Fat Cat Canada’s Giant Litter Box
by Franke James
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
PMO’s Ottawa Office: (+1) (613) 992-4211
Toll-free: 1 (866) 599-4999
Calgary office: (+1) (403) 253-7990
Twitter: @PMharper
e-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca
fax: 613-941-6900
What Canadians Can Do
If you’re a Canadian reading this, here’s the action plan from CLIMATE ACTION NETWORK CANADA:
- Take action to make sure your federal elected official:
a) Signs the Kyoto Plus Pledge For Elected Officials
b) Supports and implements the Climate Change Accountability ActThe Climate Change Accountability Act is currently moving through Parliament. The bill asks Canada to commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 and define Canada’s approach to climate change moving into the climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen.
Contact Your Federal MP:
You can find your Member of Parliament using your postal code - Educate your friends, colleagues and co-workers about the need to take action on climate change NOW!
- Attend events in your area hosted by CAN member groups. Also check out The World Wants a Real Deal
- Contact CAN members to find out more ways to get involved
- Sign the petition at kyotoplus.ca
Visual Essay Credits:
“Fat Cat Canada’s Giant Litter Box” © 2009 Franke James
Photographs, illustrations and writing by Franke James, MFA, except as noted below in order of appearance:
Tailing Ponds illustration features: photo © 2005 The Pembina Institute, Dan Woynillowicz OilSandsWatch.org
“Big as England” illustration features: Tar sands photo by © Jiri Rezac / Greenpeace
Grand Vision illustration uses: Tar sands photo by © EM / Greenpeace
“Sewer Sky” illustration features: Tar sands photo by © Jiri Rezac / Greenpeace
Scaling Parliament Buildings in Ottawa: December 7, 2009 ©Greenpeace Canada
Background Research & Resources:
My thanks to the following people and organizations who helped with research reports and photographs for this essay: Andrew Nikiforuk, Gavin Dew at desmogblog, Greenpeace Canada and Pembina Institute.
Shared Values: Canadians & Sustainability national study by Hoggan & Associates, 2006-2009
Building on a comprehensive national study that began five years ago, this new 2009 survey examines the views of 4,368 Canadians as well as 1,000 of the country’s “thought leaders”senior-level individuals in business, academia, government, non-government organizations, and media. The study explores their beliefs and attitudes about sustainability, global warming and a wide range of social and environmental issues.
Reports
Dirty Oil: How the tar sands are fueling the global climate crisis by Andrew Nikiforuk for Greenpeace, September 2009
Health Canada Report: Harper Government Suppresses Climate Report Now Available Here
Does the Alberta Tar Sands Industry Pollute? The Scientific Evidence
Kevin P. Timoney, and Peter Lee
Cattle statistic: Page 10: “At the Mildred Lake Settling Basin (MLSB), 60-80% of the gas flux across the pond’s surface is due to methane; the pond produces the equivalent methane of 0.5 million cattle/day [11].”
Climate Leadership, Economic Prosperity: Final Report on an Economic Study of Greenhouse Gas Targets and Policies for Canada; The Pembina Institute, October 2009
Taking the Wheel PDF The Pembina Institute [www.oilsandswatch.org]
Survey of Albertans on Oil Sands PDF The Pembina Institute [http://www.oilsandswatch.org]
Carbon 2008 PDF Corporate Knights [www.corporateknights.ca]
December 9th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
VIA TWITTER
@CO2Now The holy-crap, inconvenient truth about Canada & CO2 by Canadian climate change artist Franke James http://www.frankejames.com/debate/?p=964
December 9th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Very powerful…as usual!
December 9th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
VIA TWITTER
@silverbeet Woohoo! another Visual Essay Supreme @frankejames: Fat Cat Canada’s Giant Litter Box: http://bit.ly/7ILWoJ
December 10th, 2009 at 1:54 am
Wow, nice work and you are so right: we should stop destroying our world. It’s going on for a long time: http://tinyurl.com/lwskqc
I will put some info on my blog about this post en indeed very powerful message and of course link to it. Great work, Thanks.
December 10th, 2009 at 2:34 am
Sorry, i forget that Canada has something to be proud ????? The Olympics http://tinyurl.com/ybwwrur
December 10th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Well done Franke! I’ve shared this on Facebook. The scale and magnitude of the tar sands and their resulting negative impact are almost too enormous to conceive but you’ve done an amazing job of putting them into perpective!
December 10th, 2009 at 10:09 am
VIA TWITTER
@MikeSoron “Fat Cat Canada” Our climate shame, illustrated and told beautifully by @frankejames – http://bit.ly/7GzRV7 #cdnpoli #tarsands
December 10th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I’ve also shared this on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for creating a wonderful visual guide that is easy to share! It is good to know some of us Canadians still care.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
VIA TWITTER
@rebecca_altman: @frankejames Check out latest, striking visual essay re: Canada’s role in climate change, oil/energy & tar sands http://bit.ly/6rMr1E
December 10th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Franke, Thank you SO much! As usual – your work is AMAZING & Inspiring & always so very timely!! I’m sharing everywhere, with everyone!! You have expressed all of my concerns & feelings – but so much more beautifully than I could do. Again – THANK YOU!!
December 10th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Hi Franke,
Yup, this is a good one, for sure! We here in Canada have been very blessed for a long, long time. We’ve even managed a generation or two of parents who didn’t have to worry about their children’s future.
Those days are gone, and it’s hard to give them up. If parents don’t become activists, they are kissing their child/ren’s future goodbye. Once the Arctic summer sea ice disappears (which could happen as early as 2013), agriculture in the northern hemisphere will lose its “air conditioning” and we (but especially our children) will start facing crop failures and famines. Yup, right here in good old Fat Cat Canada.
Dudes, quit whining and step away from the tar sands. Leave the bitumen in the ground where it can act as a vital carbon sink. When and if carbon sequestration technology is ever perfected, you can always go back and try again.
Meantime, we have a future to safeguard, for the children of all species.
Have a great trip, Franke!
Julie
December 11th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Simply Awesome thank you so much for this.
December 11th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Your best yet- a real call to action. I had no idea that our wimpy neighbors to the north were such evil polluters
. When I think of Canada I think of pristine lakes, wilderness, snow-capped mountain and gleaming cities- at least I used to. You’ve put me straight.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Great essay Franke (as always)! I have blogged about it here http://newsociety.com/blogs/index.php. There’s also another fantastic article on the tar sands here http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/10/07/notes100709.DTL. When will everyone that argues that we need the tar sands for the sake of a strong economy realize that a strong economy is no use at all on a dying planet?
December 13th, 2009 at 9:01 am
[...] I wish I was artistic, sometimes the medium used conveys a message better than words. Franke James has said it better than I could. Check out the visual essay here. [...]
December 14th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
[...] I tell him about Fat Cat Canada…. [...]
December 18th, 2009 at 10:02 am
wow – what alarming statistics, and what a tragic statement about canada – who knew?? How cool that you share what folks can do to move a call to action forward – i love your work franke and have been following you in copenhagen
December 20th, 2009 at 2:42 am
I am your addicted customer!
I live in the Twin Cities in the heartland of the US and I am told that 70% of my gasoline comes from the tar sands (ACK!!), according to officials at Flint Hill oil refinery who wholesale most of the gasoline to gas stations in my town. Wow. I am a tar sands drug addict. A junkie.
If this is the oil that’s left for me and my family, it sure doesn’t make any sense to look for a gas station with gasoline from oil from the rest of the world: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, etc.
I guess it really IS time to get off oil altogether. If you are like me, a tar sands junkie, here’s what you can do to wean yourself, depending on your interest (and income!). Cold turkey just isn’t an option.
Scrap your car and buy a 50 mpg car; support transit and push leaders to build more rail in your city and to big cities nearby; choose where you live based on public transport access; bicycle everywhere like the Danes I saw in Copenhagen; buy biofuel to push industry to next-gen bio-based fuels; be the early adopter to buy an electric car, or plug-in hybrid.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Yet another brilliant and inspiring piece, Franke! This one really moved me.
Also, I heard you on Spark this weekend: Great show. I loved hearing about your dinner with a stranger again.
Keep it up. This is exactly what we need to get Canadians on board with changing our collective habits.
All the best
Riona
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Franke,
You did it again. Bring our attention to environmental realities through your art and unparalleled creativity. Very good topic as it is very relevant and everyone should read this. It’s informative and attention grabbing.
Thank you for this!
Ali
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:30 am
VIA TWITTER
@ecofashionista Wow @frankejames has done it again. This is a MUST read. Amazing visual essay: http://bit.ly/8GDmGY #climatechange
dec23/12:28am
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:21 am
Thank you Franke for your creative and relevant perspective on important environmental issues!! What a fun and interesting way to raise awareness.
You are truly unique, and I think, a Canadian treasure
Warmly,
Kelly
January 1st, 2010 at 10:03 am
VIA TWITTER
@cuddlendance Too tempting to #Demonize PM #StephenHarper inconvenient truth about Canada – Franke James http://cli.gs/LvQEBQ #GHG #CO2
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:04 pm
VIA TWITTER
@350.org If the climate mvmnt had an illustrator, it would be @frankejames. Latest piece does a great job rallying Canadians 2 act: http://j.mp/6ntAgj
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:06 pm
VIA TWITTER
@lisaborden This is another most brilliant visual essay @frankejames http://tinyurl.com/yhtu53d <–read/look!
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:07 pm
VIA TWITTER
@funkyplates Illustrator @frankejames really opened my eyes to the role canada plays in global warming http://j.mp/6ntAgj (via @rumon @350)
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:44 pm
VIA TWITTER
@BenWest Fantastic #climate cartoon by @frankejames . “Fat Cat #Canada” http://j.mp/6ntAgj why the Tar Sands are immoral via @350 it’s our job to act
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:34 pm
Thank you
Your work is wonderful!
I get sick to my stomach when I hear fellow Canadians blame people from other countries … ‘those countries …. for environmental problems….
January 8th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
[...] Franke James draws Canada’s problems with greenhouse gases. (via facebook friend Amy Robinson) [...]
January 11th, 2010 at 8:15 pm
Can you please make one of these about the United States? This is so powerful with so few words, really!
January 12th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
[...] illustrated visual essays on her website. Thanks to 350.org for tweeting her excellent piece on Fat Cat Canada, which is how I found her [...]
February 26th, 2010 at 1:15 am
I just read this now.
Brilliant!
March 5th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Good visual presentation Franke. The real culprits in this free market economy are the consumers who purchase the cars, the furnaces etc that consume fossil fuels that poison the air,the soil, the water,etc. Of course we can blame Harper and every other leader in the free world who are constantly under pressure to create jobs,jobs, jobs, when in all fairness we the voters put them in a this no win situation in the first place. Will the opposition do any better? I think not. The problem will not go away until every consumer quits buying the product. If the producers of gasoline quit buying oil from the tar sands, the developers would quickly fold and go home. When the developer/producers of tar sands oil and the largest buyer/consumer of its products are one and the same. Who is to blame? The consumers of said products of course. Get with it Americans and Canadians, lets be realistic and blame each other, then change our consuming habits. This is a direct challenge in a high stakes game of chicken. The producers will get the message.
March 17th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Brilliant…thank you for this eye-opening visual impact piece. I will participate and spread the message. BTW…if you have not seen it – the documentary movie ‘The Age of Stupid’ is equally brilliant. Cheers!
April 24th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Wow – this is outstanding. Thank you to @raybeckerman for sharing it, which is how I got it, and now I’m following you!
I look forward to taking time to thoroughly go through your work this weekend. I am impressed Franke.
I have already, and will share this again =^..^=~~