At 9:30 a.m. this morning three protesters in climbing gear rappelled down the Calgary Tower and hung a banner reading "SEPARATE OIL AND STATE - GREENPEACE". Check out a video at the Calgary Sun website. The banner challenges the "cozy" relationship between the energy industry and the federal and provincial governments. Calgary is the business heart of Canada's oil industry, so targeting the city for protest makes a lot of sense.

Two more protesters on the sidewalk 626 feet below chained themselves to "dirty oil" barrels -- a reference to the oil that's mined from the infamous Alberta tar sands and much of which is exported to the United States. They wore face masks of Prime Minister Harper and our provincial Premier Ed Stelmach.  Poor Ed; he's had a lot to deal with lately.  The RETHINK ALBERTA campaign got his blood pressure up, and now this.

The banner was removed at 11:20 a.m. and the protesters soon after. Eight people were arrested, including a young man who police say participated by buying tickets to go up the Tower. It's $14.00 plus GST to go up, so clearly he meant business.

Reaction from the street was mixed according to the C.B.C. radio interviews I heard.  Some Calgarians supported the protest, saying it's a "wake-up call", others complained about the waste of taxpayers' money in having to deal with dumb protest.  

To me this seems like a harmless and effective action. Greenpeace Alberta have been increasingly organizing around the Tar Sands; there have been similar events in Fort MacMurray and Edmonton in recent years. After more than four decades of quiet operation, energy producers who mine the Tar Sands are now on the radar. And stunts like this do a lot to call attention both at home and abroad to the reality of the challenges we're facing.

The protest has a clear message: "SEPARATE OIL AND STATE".  The federal and particularly the provincial Alberta government are deep in with the energy industry.  Both levels of government exercise a Saudi level of secrecy over details of the mess that mining the Tar Sands has caused. Managing public perception of oil sands production has become an obsession for the Alberta government, who haven't realized that we here in Alberta don't have a public image problem, we have a deadly serious environmental problem.  

The Calgary Tower (formerly the Husky Tower, sponsored by Calgary energy company Husky Oil) has been the scene of many stunts -- authorized and not -- since its 1968 opening. In 1999 a cowboy took his horse up the elevator (authorized).  And in 1975 Cal Cavendish, a pilot and singer, buzzed the Tower and dumped manure on downtown Calgary (unauthorized).  And just last year mountaineer Byron Smith and television personality Brett Wilson from "Dragon's Den" rappelled off the Twoer for charity (authorized).  Maybe that's where Greenpeace got the idea.