Outside the White House today, two women wore Saudi-style burqas and held signs attacking Canada and its oil sands. They marched, they chanted, they handed out leaflets, and they posed for photographs. You can view photos of their protest here. They even released a statement to the media, which read:
"For more than 40 years, we Americans have powered our businesses, fueled our cars, and made our lives more comfortable with the help of OPEC oil. We think that special relationship is worth protecting. Every barrel of oil we buy from Canada undermines our support for our traditional OPEC allies by displacing OPEC imports. We appreciate, and are grateful for the fact that Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates have kept America supplied with oil, reasonably consistently, for decades. We have come to depend on our OPEC friends and they have come to depend on us. That's no way to treat a friend. Americans4OPEC was founded to let our political leaders know that we cherish that special relationship. We don't need new sources of oil as long as we can continue being supplied by existing sources. That's why Americans4OPEC is speaking out for America's best interests -- telling President Obama that we don't want Canada's oil. Join us, Americans4OPEC, in standing up against Canada's oil and standing up for our valuable, longtime OPEC allies."
If their website, Americans4OPEC.com, strikes you as a bit absurd, it's because it is. Americans4OPEC.com is a satire, and the protest was a bit of street theatre. (Perhaps the real acting of these women in burqas has provided some inspiration to the many D-listers now achieving media celebrity not through their acting talents but through political activism against Canada and its oil sands.)
The protest's message is simple: As long as we need oil -- and we will for at least the next few decades -- people, businesses, and governments have a choice to make: Ethical Oil from Canada, its oil sands, and other liberal democracies, or Conflict Oil from politically oppressive, environmentally reckless regimes.
Most people don't think about oil as something that can be ethical. They should. Many of us drink fair trade coffee because we like that it's produced ethically; we don't want to wear clothes made using child labour; and we try to eat poultry that is raised humanely. Surely the same logic applies to oil.
Conflict oil is produced by countries that persecute women and minorities, like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Conflict oil is produced on the backs of exploited workers, where labour unions are outlawed and indentured servitude is the norm. Conflict oil comes from places without freedom of the press. Conflict oil is used to fund terrorism and wars. And when you're as indifferent to the value of human life as the producers of the world's conflict oil are, you don't put much value on wildlife, either: that's why conflict oil is the most environmentally destructive oil on the planet, spilling billions of barrels of oil into our waters with impunity and belching the dirtiest pollutants into our atmosphere.
By contrast, ethical oil from Canada's oil sands and other liberal democracies is produced by workers who are not only free to unionize, but are paid good wages and work in safe conditions. Ethical oil comes from places where women and minorities are not just given equal rights but are actively recruited by firms eager to increase the diversity of their workforce. Ethical oil comes from producers who work every day to minimize their environmental impact. Ethical oil comes from the most robust democracies, where journalists -- or any citizen -- can freely and vocally criticize even the most powerful people in the land without being tortured or worse. Ethical oil comes from countries -- like Canada -- that promote peace.
Before the end of the year, President Obama will approve or reject the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Here is hoping President Obama says yes to Keystone XL, the better to wean Americans off their dependence on conflict oil by promoting an ethical oil alternative: Canada's oil sands.
Rachel Ryan: Daryl Hannah: You Are Free to Protest. Saudi Women Are Not
Canadian campaign puts the spin on 'ethical oil' | Leo Hickman ...
Selling 'ethical oil' - Ben Smith - POLITICO.com
i assume you'll share with the people of the mikisew cree first nation and many others that the cancers and asthma overtaking their communities since the tar sands began development are "ethical."
and how destroying land that still belongs to them under treaties by ripping up the pristine forest, scorching the earth, and leaving behind toxic sludge full of mercury, arsenic, and other poisons is "ethical."
and that when their own people are being recruited to sacrifice themselves for massive exposure to the deadly mix of chemicals injected forcefully into the earth and left behind to seep into the ground and the aquifers... it's a canadian job, so it's "ethical."
and maybe you'll explain why you selected an image for this article showing a scant group of protesters to the pipeline, rather than showing the truth of the multiple hundreds gathered there to support over 200 (of a two-week total of 1,252) getting arrested to bring attention to the need to stop the pipeline.
do you have the guts to tell them to their faces, on their very land, how cultural genocide by destroying the environment and the very people who cared for it in alberta for countless generations is "ethical"?
Way to try and capitalize on the already racially-charged debate over the place for Islamic culture in America. I don't think that's very ethical.
Additionally, "Fair Trade" practices include protection of the environment and respect for the already existing cultures and economies of the indigenous peoples involved. Clearly, the tar sands oil project reflects none of those values.
ExxonMobil is already spending tens of millions of dollars saturation-bombing the airwaves of American TV attempting to convince viewers that fracking for natural gas and increasing the output of tar sands sludge will be safe and wonderously benefit us all.
And now you're introducing the term "ethical oil".
But, thank you. Knowing that your highly effective public relations skills are being utilised to promote the Keystone XL pipeline spurs me to re-double my efforts at signing petitions and emailing my friends, my congressional representatives, Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama in order to stop this project.
For a more thorough debunking of the false dichotomy and xenophobia promoted by the 'ethical oil' campaign see:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/cameron-fenton/ethical-oil-ad-campaign_b_919813.html
The Oil sands are not Canadian anymore, they were sold to China.
Is China ethical?
All ecosystems and their native species of animals and plants or biological diversity are in the eco-nomics of releasing oxygen, balancing the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, naturally regulating and moderating the climate while sequestering heat trapping gases, creating and renewing a living soil, creating the nitrogen cycle, the hydrological system, purifying the air and water and providing decomposition...
seed dispersal, pollination, 75% of all new medicines, 99% of all pest control, and the regulation and trimming of human disease pathogens that spawn global disease pandemics, like influenza. All ecosystems have feedbacks and loops to the atmosphere and the climate, and all ecosystems altogether create the Earth's lifezone or the biosphere. And, all species of biological diversity are the creators and maintainers of all ecosystems.
We don't need the dirty oil to make more plastic crap. That is what the dirty oil will be used for and yes, it has been researched.
"We The People" will soon be signing discharge petitions through the White House to bring this to an end.
I would think that you and every American reading this including "Corporate America" would think that our LIVES are far more important than DIRTY OIL and PLASTIC...
Terrestrial ecosystems are in the eco-nomics of oxygen releasing, the atmosphere, the climate, fresh water and rainfall and cooling evapotranspiration that cools leaves, the soil and the surrounding area, the nitrogen cycle and a long list of man's lifelines, which also includes his protection from global disease pandemics and the creation of the lifezone of the Earth or the biosphere/ecosphere. Oil, cars and financial economies provide none of the preceding life giving ecosystem services, cycles and systems.
The Earth's native species of plant and animal biological diversity are the creators and maintainers of all ecosystems, the care givers and life producers of man's only spaceship. Concrete, oil, bulldozers, pipes and chain saws are all dead planet, as life giving as the surface of Mars. Therein is the problem. And the dead planet is winning as many scientists believe, each day Earth becomes more like Mars.