downstream from development. They took another seven samples from within 200 metres of two of the tailings ponds. Samples were also taken from two different tailings ponds.
The analysis was focused on so-called acid-extractable organics, which include a family of chemicals called naphthenic acids. “Their enhanced water solubility makes them prime candidates for possible migration beyond containment structures via groundwater,” the report says.
Those toxins were found in groundwater both near and far from development. But their chemical composition was slightly different nearer the mines – closer to that found in the water from the ponds.
“Back in the old folky days
The air was magic when we played.” by -- Neil Young
Neil Young on Tour
Sugar Mountain setlists
Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.
memphish on 
Albert Stromann on 
liza on 
Baz on 
