422 The Mackenzie Gas Project has been proposed since the early 1970s but was previously suspended pending settlement of aboriginal land claims. This obstacle is now settled and the project pending as is described in Chapter 8.
423 Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada pledged to reduce carbon emissions to -6% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. Instead by 2009 her emissions grew +27% and will rise again in 2010 if Alberta tar sands development intensifies. “Canada’s northern goal,” in
424 The most promising current underground extraction technology is steam-assisted gravity drainage, in which pressurized steam is forced underground in long horizontal injection wells to heat the bitumen. After about six months of heating the bitumen begins to flow and can be pumped from a second, parallel recovery well to the surface.
425 From Alberta Energy, the total area leased for in situ (underground) development as of May 19, 2009, is 79,298 square kilometers. J. Grant, S. Dyer, D. Woynillowicz, “Clearing the Air on Oil Sands Myths” (Drayton Valley, Alberta: The Pembina Institute, June 2009), 32 pp., www.pembina.org. Future projections from B. Soderbergh et al., “A Crash Programme Scenario for the Canadian Oil Sands Industry,”
426 Government of Canada, Policy Research Initiative, “The Emergence of Cross-Border Regions between Canada and the United States, Final Report” (November 2008), 78 pp., www.policyresearch.gc.ca. See also D. K. Alper, “The Idea of Cascadia: Emergent Regionalisms in the Pacific Northwest-Western Canada,”
427 See www.atlantica.org.
428 This discovery of common sociocultural values within cross-border superregions is based on survey data, Government of Canada, Policy Research Initiative, “The Emergence of Cross-Border Regions between Canada and the United States,” Final Report (November 2008), 78 pp, www.policyresearch.gc.ca.
429 The U.S. State Department recently quelled any hint of a U.S. claim to a half-dozen islands off Russia’s Arctic coast, even though Americans were involved with the discovery and exploration of some of them. “Status of Wrangel and Other Arctic Islands,” U.S. Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Washington, D.C., May 20, 2003. While Canadian politicians like to fret about protecting Canada’s vast northern territories from the United States and Russia, there is little evidence that either country has designs on them. Indeed, the United States provides tacit military backing of Canadian sovereignty there. For more on the relative success of U.S.- Canada relations, see K. S. Coates et al.,
430 Another area of increasing cross-border economic ties is between Russia and the U.S., with Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in the Russian Far East increasingly importing fuel and other supplies from Alaska. J. Newell,
431 This table was constructed using data from the following sources: 2009 Index of Economic Freedom, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal (179 countries, www.heritage.org); 2008 Economic Freedom of the World Index (141 countries, http://www.freetheworld.com/2008/EconomicFreedomoftheWorld2008.pdf); 2009 KOF Index of Globalization (208 countries, http://globalization.kof.ethz.ch/); 2009 Global Peace Index (144 countries, http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/rankings.php); 2008 Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index (167 countries, http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy%20Index%202008.pdf); 2009 Freedom in the World Country Rankings (193 countries, http://www.freedomhouse.org). To allow comparison between these indices, numeric index data were converted to percentile country rank. Taking an average of these percentile rankings provides the composite score in the right-most column of the table.
432 Each index has its own agenda, which is why I prefer to look at all of them. Jeffrey Sachs, for example, questions the contention in
433 Most oil and gas outfits operating in the northern high latitudes are private multinational companies, except in the Russian Federation, where the industry is increasingly returning to state control.
434 The 2010 Economist Intelligence Unit assessed 140 countries in their global livability index. The four NORC cities making the top ten were Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, and Helsinki; the others were Vienna, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, and Auckland. The world’s lowest-ranked cities were Dakar, Colombo, Kathmandu, Douala, Karachi, Lagos, Port Moresby, Algiers, Dhaka, and Harare. EIU Press Release, “Winter Olympics Host, Vancouver, Ranked World’s Most Liveable City,” February 10, 2010, http://www.eiuresources.com/mediadir/default.asp?PR=2010021001 (accessed February 16, 2010).
435 Indeed, without immigration the populations and labor forces of most European countries will shrink. Germany, for example, now has a total fertility rate of just 1.3 and is in population decline. Western Europe has a total fertility rate of 1.6, which, combined with a growing elderly population, suggests that the European Union must admit 1.1 million immigrants per year just to maintain its current labor force. P. 129, K. B. Newbold,
436 As of 2009 Russia’s total fertility rate was just 1.4 births per woman; the replacement rate is 2.1. Russia’s crude death rate was 16.2 per 1,000 people versus a crude birth rate of 10 per 1,000 people.
437 I. Saveliev, “The Transition from Immigration Restriction to the Importation of Labor: Recent Migration Patterns and Chinese Migrants in Russia,”
438 G. Kozhevnikova, “Radical Nationalism in Russia in 2008, and Efforts to Counteract It,”
439 More precisely, in 2008 the United States granted 1,107,126 people legal permanent resident status, and 1,046,539 were naturalized. There were 175 million visitors, of whom 90% were short-term, e.g., tourists and business travelers, and 10% (3.7 million) were longer-term temporary residents like specialty workers, students, and nurses. Between 2005 and 2008 U.S. border apprehensions ranged from 723,840 to 1,189,031 people per year. Drawn from the following reports by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics: R. Monger, N. Rytina, “U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2008,” Annual Flow Report, March 2009; J. Lee, N. Rytina, “Naturalizations in the United States: 2008,” Annual Flow Report, March 2009; R. Monger, M. Barr, “Nonimmigrant Admissions to the United States: 2008,” Annual Flow Report, April 2009; N. Rytina, J. Simanski, “Apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol: 2005-2008,” Fact Sheet, June 2009; J. Napolitano et al.,
440 Canada admitted 247,243 legal permanent residents in 2008, of whom 149,072 were in the “Economic Class” (skilled workers), 65,567 were in the “Family Class” (reunification), and 32,602 were “Refugees” or “Other” classes. “Facts and Figures 2008—Immigration Overview: Permanent and Temporary residents,” Citizenship and Immigration Canada Web site, www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2008/index.asp (accessed August 22, 2009).
