BRATTLEBORO — Post Oil Solutions presents a Tar Sands Teach-In on Tuesday, March 25, at 6:30 p.m., in Brooks Memorial Library's community room.
The teach-in seeks to address questions and concerns about tar sands oil, the Portland-Montreal pipeline, and how in the pipeline's crossing of part of Vermont our state could be at environmental risk.
The event, part of Post Oil Solutions' fourth-Tuesdays Climate Change Café, is free. Light refreshments are provided.
The teach-in is led by Jade Wallace, field organizer with 350 Vermont, a branch of the grassroots environmental action group 350.org.
As VTDigger notes, more than a dozen towns voted at town meetings this month to oppose any effort to pump oil from Canadian tar sands across the Northeast Kingdom. The pipeline is not strong enough to withstand a reversed flow of heavy tar sands oil, which is toxic, opponents warn.
“Environmental groups oppose using tar sands oil because of the energy-intensive extraction process; fuel derived from tar sands generates 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuel throughout its life cycle. The heavy crude is also difficult to clean up when it spills, they say,” explains VTDigger's piece at bit.ly/1cKYHP5.
Jim Murphy, senior counsel with the National Wildlife Federation, said that Vermonters have loudly signaled opposition to transporting tar sands across our rivers and farms, alongside lakes, and through communities of the Northeast Kingdom.
“A spill would have a devastating impact on our water supplies, wildlife habitat, and tourism industry. And any transport of tar sands through Vermont would encourage growth of an industry that contradicts all of our state's leadership and hard work on moving toward cleaner sources of energy,” he said.