This week’s focus is ethical oil, and whether it comes from Canada (or even exists at all). A man named Ezra Levant has taken up a major campaign for the use of Alberta’s tar sands in the US, using the same techniques as he did on his cigarette campaign to convince the public and lawmakers alike that the Keystone XL Pipeline is a good idea. However, it is nice to see the EU trying to label tar sands as being particularly dirty to produce, meaning that the environmentalist viewpoint stands a chance against the capitalist agendas taking over most of our country’s politics. Is ethical oil a legitimate label? From an environmental standpoint, there is not such a thing as oil that is good. However, there seems to be a political difference between getting oil from Canada and getting oil from Saudi Arabia. Hopefully the environmental impacts will override the political issues, but a shift away from our dependence on oil seems to be far off.

These two articles illustrate the issues, not with the specific pipeline, but with America’s dependence on oil and the quality of the oil’s origins. Both articles took a liberal stance, with the Reuters article retaining an expository form but covering the environmentalist views of the EU on the issue of tar sands. The article from the Mother Nature Network was almost mocking Erza Levant and his seemingly conniving ways in convincing the public that the Keystone XL Pipeline is better than getting oil from Saudi Arabia. It also brought up the issue of Levant’s effectiveness and how it could spell disaster for the environmental platform regarding the pipeline. There was a significant amount of bias in the article from the Mother Nature Network, but it still brought a very real issue to light.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/21/us-oilsand-idUSTRE79K4IP20111021

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/politics/stories/meet-the-tar-sands-pr-wizard