Dare to dangle over Niagara Falls

Activists from the local group Rainforest Action Network hung a 70-foot banner over the U.S./Canadian border at Niagara Falls yesterday morning in an effort to pressure President Obama, who will host Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper this morning, to declare our northern neighbor's low-grade crude too dirty to import.

Canada supplies almost a fifth of U.S. oil imports, more than half of which now comes from the Alberta tar sands, making that region the largest single source of U.S. oil imports. Harper has lobbied hard for maintaining, and even increasing, those numbers.

Obama, in his visit to Canada, signaled some skepticism.

Rightly so. Tar sands are just that