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Is President Obama flip flopping on the Tar Sands?
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Recently, President Barack Obama met with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, marking their second official state visit and stirring up more protests against the importing of oil from Alberta's tar 
sands.
Back in February, President Obama made a public statement against continued development of the Canadian tar sands (also known as oil sands) which are expensive and difficult to refine and carry a significantly larger carbon footprint than other oils. In that visit Obama came out in support of green jobs and renewable energy as the solution to the energy crisis and the need for more independence from foreign oil.
Fast forward to the end of the year and it appears that Obama has begun to flip flop on the need to slow global warming pollution and push for renewable energy standards to meet growing energy demands. He recently approved a deal to allow a new pipeline to deliver synthetic crude produced from Canadian tar sands to U.S. refineries. The administration is apparently stuck between wanting to reduce the country's reliance on OPEC and cutting carbon emissions which are having negative effects on the environment. In defense of his change in directions, Obama has said he wants to pursue carbon capture programs with the Canadians-a solution that is likely to have only a small impact on emissions, and not any time in the near future.
Because of the administration's deal with Canada, daily production of 1.2 million barrels from the oil sands is now expected to nearly triple to 3.3 million barrels by 2020. Due to an energy-intesive extraction process, tar sands oil has a much greater carbon footprint than oil tapped from traditional wells. Some studies actually show more fossil fuels being used to extract and refine tar sands crude than are actually produced. In addition, huge tracts of forest must be cleared to remove and process the tar sands, destroying local wildlife habitats and contributing further to global warming.
Some quick facts about the tar sands:
-Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that an entire city the size of San Francisco uses in a year.
-At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.
-Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes.
-The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. -The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.
-Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.
Read more about recent development in climate regulation here.
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