Yet this was the message an advertisement in Canada wanted to drive home. Selling Alberta's massive bitumen deposits to Americans in terms of national security — a reliable energy source from a friendly neighbor - has long been the strategy of the oil industry and Canada's federal government. However, the "ethical oil" argument was recently added to the pitch.
And thus last month, when a pro-industry group began promoting Canada's "ethical" oil sands, it almost sparked a diplomatic row. The ad advocated less usage of “crude” from Saudi Arabia, terming it unethical on account of its record on women's rights. Instead it argued for increased US reliance on Canada's oil sands, being more “ethical.” An issue of ethical vs unethical - the ad attempted at driving home the crude message.
The argument for Canada's oil somehow being more ethical than other producers in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, was first coined and pushed by conservative activist, lawyer Ezra Levant in his book, Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil sands. The book has since essentially become a guidebook for pro-oil sands rhetoric and the Conservative government of Canada. Alykhan Velshi, a former director of communications for current immigration minister Jason Kenney, started ethicaloil.org in order to spread the idea presented in Levant's book.
As per scientist, broadcaster, author, and cofounder of the David Suzuki Foundation, David Suzuki, in his book Ethical Oil Ezra Levant raises an important point about the moral implications of products and activities in the global economy. It was apparently a move to raise ethics to greater prominence in discussions around trade and economics. Questions around social justice, poverty, environment, and violence have (always) propelled movements leading to action against sweatshops and child labor in the garment industry, to fair trade and shade-grown coffee products, to boycotts of California grapes and trade with apartheid South Africa.
But then Suzuki goes on to argue that since Canada does not indulge in violence, murder, oppression of minority groups and women and so on, does that mean its oil is more ethical?
Continuing the argument, Suzuki says, “the application of ethical standards in our purchase and use of products should be applied universally and not selectively. Canada signed the Kyoto Protocol, which became international law. When Jean Chretien signed the document, he did so not as a Liberal but as the prime minister of Canada. This meant that, as a nation, we were committed to achieving the targets set by the agreement. On becoming leader of a minority government, Harper declared his intention to ignore Canada's commitment. Is it ethical to ignore an internationally binding legal commitment? This is even more astonishing in light of Prime Minister Harper's outspoken commitment to law and order.”
Further, he added, “Canada is one of the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases. Our rapidly melting permafrost releases massive amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane, amplifying our contribution to the global crisis of climate change. Alberta's tar sands require enormous amounts of energy and water to extract, further compounding Canada's already excessive emissions. Is there not an ethical component to our demand for a greater share of the earth's atmosphere than most other nations? Rapid exploitation of Canada's tar-sands - by companies from countries including the US, Korea, and China - is not crucial for our nation's survival or even wellbeing, yet we ignore the impact on the rest of the world. If that isn't unethical, I don't know what is,' he argued.
Indeed it is now documented and Suzuki refers to it too that climate change is already causing more extreme fires and weather events, melting glaciers and ice caps, rising sea levels, drought, floods, altered plant and animal distribution, spread of disease, and killer heat waves, to cite just a few impacts. Floods in Pakistan's great river delta, drought across central Africa, and extreme heat in India are killing people who did little or nothing to contribute to the climate crisis.
Despite the Kyoto agreement and international efforts at Copenhagen, this unrelenting rise in greenhouse gas emissions means countries around the world intend to continue contributing to the enormous problems of unpredictable climate extremes and fluctuations that people for generations to come will have to live with. “This is the most unethical practice I can imagine. In the face of overwhelming evidence that human use of fossil fuels is creating an incredible crisis of climate change, wealthy countries like Canada and the US, whose use of these fuels created the massive economic expansion that brought about the climate crisis, are now unwilling to reduce their emissions. It's all in the name of economic growth, not survival or the future for our children and grandchildren. That is not just unethical, it's criminal.”
“In today's world, all fossil fuels are unethical. There is no such thing as ethical oil. People like Ezra Levant, who say they care about ethics, should press for rapid transition from these unethical energy sources to more ethical, equitable, and sustainable sources, such as renewable solar, wind, and geothermal energy.'
Environmentalists see this entire ethical debate differently. They argue the proposed Keystone pipeline would exponentially increase ecological devastation in the wilderness of northern Alberta, where bitumen deposits cover an area the size of Florida. Accessing the 175 billion barrels of proven oil reserves involves massive open-pit mining that moves mountains of soil, fells huge swaths of trees, sucks up rivers of fresh water and produces hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic sludge daily.
Coaxing a barrel of oil from the tar-sands creates three times as much greenhouse gases as producing a barrel of conventional oil. It partly explains why Canada hasn't come close to meeting the carbon emission targets of the Kyoto Protocol. The respected Pembina Institute notes the oil sands are the fastest growing industrial source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. This is no ethical oil, they argue.
In the meantime, the conservative government of Prime Minister Harper has been characteristically silent about a report that calculates the cost of climate change to Canada at $5 billion a year by 2020, and between $21 billion and $43 billion annually by 2050.
The report, written by a group of business leaders and researchers appointed by the federal government, outlines the dramatic effects that a warmer climate will have on the forest industry, coastal flooding and on the health of Canadians. It estimates that hotter temperatures and poorer air quality will account for 1.3 percent of all deaths in Canada's major cities by 2050.
Indeed there is no such thing as ethical oil. Oil is a product to be used, putting into practice human ingenuity. Usage would determine the very ethics and not the product itself. One can't help conceding that there are flaws in the very rhetoric, especially around the environmental implications of the oil sands.
We are living in a capitalist world controlled by the corporates on the Wall Street, let's admit. Ethics don't really matter in this model; what if Barack Hussein Obama is at the helm in Washington!
