Ezra Levant Author & Commentator Ethical Oil: the Case for Canada’S Oil Sands

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Ezra Levant Author & Commentator Ethical Oil: the Case for Canada’S Oil Sands Ezra Levant Author & Commentator Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands Date & Time: Ezra Levant asks the questions that Monday, November 29, 2010 Greenpeace doesn't want asked: if we 12 noon don't sell oilsands oil to the United States, Place: where will it buy its oil from instead? And Oak Room are those other oil producers more ethical Hotel Saskatchewan than we are? 2125 Victoria Ave, Regina Levant uses liberal yardsticks to measure Price: the ethics of oil production: $30 for a Reserved Seat environmentalism, $150 for a Table of 6 peace, fair wages and How to Register (before Nov 25th): human rights. And he ON-LINE: www.fcpp.org comes to a bold conclusion: if we want to make E-MAIL: [email protected] the world a cleaner, more peaceful, fairer place, PHONE: 204-977-5050 or we must pump as much oil out of the oilsands as toll free 877-219-0033 ext. 1 we possibly can. FAX this form to: 204-957-1570 Ezra Levant is a lawyer, journalist, and political activist. As the publisher of Western Standard magazine, he was charged by the Government of Alberta for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. He is the author of four books, including Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights, which was a national bestseller. His latest bestseller is Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands. Method of Payment: make cheque out to Frontier Centre for Public Policy Name _____________________________________________ Cheque Visa Company __________________________________________ Address ___________________________________________ MasterCard Amex __________________________________________________ Card # ___________________________________________ Phone_____________________________________________ Expiry Date _______________________________________ E-mail _____________________________________________ Signature_________________________________________ # of Seats _____________ or # of Tables _________________ Name on Card_ ____________________________________ Names ____________________________________________ REGISTRATION & CANCELLATION POLICY: Registration must be made before Nov 25th to hold seats. __________________________________________________ Substitutions are allowed. Sorry, no refunds. Broadening the debate - Winner of The Templeton Foundation Award for Think Tank Excellence - Frontier Centre for Public Policy .
Recommended publications
  • FEBRUARY 2012.Qxd
    BEYOND KYOTO AND KEYSTONE Robin V. Sears It's time for Canada's absolutists on energy, the economy and the environment to lay down their rhetorical arms. It’s time to find a path forward that works for all Canadians, argues Contributing Writer Robin Sears, in a look back at the journey from Kyoto to the Keystone XL pipeline and a preview of the issues that lie ahead. Il est temps pour nos absolutistes des questions énergétiques, économiques et environnementales de ranger leur arsenal rhétorique, tout comme il nous faut sans délai tracer une voie qui rassemblera tous les Canadiens, plaide notre collaborateur Robin Sears, qui refait le parcours de Kyoto au projet de pipeline Keystone XL et donne un aperçu des enjeux à venir. hen political rhetoric reduces complex policy even the most distinguished statesmen. This set of decisions to light switch choices, the outcome is issues, often grouped under the umbrella of culture wars, W usually poisonous or paralyzing. Good/bad has pushed politicians to govern as if the slogan were choices in government are always rare, and in times of fis- policy — or worse, to be paralyzed by fear of voter retri- cal austerity the choices are always more nuanced. There is bution into permanent inaction. Health care reform, the no good or bad choice in deciding whether to cut spending war on drugs and religious schools are on the Canadian on nurses, soldiers or highway maintenance. If partisanship list. Americans would add abortion, gun ownership, makes it painful to do the right thing, most governments immigration, taxes and constitutional fundamentalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Dirty Oil, Snake Oil: Categorical Illegitimacy of Alberta’S Oil Sands
    Dirty Oil, Snake Oil: Categorical Illegitimacy of Alberta’s Oil Sands Lianne Lefsrud School of Business, University of Alberta 2-24 Business Building Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2R6 Tel: 780.951.3455 E-mail: [email protected] Heather Graves Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta 4-49 Humanities Centre Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E5 Tel: 780.492.6030 E-mail: [email protected] Nelson Phillips Tanaka Business School, Imperial College South Kensington Campus London SW7 2AZ Tel: 44 (0) 20 7594 1699 E-mail: [email protected] Paper submitted to Sub-theme 24: Organizations as Phenomena of Language Use Interconnecting Discourse and Communication 28th EGOS Colloquium 2012 - DESIGN!? July 5–7, 2012, Aalto University & Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki ABSTRACT Organizational research has focussed almost exclusively on legitimate categories of practices, strategies, and structures while neglecting the strategic creation and use of illegitimate categories. In order to begin to address this gap, we draw on social semiotics to explore how illegitimate categorizations are dialectical, embedded within symbolic systems of meaning and emotion, and used to affect organizations’ performance. More specifically, we analyse how the categorical illegitimacy of a controversial energy source – oil from Alberta’s oil sands – is visually constructed and inter-textually contested by organizations taking a discursive stake in this field. In doing so, we offer an approach for bridging field-level “organization as communication” (Boje, Oswick & Ford, 2004) and organizational-level “communication as constitutive of organizations” (Ashcraft, Kuhn & Cooren, 2009) perspectives. KEYWORDS: social semiotics, (il)legitimacy, categorization, emotion, visual rhetoric, imagery Please note that this is super-preliminary research.
    [Show full text]
  • Canadian Boom, Environmental Bust: the Tar Sands of Alberta
    University of Hawai‘i at Hilo · Hawai‘i Community College HOHONU 2012 Vol. 10 production from this area is about 1.3 mb/d and is Canadian Boom, Environmental projected to reach 3 mb/d by 2018 (Timoney & Ronconi, Bust: The Tar Sands of Alberta 2010, p. 569; Schindler, 2010, p. 500). Christina Blakey, [email protected] To depths of up to 75m, strip mining takes Political Science 335, Fall 2011, UHH place. First the forest must be cut, muskeg drained and overburden removed to reveal the oil sands, and “Resources are not, they become.” then the ground is excavated (Ruby, 2010, p. 28). The – Erich Zimmermann clumps of tar sands are then brought by massive trucks to a crusher where it is combined with warm water, The high price of oil has made the tar sands (also chemicals and turbulence to release the bitumen which known as “oil sands”) of Alberta a viable, and profitable, is then separated from the tailings (Gray et al., 2009, p. source of petroleum for Canada. There is a consensus 32). At depths beyond 75m, steam-injection wells are that the days of “easy oil” are over; this, coupled with the drilled which heats the bitumen to 250 °C to lower the rising global demand for fossil fuels, has paved the way viscosity enough to pump the oil to the surface; the for Canada to capitalize on their resource – one that was heating process can take several days (Gray et al., p. once thought too costly to extract on a large scale. This 34-35).
    [Show full text]
  • “This Is Oil Country”: the Alberta Tar Sands and Jacques Ellul's Theory
    Spring 2015 75 “This is Oil Country”: The Alberta Tar Sands and Jacques Ellul’s Theory of Technology Nathan Kowalsky and Randolph Haluza-DeLay* The Alberta tar sands, and the proposed pipelines which would carry their bitumen to international markets, comprise one of the most visible environmental controversies of the early twenty-first century.Jacques Ellul’s theory of technology presents ostensibly physical phenomena, such as the tar sands, as social phenomena wherein all values are subsumed under the efficient mastery of nature. The effect of technological rationality is totalizing because technical means establish themselves as the exclusive facts of the matter, which creates a socio-political environment wherein ethical engagement is precluded. Analyzing the tar sands controversy through Ellul’s hermeneutic challenges environmental ethics to a more radical stance than the continuation of the technological worldview, and thus offers meaningful and hopeful alternatives to the status quo. I. INTRODUCTION From 30 August through 3 September 2011, 1,253 people were arrested in front of the White House in what was reported to be the “largest act of civil disobedience by environmentalists in decades.”1 They were protesting the Keystone XL pipeline which, if the State Department found it to be in the American national interest, would be approved to carry oil from the Alberta tar sands2 across the Canada/U.S. * Nathan Kowalsky, Philosophy, St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2J5, Canada; email: [email protected]. Kowalsky’s research interests include environmental philosophy and ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of culture, and philosophy of technology.
    [Show full text]
  • Environmental Impact Assessment of Oil and Gas Industry in Niger Delta, Nigeria: a Critical Environmental and Legal Framework Assessment
    ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY IN NIGER DELTA, NIGERIA: A CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK ASSESSMENT by Iheriohanma Valerian Ibeawuchi Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia August 2016 © Copyright by Iheriohanma Valerian Ibeawuchi, 2016 DEDICATION TO: My Parents: Jacinta Iheriohanma and in memoriam of my Dad My Family: Chima Iheriohanma, Chigozie Iheriohanma, Mimi Kaima Iheriohanma, Assumpta Ezetulu, Kelechi Onyegbule and Chioma Ekem ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................vii LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... viii ABSTRACT……… ........................................................................................................ x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS USED .................................................. xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................ xiv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2. OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER 3. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 5 3.1. History of Oil Production ..................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Energy Pipelines and New Right Politics in Ca
    Managing Dissent: Energy Pipelines and “New Right” Politics in Canada Kathleen Raso & Robert Joseph Neubauer Simon Fraser University AbstRAct This article explores the political controversy surrounding the proposed Northern Gateway bitumen pipeline by analyzing the modalities through which elite rationalities struc - ture public news discourse. First, through a news analysis, the authors identify the most com - mon pro-approval actors cited speaking in favour of the project. Next, they identify the most prominent pro-approval civil society sources and ascertain their level of embeddedness in conservative discourse coalitions. Finally, the authors identify the dominant framing tech - niques that disproportionately structure the public discourse around the Gateway project. The article ultimately argues that over-reliance on “official sources,” the prominence of in - dustry-backed civil society organizations, and the influence of hegemonic discourses on jour - nalistic practice all conspire to structure the public discourse on Northern Gateway in favour of elite preferences and rationalities. KeywoRds Corporate communication; Public relations; Agenda setting; Political commu - nication; Environmental journalism RÉsUMÉ Cet article explore la controverse politique entourant l’oléoduc de bitume proposé par Northern Gateway en analysant les modalités selon lesquelles les rationalités d’élites structurent le discours tenu dans les médias d’information. D’abord, au moyen de l’analyse de nouvelles, les auteurs identifient les acteurs appuyant l’oléoduc que les médias citent le plus souvent. Ensuite, ils identifient les sources de la société civile les plus en vue et évaluent leur degré d’appartenance à des coalitions conservatrices. Enfin, les auteurs identifient certaines techniques de cadrage qui jouent un rôle disproportionné dans la structuration du discours public à l’égard du projet Gateway.
    [Show full text]
  • Oil, Climate Change, and Complicity
    ENERGY WITHOUT CONSCIENCE This page intentionally left blank ENERGY WITHOUT CONSCIENCE Oil, Climate Change, and Complicity David McDermott Hughes Duke University Press Durham and London 2017 © 2017 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper ♾ Cover designed by Matthew Tauch Typeset in Arno Pro & Meta by Graphic Composition, Inc., Bogart, GA. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Hughes, David McDermott, author. Title: Energy without conscience : oil, climate change, and complicity / David McDermott Hughes. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016035965 (print) | lccn 2016037765 (ebook) isbn 9780822363064 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 9780822362982 (pbk. : alk. paper) isbn 9780822373360 (e-book) Subjects: lcsh: Energy industries—Environmental aspects. | Energy industries—Moral and ethical aspects. | Slavery— Trinidad and Tobago—Trinidad—History. | Petroleum industry and trade—Colonies—Great Britain. | Petroleum industry and trade—Trinidad and Tobago—Trinidad. Classification: lcc hd9502.t72 h84 2017 (print) | lcc hd9502.t72 (ebook) | ddc 338.2/72820972983—dc23 lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016035965 Cover credit: Close-up of pitch at the world's largest natural pitch lake, Trinidad, 2007. Photo © Robert Harding. FOR JESSE AND SOPHIA This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 PART I. ENERGY WITH CONSCIENCE 1. Plantation Slaves, the First Fuel 29 2. How Oil Missed Its Utopian Moment 41 PART II. ORDINARY OIL 3. The Myth of Inevitability 65 4. Lakeside, or the Petro- pastoral Sensibility 95 5. Climate Change and the Victim Slot 120 Conclusion 141 Notes 153 References 165 Index 183 This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As a scholar of southern Africa, I came to Trinidad and Tobago rather un- prepared.
    [Show full text]
  • Wetland Loss and Degradation: the Hidden Costs of Ethical Oil
    Wetland Loss and Degradation: The Hidden Costs of Ethical Oil Photo: Peter Essick Rebecca Rooney1,2, Suzanne Bayley2, Dustin Raab2 1Dept Biology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada 2 Dept of Biological Sci, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada [email protected] Ethical oil • Ezra Levant (2010) Ethical oil: the case for Canada’s oil sands – Political oppression – Human rights – Canada vs. OPEC • How to prioritize human and environmental ethical factors? • Oil companies operating in Alberta are the same ones in China and the middle east. • What are the costs? Wetlands in the oil sands area Rooney, Bayley, and Schindler (2012) PNAS, 109: 4933-4937. • Boreal Plain • 475,000 ha is mineable • 99% leased • ~170,000 ha approved (10) Oil sands accessed by strip mining Edward Burtynsky Google Earth Image 0.33 and 0.63 m2 of land 1m3 of oil produced 12 km 49,700,000 m3 produced in 2010 > 16.4 km2 Data from Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resources Development Public liability Uncertainty of reclamation success The area of disturbed land that still needs to be reclaimed • Lots of peatland • Little upland • Little open water Pre-mining, the region is 62% peatland Suncor 2010 • No peatland • Mainly upland • End pit lakes and stream network Suncor 2010 Wetland loss 1) Peatland dominated landscape will be replaced with a few, sub- saline, shallow open water marshes. Photo: Suzanne Bayley 2004 Reclaimed forest It will take time for trees to mature Constructed riparian area Constructed marsh • 4 mines provided comparable baseline
    [Show full text]
  • Tar Sands / Oil Sands
    English 1130 Academic Writing Case 4: Tar sands/oil sands Reading Log Part One: We’ve discussed the ways Logos arguments (facts, stats, logic) can be used to lend legitimacy and veracity to an argument. However, the presence of facts, stats, data does not inherently mean that an argument is more sound; indeed, the very same facts can be used to support competing arguments. Logos is one strategy among many, and it’s important to distinguish between using Logos as a strategy, and simply assuming that facts and statistics are automatically better than other kinds of argument. Take a look at the first two news releases in the case (“High Cancer Rates Among Fort Chipewyan Residents” and “Fort Chipewyan Cancer Study Findings Released”), and compare the ways each article uses the Alberta Health Services study on cancer in Fort Chipewyan. Both rely on the same data, which you can explore in the executive summary of the study. How does each news release arrive at its version of the story? What differences (in order, placement of information, emphasis) do you see between the two articles? Circle important contrasting details and note down differences in how the articles each use the data: We’ve said that a word or concept can be like a package or a container. It may look small on the outside, but open up a concept and you find there is a lot more inside it than you may have expected before you began. Since we live in a complex world, we need complex, careful thinking to be able to understand what is happening around us.
    [Show full text]
  • An Analysis of the Alberta Oil Sands Industry's Metaphorical Discourse
    Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development Vol. 14, Iss. 2 (2015), Pp. 46–70 “Sustainability As:” An Analysis of the Alberta Oil Sands Industry’s Metaphorical Discourse Megan Nicole Berry Institute of Environmental Sustainability Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta [email protected] Abstract An analysis of Alberta’s oil sands industry’s sustainability perspectives from a communication, and specifically metaphorical, standpoint is a valuable endeavour due to the importance of the oil sands (both in Alberta and elsewhere) today with the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. Learning how sustainability is used and conceptualized by the industry will reward us with a more comprehensive understanding of how to approach sustainable development in industry. Moreover, analysing the industry’s sustainability metaphors in a systematic manner will allow a greater variety of metaphors to be introduced and investigated, allowing us to more succinctly articulate metaphorical conceptualizations of sustainability, sustainable and energy development, environmentalism, nature, and the oil sands themselves. Author’s Note Sustainability has been an ongoing interest of mine and this, combined with my affection for picking apart language, made this research too good of an opportunity to pass up. This work was funded by a grant from the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is part of a larger project that looks at metaphors not only in industry documents, but also in non-profit, government, and mass media discussions. It is obvious to me that to get anywhere with sustainable development we need to first understand what it is, and as metaphors are constantly used to conceptualize sustainability, we must analyse such metaphors.
    [Show full text]
  • Harper's Shell Game
    Harper’s Shell Game Why Tar Sands Pipelines Are Not in Canada’s National Interest Research and writing Keith Stewart works on energy policy and green energy solutions for Greenpeace Canada, building on 14 years of experience as an environmental researcher and advocate. He has a Ph.D. in political science from York University and currently teaches a course on Energy Policy and the Environment at the University of Toronto. Acknowledgements Greenpeace Canada would like to thank our 86,000 Canadian supporters who fund everything we do, including this report. Without your individual and ongoing support Greenpeace could not function independently of government or corporate funding. We would also like to thank the Oak Foundation for its support of Greenpeace Canada’s climate and energy campaign. About Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent, campaigning organization which uses non-violent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to force the solutions which are essential to a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace’s goal is to ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity. Greenpeace is not affiliated with any political party. We do not solicit or accept donations from corporations or governments, in order that we may always act on behalf of the planet first and foremost. Greenpeace Canada relies on donations from individual supporters for approximately ninety five percent of our revenues, and on grants from foundations for the remainder. Greenpeace does not accept donations that could compromise
    [Show full text]
  • Cnrl's Bitumen Blowout Alberta Environment's
    OCTOBER 2013 CNRL’S BITUMEN BLOWOUT ALBERTA ENVIRONMENT’S BLACKLIST DIRECT ACTION IN THE BIGHORN OTTAWA’S CHARITIES WITCH-HUNT A NEW WETLANDS POLICY? Editor: Ian Urquhart CONTENTS Graphic Design: OCTOBER 2013 • VOL. 21, NO. 4/5 Jes Elliott Printing: Colour printing and process is sponsored FEATURES SSOCIATION EWS A N by Topline Printing 4 COLD LAKE, HOT BITUMEN: LOUISE GUY POETRY PRIZE CNRL’S BITUMEN BLOWOUT 31 2013 WILD WEST GALA 9 BLACKLISTED: PEMBINA INSTITUTE 32 V ALBERTA (ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE RESOURCE 34 NEWALTA VOLUNTEERS ENDING HEIR ERVICES DEVELOPMENT), 2013 ABQB L T S 35 HIKING THE TABLE TO PROTECT SN T THIS HERE E AME N 12 I ’ W W C I ? THE CASTLE SLAPPING A BAND-AID® OVER THE ALBERTA WILDERNESS BIGHORN’S CANARY CREEK 37 CASTLE CROWN WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION COALITION RECEIVES ALBERTA “Defending Wild Alberta through CANADA’S CHARITIES WITCH-HUNT: 18 PARKS OUTSTANDING GROUP Awareness and Action” OTTAWA AND THE GHOST OF SENATOR STEWARD AWARD Alberta Wilderness Association is a JOSEPH MCCARTHY charitable non-government organization dedicated to the completion of a THREE ARTISTS WHO GIVE VOICE TO 25 WILDERNESS WATCH protected areas network and the THE SILENT conservation of wilderness throughout 38 UPDATES the province. To support our work with a tax-deductible donation, call 29 BACK TO THE FUTURE FOR THE 403-283-2025 or contribute online BEARS: ANOTHER FIVE YEARS FOR at AlbertaWilderness.ca. ALBERTA’S GRIZZLY RECOVERY PLAN DEPARTMENTS Wild Lands Advocate is published bi-monthly, 6 times a year, by Alberta 43 READER’S CORNER Wilderness Association. The opinions expressed by the authors in this 45 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR publication are not necessarily those of AWA.
    [Show full text]