Ethical Tar Sands, Give Me A Break

[Tonington]

You are probably talking to the only guy on here that has carried on a 25 year boycott of China.

So, you know for a fact that none of the parts in your computer come from China? Colour me skeptical...How about child labour? Or products of Syria? How about Iran?

How far did your model for ethical purchasing go? It must have been very difficult to purchase everything only after thoroughly investigating where all of the components came from, and site of manufacture for the finished product.

 

[Colpy]

So, you know for a fact that none of the parts in your computer come from China? Colour me skeptical...How about child labour? Or products of Syria? How about Iran?

How far did your model for ethical purchasing go? It must have been very difficult to purchase everything only after thoroughly investigating where all of the components came from, and site of manufacture for the finished product.

I don't.

Do you have a point?

As I said, the ethical buying thing gets continually more difficult.............to the point of near impossibility.........which is TOTALLY irrelevant to the conversation.

If our oil is more ethical than the others.........that is a very good thing.

Or would you prefer we enslave some workers??? etc etc etc...?????? I don't get your point at all.

 

[Tonington]

I don't get your point at all.

Obviously....

My point is that ethical oil is a red herring, that it's contrived political messaging that it's adherents obviously don't believe in. Or rather, they only believe in it to say their drug dealer really isn't such a bad guy, not like the other drug dealers.

I mean so what if it's hard Colpy. Boo hoo. That's the thing about true ethics. Sometimes it's hard to do the right thing. If you're not willing to do the right thing, something supposedly ethical, then it's not a very robust set of ethics...


Ezra has pulled the wool over your eyes...yet again.

 

[Avro]

Good Lord! Death?

How do you mean?

I guess you must be burning wood, are ya? Or maybe natural gas?

I suppose you can show me a study that says burning oil cannot cause death or environmental damage.

I have geothermal heating and cooling in my house.

Ethical oil

Ezra better tell lil Stevie to get rid of this page.

 

[Johnnny]

This is nothing new folks.... Ever hear of Blood diamonds? People already have ethical diamonds to look good, and theres a council to regulate it. We already have ethical diamonds... Compared to other countries withbitumen like Venezeula, we come out on top. In terms of sustainable development, exploitation, production and exploration we treat our workers and citizens the fairest and best. Ive never worked in venezeula but i have in other spanish countries in the area and people get there houses bulldozed and are not reimbursed if the said company finds something underground. At least in canada not everyone falls through the cracks...

 

[Avro]

Like I said, less unethical.

 

[Colpy]

Obviously....

My point is that ethical oil is a red herring, that it's contrived political messaging that it's adherents obviously don't believe in. Or rather, they only believe in it to say their drug dealer really isn't such a bad guy, not like the other drug dealers.

I mean so what if it's hard Colpy. Boo hoo. That's the thing about true ethics. Sometimes it's hard to do the right thing. If you're not willing to do the right thing, something supposedly ethical, then it's not a very robust set of ethics...


Ezra has pulled the wool over your eyes...yet again.

You have a point about ethics and difficulty......

But your premise otherwise is nonsense. Oil HAS to be utilized at this point.

Unless you simply want to collapse our economy completely.

And that is NOT going to change quickly.

Sooooo.....those that fight against oil sands development are being UNethical, because they are preventing oil being produced in the most ethical manner in the world.........

If they succeed, the necessary oil will be bought from countries without labour laws, environmental concerns, and will prop up gov'ts with NO concern for human rights.

If you would like to look at it as the lesser of several evils, fine. But the point still stands. Canadian oil is produced in a much more ethical fashion than the alternatives......

Like I said, less unethical.

Okay...I can live with that!!!

I suppose you can show me a study that says burning oil cannot cause death or environmental damage.

I have geothermal heating and cooling in my house.

Ethical oil

Ezra better tell lil Stevie to get rid of this page.

Wonderful that you are in a place where you can get geothermal. Neat stuff .

So....is your car powered by sunlight???

Most of the rest of us would freeze to death without oil...........

 

[Avro]

Wonderful that you are in a place where you can get geothermal. Neat stuff .

So....is your car powered by sunlight???

Most of the rest of us would freeze to death without oil...........

No my car is powered by oil my wifes is a hybrid and I'm in line to get a Volt.....seems it could be a long wait.

Freeze without oil? You can burn something cleaner than that.

I understand the need for oil but the results aren't exactly as Ezra points out. While we have better human rights (although that gets dodgey when you consider our history with native Canadians) selling a product that causes death and damage to the enivironment isn't as saintly as Can'tservatives will tell you. The problem most people have with the tar sands is the rapid expansion of it to satisfy the needs of energy hungry Americans without any thought to the impact to the enivroment and investment in green technologies. The slolution to getting off unethical oil dosen't have to mean finding less unethical oil to burn. Alternative energy could have been kick started 30 years ago but we just sat on ours asses and did nothing....we are doing it again.

 

[damngrumpy]

Did you ever hear the one about...... well there is no better joke then the mere title of this thread.
All the technology in the world is useless if it is not applied and is not the focus of the company
managers who administer it. The place is a mess and the antics being employed recently has
only served to make it worse. I have a lot of friends and relatives working there, you would not
say they are tree hugging environmentalists but, they too are becoming concerned about the way
things are being run. I do believe there can be a way to get the oil without destroying everything.
The problem is the companies don't care about that they are concerned only with the cost and
cheap is ahead of the cleanliness, or environmental safety. I think there has to be substantial
supervision by people that at least have a clue as to what is happening with the legislative teeth to
ensure we the taxpayers don't end up with a cleanup tab that will drag us down for years.
Let me remind you in Cape Breton Nova Scotia, there was an environmental disaster that was in
fact allowed to go unabated for decades and it is a mess. Anyone heard of the Sydney Tar Ponds.
its a hundred years of toxic death and expense that we Canadians will pay for, for a long time.
It is a cleanup requiring billions. The governments past and present did all they could to hide it,
minimize it, ignore it and pacify the people living next to it. Didn't work, eventually they had to address
the issue, and the cleanup goes on costing us all billions. If we miss the boat here in the oil sands
it will be a lot more expensive than that. Forget the environmental damage, how much will taxpayers
be on the hook for? The companies will move on leaving your and I with the bill you can count on that.

 

[relic]

Thank you Mr Grumpy.To me that's where the ethical part comes in,no matter what the "experts" say,the oil companys and the govt are doing as little as possible to minimize the toxic waste from the tar sands.Some folks are happy as clams to believe that they are doing all they can,I've seen their BS adds on tv ,Oh look there's a squirrel"they don't tell you the squirrel has a huge tumer and all his fur is falling out.

 

[TenPenny]

Obviously....

My point is that ethical oil is a red herring, that it's contrived political messaging that it's adherents obviously don't believe in. Or rather, they only believe in it to say their drug dealer really isn't such a bad guy, not like the other drug dealers.

I mean so what if it's hard Colpy. Boo hoo. That's the thing about true ethics. Sometimes it's hard to do the right thing. If you're not willing to do the right thing, something supposedly ethical, then it's not a very robust set of ethics...


Ezra has pulled the wool over your eyes...yet again.

If I'm understanding you correctly, your point is that there is no value to the concept of 'ethical' anything.

Any manufacturing process, even organic farming done by manual labour, has trade offs in the productivity vs environment. Following your logic, the whole concept of any product being 'ethical' is a red herring, a contrived political message.

There certainly would be similar arguments to the concept of fish farming, for example, as we often see.

 

[wulfie68]

As someone born, raised and who lived most of their adult life in Alberta, working in the oilpatch for 20+ years, I KNOW there are things that can be done better. I know there are changes that need to be made. I know some of the changes that are happening are proceeding slower than many would like. I also know things aren't as bad as some portray them. In the end, the point made by Colpy and some others still stands out in this dispute: why should we, pass up an opportunity to provide the world, be the buyers Chinese, American or whatever, with our product and force them to buy from regimes that lack the laws and human rights that we do? Regimes that in some case say that our way of life is something they find abhorent and would forcibly change or eliminate if they could?

 

[captain morgan]

Like I said, less unethical.

I guess that we'll never really know as the most vocal greenie groups never apply any meaningful focus on those nations that could be used as a relative measure.... Kinda makes you wonder why that is, eh?

 

[Cannuck]

So a good question to those that have an "ethical" issue with oil is, do you use it? If so, how do you deal with your own unethical behavior and are you personally doing anything to change your own unethical behavior.

 

[captain morgan]

Obviously....

My point is that ethical oil is a red herring, that it's contrived political messaging that it's adherents obviously don't believe in.

Kinda like Gore, Suzuki and the IPCC?

No my car is powered by oil my wifes is a hybrid and I'm in line to get a Volt.

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back quite yet. Hybrids still rely on gas and oil, let alone the plastics within and the manufacturing process is fueled by some form of hydrocarbon.

Freeze without oil? You can burn something cleaner than that.

Like what?

 

[Avro]

Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back quite yet. Hybrids still rely on gas and oil, let alone the plastics within and the manufacturing process is fueled by some form of hydrocarbon.

I don't think I did that. My wife could be driving a Hummer. The thing is when it comes to the enviroment we are trying to be less unethical.

I know you depend on extremes to make any sort of point but it's a sad reflection of your arguments about burning everything in site or we will all die.....how Al Gore of you.:lol:

Like what?

Natural gas or electric heat from Uranium.

 

[petros]

Call it spin if you want but it is true. Buying oil from the middle east is supporting tyrants.

Going shopping is supporting Communism. Ban Chinese imports!

 

[Cannuck]

Going shopping is supporting Communism. Ban Chinese imports!

...or just don't buy Chinese made products. That's the thing. One can choose not to buy things made with "unethical" oil (if that is what one chooses to call it) or one can explain why they are hypocrites.

 

[petros]

Avro: Freeze without oil? You can burn something cleaner than that.

Capatin Morgan:Like what?

Natural gas or electric heat from Uranium.

LMFAO

...or just don't buy Chinese made products. That's the thing. One can choose not to buy things made with "unethical" oil (if that is what one chooses to call it) or one can explain why they are hypocrites.

What can I buy that is not made in China other than a 2x4?

 

[captain morgan]

I don't think I did that. My wife could be driving a Hummer. The thing is when it comes to the enviroment we are trying to be less unethical.

Why don't you be even less unethical and just walk?..

Don't like that option I suppose?

I know you depend on extremes to make any sort of point but it's a sad reflection of your arguments about burning everything in site or we will all die.....

Funny that you invoke this rhetoric about extremes in accusing others, but if we don't heed your omnipotent advice, we will all die!!

how Al Gore of you.:lol:

Ironic... Just like your messiah Gore, you too rely on oil/gas, etc. in order to fight the good fight and deliver this important message about what everyone else "ought" to do.

Natural gas or electric heat from Uranium.

Here's a wee news flash for ya... Rarely, does one extract nat gas without oil (and oil without gas)... But I do like the nuclear option... What do you propose we do with the spent uranium?.. Can your wife pack it up in her hybtid and dump it off in the woods somewhere?