the council of canadians are driving cars or buses or flying planes around canada using fuels derived from the oil sands...

solar panels (not counting cute little engineering projects) and wind do not work for cars and battery powered big rigs are not available for the mass transportation of goods nor are battery powered cars really available for the common person

the pipleline will be built so let us use that revenue to develop new technology... North America has another 20 - 40 years of oil usage to get through till new, ubiquitous technologies emerge

ps - do not tell me that the council is buying carbon credits to offset their journey because carbon offsets are a complete fraud

The above comment is meant to silence opposition. The same kind of argument was used by slave owners toward abolitionists who drank tea with sugar or happened to wear cotton clothing (all utilizing slave labour). This according to award winning author, Andrew Nikiforuk, whose most recent and highly informative book, The Energy of Slaves, addresses this among other issues. Yes, the Council of Canadians are driving cars, are flying, are traveling by bus, even heating their homes with fossil fuels, but that should not be used as a truncheon to silence discussion.

Let's see, Maude & Christie don't want a pipeline across British Columbia. Okay, so let's shut down the pipeline that carries oil sands bitumen in the form of refined products such as diesel and gasoline to Vancouver from Alberta. So no fuel for cars or trucks or tractors or planes or ships in British Columbia. Well almost, but not quite. It seems British Columbia welcomes into it's ports tanker ships bringing in petroleum products from the United States of America. So those tankers need to be banned from British Columbia waters.
To pre-empt zigsa, I am not trying to silence opposition. I am asking the opposition for consistency: tankers, yes or no? pipelines, yes or no?
That some of us might challenge Al Gore, and the Council of Canadians, and Greenpeace, and Suzuki for using fossil fuels is not to silence discussion: but perhaps those individuals need to address why they use fossil fuels, and perhaps for them to understand that they do so because there is no technically and economically viable alternative.
With regard to "The Energy of Slaves", it was great to see Nikiforuk acknowledge that it is the mass use of fossil fuels that has allowed western society to eliminate slavery. Similarly, it is the wealth of western society derived from fossil fuels that allows citizens in western society to care about the environment. Unfortunately, other than hope that society would not revert to slavery, Nikiforuk offers no ideas on what to do as petroleum use declines.