It's Time to Start Shutting Down Canada's Carbon Bomb

I have thought for years that it was beyond time to start shutting down oil production from Alberta's tar sands, which have been described, quite accurately, as a carbon bomb. That opinion has more than been confirmed by a study published in Science on January 25th. Here's the editor's summary from Science.

Air pollution from gaseous organic compounds generated by petrochemical extraction typically is estimated using measurements of a subset of those species, volatile organic compounds. He et al. showed that this approach can vastly underestimate the true magnitude of the problem. Their aircraft-based measurements of total gas-phase organic carbon concentrations over the Athabasca oil sands region of Alberta, Canada, revealed that emissions from that region alone were much larger than estimates made on the basis of more limited arrays of species by as much as a factor of 64. The underreported species included abundant precursors to secondary air pollution that must be included in organic carbon pollution monitoring and reporting. —H. Jesse Smith

That rather bloodless summary doesn't give a good idea of the scale of the problem that the study uncovered. Here's some commentary from Nature. 

Canada’s controversial oil-producing tar sands generate a substantial amount of unaccounted-for carbon-based emissions that can affect air quality, according to measurements taken by aircraft. The sands release more of these pollution-causing gases than megacities such as Los Angeles, California, and about the same as the rest of Canada’s human-generated sources combined — including emissions from motor traffic and all other industries.

Wrap your head around that. One, admittedly large, industrial site generates more carbon-based emissions than a country of 40 million people. No wonder climate models are having trouble keeping up with the pace of global warming.

The original article has gotten noticed by more media, including ArsTechnica, and The Guardian, though I'm seeing nothing in the mainstream Canadian press (it may be too early for them to pick up on it, or it could be that the story will get buried to avoid embarrassing the big energy company advertisers).

The best commentary I've seen so far comes from Steven Leahy's Need to Know. He provides background information about the tar sands and their effects and information about how concerned Canadians can provide public comments to the Canadian government. You can bet I will be doing so.