Canada

"FORT McMURRAY, Alberta — At a camp for oil workers here, a collection of 16 three-story buildings that once housed 2,000 workers sits empty. A parking lot at a neighboring camp is now dotted with abandoned cars. With oil prices falling precipitously, capital-intensive projects rooted in the heavy crude mined from Alberta’s oil sands are losing money, contributing to the loss of about 35,000 energy industry jobs across the province."

"A federal judge heard conflicting arguments Thursday on whether he should block a capacity expansion on the Alberta Clipper oil pipeline or allow a temporary workaround that lets Enbridge Energy move hundreds of thousands of barrels per day of Canadian tar sands crude across the border without triggering the kind of environmental review that has held up the proposed Keystone XL pipeline."

"Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips says a globally credible climate policy is important to the province's future, and now is the time to take action."

"Declining salmon populations mean Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in elders can't teach fishing like they used to".

"Canada's provinces reached a long-sought deal on Friday over an energy plan for the country, agreeing broadly to curb greenhouse gas emissions while also promoting the use of pipelines."

"One of the largest leaks in Alberta history has spilled about five million litres of emulsion from a Nexen Energy pipeline at the company's Long Lake oilsands facility south of Fort McMurray."

"Assurances from Enbridge Energy that the company's twin oil pipelines under the Straits of Mackinac are in 'excellent' condition and pose 'minimal' risks of a spill are not enough to resolve existing public concerns about the line's potential threat to the Great Lakes and Michigan's economy."

"Almost one year after an unprecedented spill from a mine tailings pond in Canada’s largely pristine province of British Columbia, its government has given the green light for the mine to reopen — worrying environmentalists who say a number of other northern B.C. copper and gold mines are in various phases of approval, and could threaten downstream fishing communities in southeastern Alaska."

"'Extreme.' 'Unprecedented.' 'Historic.' Those are just a few of the words being used to describe the start of this year's fire season in North America."