An interesting article here on oil sands and co2.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/world/archives/2012/02/20120220-194840.html

OTTAWA -- A top climate scientist is shoving a stick into the gears of the global-warming machine, saying Alberta's oilsands are not to blame - coal is.

Dr. Andrew Weaver, a professor at the University of Victoria, B.C., and a lead author on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says Alberta's oilsands actually produce only a tiny bubble of greenhouse gases.

Weaver determined that if over the next 50 years all commercially accessible oilsands were burned -- 170 billion barrels -- global temperatures would only rise 0.03 C.

He compares that to Earth's coal deposits which, if burned, would raise the temperature 15 C.

"The conventional and unconventional oil is not the problem with global warming," Weaver said. "The problem is coal and unconventional natural gas."

Weaver's findings are published in the journal, Nature, and did not examine any possible air or water pollution from the oilsands mines.

The report runs contrary to statements from groups like the Council of Canadians who call the oilsands "the world's most destructive project" and accuse Canada of being a "climate criminal."

Other environmental activists campaigning against the oilsands say the findings change nothing.

"This isn't news, we have always known that coal technically produces more CO2," said John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. "It may not be the most CO2 intensive fuel, it's not the tarsands themselves, it's the owners of them and their insistence on protecting their profits, preventing Canada from reducing overall emissions from all industries."