In light of the many petitions, marches and stand-ins going on in the US about Canada's "tar-sands", I would like to present some of the other side of the story.
Most of my points are taken from the book "Ethical Oil - The Case For Canada's Oil Sands" by Ezra Levant. Some are from personal knowledge because the oil-sands are where I live and where my man works.
First of all, those calling them "tar-sands" are being intentionally misleading. Tar is a product of distilled coal. It is bitumen in Alberta: a thick oil.
Bitumen has been bubbling out of the ground here for millenia - the Aboriginals traditionally used it to waterproof canoes. There is so much oil oozing naturally into the environment that sometimes the water is clearer closer to the oil-sands operations than further upstream, where a seam of exposed bitumen has been leeching into the water for thousands of years.
The oil-sands cover an area the size of Florida. But only 2% of that area will be mined, the rest is simply too deep. The 2% that is mined will be reclaimed once the oil is pumped out - it's the law in Alberta.
Yes there is recent instances of ducks landing in the tailing ponds when Syncrude's high-tech scarecrow system temporarily stopped working and when a flock of ducks made an emergency landing due to freezing rain. 1600 ducks to be exact. But it's a tiny fraction of the birds killed by wind turbines every year, and the thousands who fly into skyscrapers at night. Syncrude was fined and has just recently purchased a new warning system for the birds - to the tune of $13 million. ( My man was the one who had to buy the freezers to put the dead ducks into, so they could be examined later on.)
Oil-sands companies COMBINED are only allowed to use 2.2% of the Athabasca River's flow. Typically, they use only 1%. It is only the mines that use the water - most operations drill underground for the oil, leaving the forest pristine and the little critters to frolic about above ground. 90% of the water used is re-cycled again.
Oil-sands companies COMBINED emit just 5% of Canada's toal greenhouse gases. That is less than the emissions from Canada's cattle and pigs.
If Americans don't fill up their cars with Canada's gasoline, their gas is going to come from another oil-producing country. After Canada, Saudi Arabia is America's biggest source of oil. I don't think I have to go into the human rights violations of that country. Most of those working in the oil industry in Saudi Arabia are foreign workers - mostly from the Middle East and Asia. Saudi Arabia's legal system, which is based on Sharia Law, seems to catch an extraordinary number of non-Saudi's. In the 20 years preceding 2008, more than half of prisoners executed were foreign workers.
Unless there is a better alternative, demonizing Canadian oil isn't just useless - it can be counter-productive, driving consumers into the hands of oil producers who are worse by every ethical standard.
Case in point: In February 2010, an anti-oilsands lobby group called ForestEthics persuaded 2 large US companies - Whole Foods and Bed Bath and Beyond, to direct their suppliers to use non-oilsands oil. The senior vice-president of Whole Foods declared, "....fuel that comes from tar-sands refineries does not fit our values."
Whole Foods switched to a US based company - Marathon Oil, who owns a 20% stake in oil-sand development and operates in dictatorships like Equatorial Guinea and Libya. Does that fit Whole Food's values?
How many press releases do you think ForestEthics sent out about the ethics of Saudi oil? If you guessed zero - you're right. Which is too bad - not only could Saudi Arabia's endangered forests use the help, but so could it's women and children. Does the treatment of its own citizens and the treatment of the workers in Saudi Arabia fit Whole Food's values?
Putting the oil-sands into perspective means understanding how Alberta operates its industry and how the rest of the world produces oil, too. It means recognizing the tactics and agendas of those who wish to shut the oil-sands down to find out what's really going on.
The question is not whether we should use oil-sands oil instead of some perfect fantasy fuel. The question is whether to use oil fromt he oil-sands or oil from other places int he world that pump it. We need to compare oil-sands oil to its real competitors.