Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Offshore oil drilling, meet Canada’s oil sands. Proponents of this vast alternative oil source in Canada have wasted no time loudly pitching themselves as the great North American alternative to risky deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Not a sheik in sight, and no oily sea turtles to boot, right? Not so fast. Just two days ago my coalition of major investors and environmentalists, Ceres, released ‘Canada’s Oil Sands: Shrinking Window of Opportunity.’ The report’s lead author, Doug Cogan of RiskMetrics Group, calls oil sands production in Alberta’s pristine boreal forest ‘kind of like the Gulf oil spill, but playing out in slow motion.’ Heed the message: This is a risky undertaking on a scale with offshore drilling. Take it from a very large investor, CEO Jack Ehnes of the nation’s second largest public pension fund – the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS). Ehnes’ fund is heavily invested – at close to $2 billion – in major oil sands players like BP, Shell, Exxon and ConocoPhillips. He’s got to be there – a fund the size of CalSTRS invests across the entire global economy – […]