| Unless Canada, that most pacific of North American nations, is restrained, then life on earth as we know it may be finished. The Washington Post reports that “in May, environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben — pondering a simmering energy issue — asked a NASA scientist to calculate what it would mean for the Earth’s climate if Canada extracted all of the petroleum in its rich Alberta oil sands region.” The answer was blunt. “It is essentially game over,” wrote James E. Hansen, who heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies: “It would push atmospheric carbon concentrations so high that humans would be unable to avert a climate disaster.” |