There is currently something of a debate about the ethics of the oil sands. I’m not talking about whatever idiot celebrity has hitched their wagon to the issue, since they generally are only doing so to attempt to be down with whatever cause celebre is currently seen as ‘cool’. They’re mostly fame mongering whores to begin with, and they aren’t worth the scorn.
I’m talking about the overall ‘Ethical Oil’ movement as a whole. Look, I haven’t exactly been shy in the past about asking questions about oil sands development. And I certainly do believe that we need to start spending some time and money and energy on developing other sources of energy, but that’s for the future. It simply isn’t realistic on any major scale NOW. So NOW we have to deal with oil.
The oil sands are messy. There IS a lot of pollution involved. There IS a lot of ground torn up through what really is strip mining. Such a concentration of industry in one area DOES lead to problems with everything from crime to transient workers to housing and infrastructure. So protesting against that isn’t necessarily evil, BUT…
…by arguing against oil sands development, you are also essentially arguing for other sources of oil. It has to come from somewhere, so if it isn’t from the oil sands, it’s from somewhere else.
And if you genuinely think that replacing that with the alternatives is more ‘ethical’, you are a fucking moron.
There is nothing ethical about massive expansion of oil extraction through major increases in off shore derricks and pipelines and refineries. You wanna complain about oil sands pollution and ecological devastation? This option would dwarf that on a massive scale.
And there is certainly NOTHING ethical about pumping more money in to horrific regimes in the Middle East, Central Europe, Asia and North Africa so that they can turn up the speed on the pumps. Yeah, let’s give the Saudis more money they can throw in to oppressing anyone who isn’t outright Wahhabist Sunni…that’s certainly ‘ethical’.
Where else you getting the oil? Are you going to start ripping up ground in Siberia? Give more money to Hugo fucking Chavez to start tearing in to the Venezuelan oil sands?
Wake the fuck up, you simplistic idiots : THERE ARE NO ETHICAL SOURCES OF OIL. Stop playing pretend and grow the fuck up. The ONLY ethical way for any of this to go down is to start figuring out where we go from here in a realistic fashion. And it would be nice if you used that time and energy that you to maybe promote something actually GOOD and, you know, ETHICAL.
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