Tagged: Oil sands

The ethics of Ezra Levant’s Ethical Oil in 2 tweets

Here is Sun News Network’s Ezra “Mr Day, can Logan come out and play?” Levant chastising children’s singer Raffi “Don’t mention that Beluga” Cavoukian that there is a moral choice to be made over where one chooses to purchase oil from. Levant – coiner of the term “Ethical Oil” – feels that oil produced in Canada’s Tar Sands (Canada being a country with a strong human rights record) is morally superior to oil produced in countries such as Libya, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia, countries whose human rights records are very much less [cough] than sterling.

Me being me I decide to set aside whether there are other considerations – such as massive environmental damage – that might also play a part when determining the morality of Canada’s oil and to take Levant’s stance on it’s own terms. So, sez me, “If you truly believe Saudi oil is unethical, why aren’t you advocating for a ban on Saudi imports?” And Twitter being Twitter I get a response back:

Ah, you see! It would be nice, but if we don’t buy Saudi oil then someone else will so we might as well buy it. If we are to believe the United States and Canada bans oil imports from Iran for moral, rather than political, reasons then Levant’s “ethical argument” falls apart internally. We are buying Saudi oil because China and India would just buy it anyway but we won’t buy Iran’s oil…even though China and India are buying it anyway.

Er….huh? If Levant was truly concerned about morality he would argue for the purchase of Canada’s oil exclusively.

You could waste a lot of time arguing over what country is more “moral” – absolutist Saudi Arabia with it’s beheadings and stonings or limited democracy Iran with it’s stonings. Suffice it to say both countries have problematic human rights records and lengthy sections on both Amnesty International’s and Human Rights Watch’s websites that it’s a toss up. The only difference between the two is Saudi Arabia is the West’s ally while Iran is not.

Which makes the ethics of Ezra Levant’s Ethical Oil extremely…relative.

It’s almost as if it’s not really a question of morality than one of marketing…to a domestic Canadian audience that a sizable portion of which does take other considerations – such as massive environmental damage – to determine the cost, moral and otherwise, of Tar Sand oil.

Now this has been pointed out by others before, but it’s funny to see Ezra Levant’s argument collapse upon itself in 2 tweets.

Compare and contrast – Tarsands edition

Do di do…oooo…what do we have here:

A blueprint for a national energy strategy that emerged from a meeting of Canada’s energy ministers was good news for Alberta’s oil and gas industry. Among the key points that will resonate are regulatory reform aimed at cutting red tape, and the need to diversify Canada’s markets beyond the U.S.

Huzzah! I hate red tape!

Implicit in the latter is support for Enbridge’s proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline, which would transport 525,000 barrels of bitumen a day from the oilsands to Kitimat on the B.C. coast.

I see. Sounds good. What could possibly go wrong! Do di do….ooo..what’s this?

Pembina Pipeline Corp. is reporting a leak in its oil pipeline in the Swan Hills area, about 100 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Cleanup crews are at the site. No details are available, but there has been a media report that about 1,000 barrels have been spilled.

R’uh oh! Still…pretty rare, eh? Not something we’ll have to concern ourselves…ummm…what’s this?

The federal government will slash funding to the environmental agency that evaluates potentially harmful policies and projects before they get the green light….And if the trend in declining funds and employees continues, Canada could experience a series of environmental disasters, as government loses access to valuable information about proposed resource projects

Oh my! Why would you slash oversight right when you’re about to engage in a massive expansion?

The conference sold sponsorships to major energy companies and lobby groups, including the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Oil Sands Developers Group, Nexen, TransCanada Pipelines, Cenovus Energy, Devon, Enbridge, Encana, Shell, the Canadian Electricity Association, the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.

It was a major gaffe in optics, with sponsors’ names prominent at the news conference podiums Oliver and Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert used. This isn’t NASCAR, it’s a meeting of government ministers. The sponsorship issue only gave fodder to critics’ accusations that government is in industry’s pockets.

Paging Vivian Krause…paging Vivian Krause….there are foreigners and large corporations interfering in the Canadian political process! And by “interfering in” I mean “buying”.

I’m sure she’ll write some fair and possibly balanced questions about all this very soon.

Update: Victoria Times-Colonist op-ed “The unseemly premiers”

“Ethical” op-eds

I’m really beginning to wonder if the Vancouver Sun editorial staff have gone missing or are vacation or something, such is the frequency of guest appearances on our local paper’s editorial page from the Calgary Herald. Today we are graced with Alberta oil is ‘ethical’. Right. The gist: Oil produced from Alberta’s tar sands, by way of Canada’s human rights and overall environmental record, is “ethically” superior to oil produced in the other large oil-producing nations. Oh, and the claims of the Tar Sand opposing activists are false.

Such is laziness of the writers they don’t even bother with constructing strawmen. What are these “false” claims of these perfidious activists? Who knows…they are false. Ipso facto. But ah-hah, the editorialist has found an environmentalist to agree with them!

That environmentalist is Patrick Moore. While noting Moore left the green movement it doesn’t note when: 1986. It also doesn’t mention his subsequent controversial and lucrative career speaking on behalf of corporate causes. But that is neither here nor there.

The human rights angle is a red herring. Are human rights arguments being leveled at the Alberta Tar Sands? No. Are environmental groups required to utilize human rights arguments? No. Environmental groups use environmental arguments. Human rights groups use human right arguments.

But isn’t it better to purchase oil from Canada than, say, Saudi Arabia the way some argue it’s better to purchase Fair Trade coffee (which, btw, lots of conservative think is bunk)? One has to remember that, while Canada benefits from royalities, oil isn’t purchased from “Canada”. It’s purchased from oil companies. And guess what? The oil companies in the Tar Sands are the same oil companies in the Middle East, Nigeria, Venezuela, etc.

For example: Royal Dutch Shell. Shell has a presence in the Alberta Tar Sands. Shell also has a presence in amongst many other places, Nigeria.

The WikiLeaks disclosure was today seized on by campaigners as evidence of Shell’s vice-like grip on the country’s oil wealth. “Shell and the government of Nigeria are two sides of the same coin,” said Celestine AkpoBari, of Social Action Nigeria. “Shell is everywhere. They have an eye and an ear in every ministry of Nigeria. They have people on the payroll in every community, which is why they get away with everything. They are more powerful than the Nigerian government.”

And while we are told the aforementioned House of Saud is too heinous to purchase oil from, they are apparently not heinous enough to sell them weapons. In fact, they’re Canada’s 3rd largest customer for arms.

Ah, ethics.

Mowing the astroturf

The Dogwood Initiative’s Will Horter got to respond in the pages of the Sun to Vivian Krause’s, um, theories and I think he does a good job of demolishing the illogic and inconsistency of her arguments. As he points out, continuing the oil tanker ban is supported by the overwhelming majority of British Columbians, including key industries like fishing and tourism. Those that support lifting the ban are backed by a corporate consortium whose members have not, to date, been identified, and who are outspending those opposed by a hundred to one. As they say, read the whole thing and judge for yourself.

In the comments of the Georgia Straight, Vivian Krause wrote:

Whether its philanthropic money or corporate money, I believe that the origin should be disclosed.

To my knowledge, she has never publicly called for the identities of the corporations backing the Enbridge project to be made public.

I would only add that in her December 18th article Oil tanker ban plays into hands of U.S. foundations Krause makes the specific claim:

But no, U.S. foundations are only funding a tanker ban campaign for a strategic part of the B.C. coast

In just 30 seconds of Googling I discovered the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation – a foundation prominently mentioned by Krause – gave a grant of $148,348 to the Alaska Conservation Foundation who advocate for – you guessed it – “limiting ocean contaminants and industrial development – including offshore oil development – in polar seas.” If the aim is secure America’s oil supply, they’re doing it wrong…yadda yadda…

I also note with some amusement that in Harvey Oberfeld’s version of this story, it’s not a shadowy U.S. conspiracy to thwart oil exports to Asia, but an anti-American plot to thwart oil tanker traffic to the United States.

It’s simply a crude fabrication…

What is? This…

“Canada’s oil sands industry operates within some of the most stringent and comprehensive regulations for resource development anywhere in the world.”

As I have brought up before, and how The Tyee outlines fully today, not according to 3 reports by the nation’s leading science body and the government’s own scientists and advisors. AKA…Environment Canada’s Oilsands Advisory Panel, the Royal Society of Canada and Ottawa’s commissioner of the environment.

Couple this with Transport Canada’s alarming calculations for the likelihood of oil tanker spills and the general lack of preparedness for such by the relevant maritime authorities.

But The Tyee has received donations from the Endswell Foundation, and even though it links directly to the reports so people can see and judge for themselves, ipso facto it must be an arm of the C.I.A.

Why would anyone be worried about the Tar Sands?

Federal and provincial governments have contributed to public distrust of the oil sands by failing to properly monitor the environmental impacts, a high-level panel says…

…“Until this situation is fixed, there will continue to be uncertainty and public distrust in the environmental performance of the oil sands industry and government oversight,” it said.

The panel, appointed by former environment minister Jim Prentice, is the latest to point out the serious shortcomings in regulatory oversight.

Cough. How on Earth could Canadians independently conclude the Alberta Tar Sands are not sound and might, possibly, not be in our overall long-term national interest?

If not for the modest financial contributions of American philanthropic foundations, such unease amongst the citizenry would not exist! A clear case of green brainwashing if ever I saw one!