Tar Sands

Action
Toolkit
 Table of Contents
Introduction to Taking Action....................................................................... 2
Tar Sands Background Information............................................................. 3
How to Plan an Action................................................................................. 6
Action Ideas................................................................................................. 9
Talking Points............................................................................................ 11
ForestEthics Contact Information.............................................................. 12

Introduction to Taking Action

Thanks for taking action with ForestEthics to Stop the Tar Sands. It’s time to let people in the U.S. know
about the dirty destruction coming from the Canadian tar sands and the devastating impact it will have
on the Canadian Boreal Forest, the surrounding communities and wildlife, and the green energy future of
North America. The United States imports 75% of all tar sands oil. ForestEthics is campaigning both
North and South of the U.S. – Canadian border to stop the tar sands. We will need your help in the
future to pressure corporations and governments to abandon tar sands oil. By organizing and taking
action, you can help educate your community and mobilize opposition to the tar sands, so that you’ll be
ready for the next step of our campaign in the United States.

This packet will provide background information on the tar sands and ideas and tools to take action. We
at ForestEthics are excited to work with you on whatever you are organizing, so please call and email us
to let us know your plans. If you’ve never organized a political event before, we can help talk you
through the details. Thanks for all that you do.

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 TAR SANDS BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Canada isn't just the pristine place of moose and maple syrup anymore. It's home to the tar sands; a
moonscape of environmental destruction. Tar sands are being supported by our governments and
developed by major oil companies (Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, BP, Syncrude, Exxon and many
more) as a last resort to harvest oil. In a few short years, they've dashed almost all hope of a clean,
healthy future in the name of 'secure energy' and profits - and they've only just begun. But at what
cost? Read up.

What exactly are the tar sands?

The tar sands operations are fossil fuel production enterprises in
northeastern Alberta, operated by over a dozen of the top
multinational oil companies. Although tar sands technology began
developing many years ago, the industry has only been commercially
viable within the last 2-3 years, due to peak oil prices. Currently, tar
sands developments add up to an area roughly the state of Florida.

There are 2 main processes for harvesting tar sands oil. The first is
essentially strip mining, and the second is a process more akin to traditional drilling called steam
assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), or in-situ drilling. For the first method, an area must be 'prepared' to
extract the oil-steeped tar, e.g. the Boreal Forest must be clearcut and the crust of the earth must be
dug up to expose the tar. When the tar is collected, it is infused with countless chemicals including
benzene and arsenic and heavy metals such as lead and mercury. This chemical cocktail is called
bitumen. The bitumen is then boiled with super-heated steam- lots of it- over 500 million gallons of water
daily to be exact. Oil is then separated from the chemicals and the toxic sludge is disposed of, e.g. it is
dumped into behemoth pits called tailings ponds. These 'ponds' are not lined or covered- they leak
straight into the ground and their toxic fumes are released into the air.

With in-situ drilling, the tar sands are located too far beneath the surface to dig up. So the process of
creating bitumen and boiling it is done underground. The oil rises to the surface like a traditional oil well
and the toxic runoff remains in the earth, seeping into groundwater and bleeding up into the soil.

With either process, the environmental and health impacts are extremely negative. Local communities
and wildlife are exposed to deadly toxins and carcinogens. The operation has very little oversight, even
less accountability, and absolutely no impetus to change.
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Almost all the oil produced by tar sands is exported out of Canada, to its
most voracious consumer- the US. We've tasted the Canadian Crude and
we're totally addicted. Our only hope for change is to take action and to
aggressively pressure President Obama to keep dirty tar sands out of the
US and in the ground where it belongs.

Craving to know more? Here are some startling facts that will get under
your skin, boil your blood, and move you to spread awareness:

Climate -Tar sands development require massive

-Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands clearcutting of the Boreal Forest, the largest
produces 3-5 times more greenhouse gas remaining unspoiled forest and wetland ecosystem
emissions than a barrel of conventional oil. and one of the most biodiverse carbon sinks on
-By 2015, the Tar Sands are expected to emit more Earth. Tar sands mining and drilling causes
greenhouse gases than the nation of Denmark. significant habitat loss and fragmentation.
-Tar Sands operations currently use almost 1 billion -Canada’s Boreal forest is a globally important
cubic feet of natural gas daily. destination for birds. It is estimated that half of
-The tar sands oil has single-handedly nullified America’s migratory birds nest in the Boreal forest,
Canada's ability to reach its Kyoto Protocol and that over the next 30–50 years as many as 166
Agreement targets. million birds could perish due to tar sands
development.

Water
-Tar sands mining is licensed to use twice the
amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary -Communities downstream of the tar sands and
(a city of 3 million) 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 birds from
landing. Yet the ponds result in 8,000 to 10,000
oiled and drowned birds annually.
-The toxic tailing ponds span 80 square miles and
can be seen from space.
Forests and Biodiversity
Communities
some First Nations, such as the Fort Chipewyan,
are suffering high levels of cancer because of the
human and ecological health crisis, the climate
change impacts, and the damages to water and air
quality.
-The oil companies have a chokehold on their
workers and have consequently destroyed the local
communities. In fact, the mayor of one town
warned that she could not promise a community
that was safe and functional.
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So what are our demands?
ForestEthics is calling on the Canadian government to stop all expansion of tar sands and to:
• impose and enforce clean air, clean water, and forest protection regulations;
• create new protected areas in the region;
• enforce hard caps on Tar Sands emissions rather than 'intensity' targets that will allow overall
emissions to continue to rise;
• respect Aboriginal rights and title in the region.
ForestEthics is also calling on President Obama to create a new energy economy based on clean,
innovative solutions. Any clean energy future must include provisions that reduce greenhouse gasses
wherever and whenever possible. Hence, our new energy economy cannot include dirty Tar Sands oil.
We urge President Obama to strengthen US and Canadian economies by agreeing to move aggressively
towards a sustainable future that focuses on clean energy.

Other excellent resources:

Boreal Songbird Initiative www.borealbirds.org/tarsands.shtml

Indigenous Environmental Network www.ienearth.org/cits.html

No Dirty Energy
www.nodirtyenergy.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=41&Itemid=76
Oil Sands Truth www.oilsandstruth.org

Oil Sands Watch www.oilsandswatch.org

“Scraping Bottom” (from National Geographic)
www.ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/canadian-oil-sands/kunzig-text/1
Stop Tar Sands Operations Permanently www.stoptarsands.wordpress.com

Tar Sands Free British Columbia www.tarsandsfreebc.org

Tar Sands Watch www.tarsandswatch.org

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How to Plan an Action

Get in touch with us to let us know what you’re planning and how we can help. The following is a helpful
checklist of some of the things you should do before, during, and after the event.

TWO TO THREE WEEKS BEFORE EVENT

• Choose your site for the event. The key to these events is finding an area where lots of people
gathered or pass through during the day. Examples include farmer’s markets, downtown areas,
college campuses, public parks, around public transit stops, etc. Another factor to consider is
the message you send with your location choice – your messaging will be different if you are
addressing a county fair than if you are in front of a gas station or the office of your government
representative.
• Set a time and specific meeting-place for the event. Make sure you choose a time when there
will be lots of people passing by. If you want to attract media to your event, a weekday morning
is the easiest time to do it. However, if your main goal is to get our a lot of volunteers and sign
up new supporters, a weekend afternoon may be great.
• Speak at meetings, table at events, and generate lists of interested volunteers. You want your
event to be stellar, right? So you've got to recruit! The bigger the event, the better. But to do
that, you're going to need a crowd and helpers. Hence, outreaching and networking is clutch.
• Call environmental groups and other interested parties in the area and invite them. Show that tar
sands is an issue everyone cares about. Be inclusive and reach out to allies, traditional and non-
traditional.
• Find environmentalists online in your area via meetup.com, facebook.com, myspace.com etc…
• Send out an invitation to e-mail lists and post on online calendars.
• Have an action-planning party. This is an important step, as you will be able to catch any snags,
tie up loose ends, and brainstorm some fantastic new ideas with your
growing group of activists.
• Make all props and write skits. Be crazy, be creative but keep it simple-
often times the most straightforward visuals and messages are the
most powerful. Not to mention, overly complicated ideas take more
time and are more likely to go wrong.
 • Discuss and decide what message and image you want to create and

what elements will create that. Again, keep it simple- you want people to take one glance and
know what your cause is.
• Think about having speakers too. Speakers could reflect the diversity of your activists- business
owners, elected officials, professors, parents, frontline community members, etc.

ONE WEEK BEFORE

• Call those who said they were interested and ask them to attend your event. Follow-up work will
be the single most important factor to ensuring that people actually show up to your event.
• Create visibility around your event by postering, flyering, and chalking.
• Finalize specific roles such as media spokesperson, chant leader, police liaison, worker liaison,
emcee, props manager, scout, etc. This is to not only ensure that you're not scrambling at the
action when you realize a job hasn't been done, but also to ensure that the best people for the
jobs are handling them.
• Coordinate and gather cameras. Ask around for people who would want to shoot the event and
for equipment like cameras and camcorders.
• Coordinate transportation to and from event if needed. Make sure that people attending aren't
stranded. Know how you'll get your props to the site before the event starts.
• Do a site check. Scout out the area and determine where people should march, park, stand,
where signs and/or banners should be held, where the best photos/videos could be taken from,
where media can meet the spokesperson, etc.

TWO DAYS AND THE DAY BEFORE

• Call and confirm all the people who said they’d be there. Remind remind remind! Convey to
people how important their presence will be. This is your final attendance numbers check.
• Finalize your own program and schedule.
• Check signs, props, and how they're getting to the site.
• Check visual equipment and people helping record.
• Practice skits and talking points.
• Print out chants so everyone can be involved.
• Check that you have enough hand-out materials.
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THE DAY OF THE ACTION

• ARRIVE EARLY! Get there at least 30 min
beforehand to greet people and to allocate time
just in case any last minute problems arise.
• Bring your materials. Postcards to sign, factsheets
to hand out, clipboards and pens for postcards,
cameras and videocameras, signs and props.
• Have the basics to stay safe and comfortable. Water, snacks, sunscreen, trashbags, etc.

AFTER THE EVENT

• Send details and pictures to us right away. Send stuff to the Organizing Team at
organizing@forestethics.org so we can get them up on the website to maximize the
action’s impact.
• Contact interested and involved parties. Call and email publications telling them all about your
event. Write to supporting organizations thanking them for their help and that you hope to work
with them in the future.
• DEBRIEF and assess the action. You might be tired and it's easy to let this slide, but this is a very
important tool to learn from your event and to grow as a group and as a movement. Determine
whether you met your goals. What worked, what didn’t. What could you have done better? What
would you change for next time?
• Celebrate! Remember to congratulate yourselves- you deserve it!

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 ACTION IDEAS
We demand a clean, just energy future! A huge shift is occurring in the political landscape of the United
States, and the move is being driven by people like you. Environmental activists across the country and
world are working hard to solve the climate crisis and save endangered habitats.

During his campaign for presidency, Barack Obama made it clear that he supports a new policy focused
on clean, renewable energy. Even so, the United States is the largest importer of dirty Tar Sands oil,
which has catastrophic consequences at both a local and global level. Tar Sands oil has no place in our
clean energy future. We need to end the tar sands, and we can start in our own communities.

Here are 2 simple ideas to either use or to jumpstart brainstorming. Whatever you come up with, be fun,
be creative, be kooky, be surprising.

STREET THEATRE
One way your group could creatively portray this message is by performing some fun street theater!
What you’ll need: Several friends
Cut out maple leaves
Green tshirts or tops
Cardboard
Paint
A black sheet or bucket(s) and streamers, taped to the inside of the bucket(s)
What it might look like: A few people could be dressed in all green to signify clean energy, wearing
painted cardboard wind turbines or suns, acting happy and heroically. These people could even struggle
to raise a wind turbine together. Other people wearing maple leaves and acting devious and sinister
could “douse” the greenies or the turbine effort in a black sheet, or a bucket full of black streamers. You
would be acting out what Canada’s Tar Sands does to our clean energy efforts.

500 DUCKS
In case you haven’t heard this toxic tale, we’ve got a story to highlight just how dirty the Tar Sands are.
About a year ago, a flock of ducks landed on a “pond” which was a ‘settling basin’ for Syncrude Oil. Five
hundred of those ducks died in the tailings pond. This powerful story got a lot of media attention in
Canada, but almost none in the United States. As a country that imports so much Tar Sands oil, we
deserve to know the level of toxicity results from this irresponsible oil.
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Another action your group can take is to recreate the story of the five hundred ducks
Ways you could recreate: crafting ducks out of an elementary school’s old milk cartons,
borrowing a lot of rubber duckies
making ducks out of 2-liter soda bottles
gathering a large group of people dressed in duck costumes
What it could look like: You can either release the duckies into a pond, a fountain, a kiddie pool, or
spread them out on a black tarp to symbolize the sludge-filled tailings pond where these ducks died. Or
dressed as ducks, you could hold a die-in at places of oil consumption or places where big oil
consumers are.

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 Talking Points
Climate change is a real security issue. We are familiar with the devastating effects of Katrina, rampant
wildfires in the west, violent storms on the east coast, and biblical floods in the south. America is
ravaged by man-made climate change.
• The production of one barrel Tar Sands oil releases 3-5 times more greenhouse gas emissions
that of conventional oil. This is a significant contribution to climate change, and threatens the
safety of out nation.
• The Tar Sands are devastating Alberta’s Boreal Forest, one of the planet’s largest terrestrial
storehouses of carbon.

This is not simply a Canadian issue, this is an American issue, too.

• 75% of Tar Sands oil is imported into the United States for use.
• The Canadian Tar Sands are the number one source of oil coming into the United States.

What world will future generations have to inherit?

• Canada’s Tar Sands project is devastating wildlife habitats and destroying landscapes.
• Over the next 30–50 years as many as 166 million birds could perish due to tar sands
development.
• Tar Sands tailings ponds, where the toxic byproducts of oil extraction are dumped, are so large
that they can be seen from space.

Tar sands fuel corporations, not people.

• Converting tar to oil requires huge quantities of natural gas, water and energy.
• Tar sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary
(a city of 3 million) uses in a year.
• Tar Sands operations currently use almost 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily.

This is more than an environmental issue, this is a human health issue.

• Since Tar Sands tailings ponds are not lined underneath, toxic chemicals leach into the soil and
groundwater. The Fort Chipewyan First Nation community, which is downstream from the Tar
Sands, has noted the development of a large cancer cluster in their population since the start of
Tar Sands development.

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We need to hold our elected officials accountable, especially President Obama. He promised to work
towards a clean future and green economy. We need
• Enforced fuel emission standards
• a real commitment to fighting climate change by investing in clean energy, not dirty fossil fuels.
• to develop green jobs here in the U.S.. This can happen by kick-starting the US renewable
energy market, and kicking our addiction to fossil fuels from Canada.

ForestEthics Contact Information

Forest Ethics Organizing Team
organizing@forestethics.org
415.863.4563

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