On 26 September, environmental campaigners are descending on Ottawa, promising civil disobedience as a way of grabbing the nation’s attention to the threat posed by the exploitation of the tar sands in Northern Alberta.

The protesters say they want to “defuse the largest carbon bomb in North America”.

Fair enough. It’s time someone shook the bars of the cage and alerted somnolent Canadians to the environmental catastrophe that is just waiting to happen.

Unfortunately, the tar sands lie in the remote north and do not intrude on the consciousness of Canadians who, for the most part, seem oblivious to the threat.

The place is a moonscape. The boreal forest is ripped away to expose the sands. Then the giant earth movers and dumper trucks move in.

Water used in the process to separate the oil from the sands is held in huge reservoirs, brimming with toxins.

Canons are fired at frequent intervals to scare away the wildfowl that would otherwise perish if they paddled in the poisonous waters.

If the simple earth barriers that contain this witches’ brew were to collapse, the water, loaded with deadly pollutants, would run into the Athabasca River and then discharge into the Arctic.

Trying cleaning that up at 40 below.

The worthy National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy wants dialogue to see how best the interests of the oil producers, the environmentalists and the first nation peoples can be accommodated. But what if this is impossible?

Greenpeace Canada tried to get a debate going on the tar sands in advance of this year’s federal election but the politicians turned a deaf ear.

Scandalously, the issues were never addressed.

With protestors soon to be camped on their doorstep, maybe they will start to listen.

Birtwistle’s anniversary

Lest today's date passes unnoticed, let us remember the words of the vacuous Gordon Birtwistle, the Lib Dem MP for Burnley, who told the Commons exactly a year ago that he would get the A&E Department at Burnley General Hospital (BGH) re-opened: 

I have stood behind a campaign table outside Marks and Spencer every Saturday morning for more than 107 weeks. A petition of 25,000 names has called for our A and E unit to be brought back. We have the support of almost all our GPs, the people of Burnley and the borough council. 

Is the self-styled “hospital campaigner” still standing behind his creaking campaign table outside Marks and Sparks every Saturday?

Is he still badgering people to sign his petition?

Somehow I doubt it.

Alas, Burnley’s gullible one term MP has swallowed the Conservative NHS reforms hook, line and sinker.

And has nothing to show for it.