The Washington Post reports the far-reaching environmental effects of trying to quench the U.S. thirst for oil. It is happening in Alberta where effects of opening up mines and shifting earth is drining rivers and polluting them at a rate that had not been expected. The report says:
“The digging — into an area the size of Maryland and Virginia combined — has proliferated at gold-rush speed, spurred by high oil prices, new technology and an unquenched U.S. thirst for the fuel. The expansion has presented ecological problems that experts thought they would have decades to resolve.”
Huge tracts of forest – an antidote to global warming have gone creating a moonscape, and members of communities living by the polluted river are experiencing rare forms of cancer.
The huge operation makes money for Canada and produces a synthetic oil for the U.S., but for the inhabitants of Alberta it is having a devastating effect although consequences will be felt much further afield. Gases emitted will contibute to global warming.

Sir David Attenborough is now weighing in on the effects of global warming, and a series of programmes on BBC1 are gving a stern warning of the need to change ways of life and thinking if we are to save the planet.
Commentary again in the Washington Post sees Bush, while apologising for his mistakes on Iraq, is still trying to solve a political issue by military and technolgical means.
As for the New Orleans disaster a new report looks at the inadequate defences – poorly constructed and unfinished – which allowed water to pour in. It wasn’t Katrina that was to blame.
Exxon Mobil, which includes Esso, has handed its outgoing chief executive $400 million as a reward for the huge damage this organisation has done to the planet.