01.07.2011 10:08 PM

Coming soon

  • Ethical tobacco
  • Ethical lead
  • Ethical trans fats
  • Ethical MSG
  • Ethical mercury
  • Ethical pesticides
  • Ethical asbestos
  • Ethical radiation
  • Ethical PCBs
  • Ethical smack

21 Comments

  1. smelter rat says:

    Exactly.

  2. Namesake says:

    all Made in Canada – with the CPC Seal of Approval. (Arf, arf).

  3. ck says:

    I wish I had my adobe suite installed on the new hard drive…I feel a logo design coming on.

  4. Jan says:

    Canada, exporting ethics since 2006.

  5. Bruce says:

    Even PETA agrees that there is an ethical way to harvest meat.
    Face it, the oil sands are head and shoulders above Nigeria (where 100s are killed regularly when pipelines explode,) the Gulf (both Arabian and Mexican) and certainly the despots running Russia and Venezuela.
    Ya know, a few years ago, the same plant celebrated 1,000,000 man-hours without an accident claim. I know my Ottawa bureaucrat office that lives off the taxes others pay cannot make the claim.

    I find it unseemly how the Liberals and environmentalist rejoice and find validation in every dead bird, toxic leak, or other setback.

    You want to pick a fight and help the environment? Tell Dalton and Obama to close the coal industry. The oilsands pale in comparison to the American and Ontario coal, but they’re not Rednecks whose votes are already written off, so watch King Coal continue.

  6. Excellent point. It’s disgraceful how we import all of our tobacco and smack from Iran, China and Venezuela. The North American imports of trans fat and MSG do a lot to prop up regimes that brutalize women, and murder human rights activists.

    Unless the point was missed in there somewhere…that perhaps it’s not the substance itself that is ethical, but the origin of it…

  7. Bruce says:

    Really?
    Ethical Mercury? Mercury is used in thermometers, barometers, manometers, sphygmomanometers, float valves, some electrical switches, and other scientific apparatus,etc.

    Ethical Radiation? Ever had an X-ray, one of a hundred medical tests, thousands of scientific tests, or even CANCER treatment? Yes, ethical.

    Ethical Asbestos? Neither the Tories nor the liberals have the guts to shut the town producing this filth.)
    Ethical Lead? Go start your (oil sands powered) car. You’ll need a Canadian Tire (lead brick) battery.
    Ethical Pesticides? Or ethical mass starvations as agricultural production drops. Tough choice.

  8. The Conservatives must be going after the ethic vote.

  9. Cam says:

    The difference is that everybody in the Western world is an oil junky. If oil inherently unethical, how is it that Western society has contructed itself around its consumption? Why is that the same people who lament are dependency on oil can’t go a day without using it?

    Until someone comes up with a better alternative, we are stuck with oil. People can make the choice not to consume any of things you listed above, but they cannot choose not to consume oil. There is no economically viable replacement. It sucks, but it absolutely true. Either people have to collectively and voluntarily sacrifice qualiity of life so we can latch on to a new fuel source, or we can accept that oil is not going anywhere anytime soon, so we might as well buy from Western, liberal democracies.

  10. Cam says:

    And all the things you listed above directly harm you, whereas oil significantly increases your quality of life. Which is why everyone consumes it, why we are dependant on it and why it makes sense to own a cabin a four hour drive from your home.

  11. Darren K says:

    How about

    Ethical Politicians
    Ethical X wives
    Ethical Lawyers

    (i’m not bitter, – no not at all)

  12. PoliticalPundit says:

    Ezra Levant and “ethical oil” is now running Canada’s Ministry of the Environment. WOW!! The Harperites have risen to a all-time low.

    Ethical Oil is the most crass and self serving spin that has come forth from the Reformatories to date. The use of terrorism to justify the development of any resource, at any price, and for windfall profits for rich oil corporations is anything but ethical.

    The term was invented by a combination of very stupid U.S. environmentatlists but then taken over by the lobby group for the U.S. coal industry, an industry that wants Congress to limit imports of Canadian crude oil!!

    And this is the best response to this U.S. madness and stupidity that the Harper government can come up with to justify the unregulated support for Alberta’s tar-sands industry.

    Canadians and Canada are in for a sorry time indeed.

  13. We in society need to make choices about the things we produce and consume. There are environmental and social costs and benefits to the goods that we use. We have to decide if it is ethical (moral) to produce and refine oil in huge quantities while we destroy the environment around the Tar Sands. How much of the environment is acceptable to destroy?

    What I get out of Warren’s posting is that Environment Minister Peter Kent doesn’t want to focus on improving technology so that there will be less pollution and environmental damage from the Tar Sands project. He just wants to focus on the “ethical” benefits of extracting and refining the oil from the project while not mentioning the costs. I don’t know if “green washing” is the right word.

    As a side note, cigarettes are ethical because they make people feel good. I think cigarettes are also ethical because they are mostly organic. What BS am I writing?

    • Namesake says:

      re: “Oil sands is the accepted modern nomenclature…”

      – first, I can’t let this pass w/o the appropriate amount of derision (Ha!) about the irony of the denizens of the libertarian Western Standard & allied sites suddenly getting all persnickety & scolding about wanting everyone to use the sanitized PC term for their precious bitumen patch.

      – second, it’s that very rechristening, appropriation of the language, and Newspeak that WK is objecting to as something which _shouldn’t_ simply become accepted in these cases, if it’s simply begging the question or ignoring important evidence for marketing purposes.

      Because it often violates “Truth in adveritisng” principles, if nothing else.

      Cf. “Sweetbreads,” which are neither bread nor sweet (in fact they’re, er, offal). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetbreads

      In this case, the alleged “oil” sands of the Athabasca fields lack the first of the three essential characteristics of an oil:

      viz., being a liquid at ambient temperature (which is also repelled from or not mixable in all proportions with water, but which is soluble in organic solvents).

      Because its ‘way too thick and gooey at room temperature, like, er, tar.

      Which is why at best you should all agree to split the difference and call them: asphalt sands.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphalt
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitumen

      Or just call them what they are: Bituminous Sands.

      (Because both “oil sands” AND “tar sands” are colloquialisms:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_sands

    • Jon A says:

      “By using the term tarsands you are being obtuse and baiting in a similar fashion as someone using the n-word to describe a black person.”

      Yeah, why is it that Encana can use that word, but when those of us in non-petroleum industries use it, the energy sector gets all “uppity” about it?

      Seriously, that statement goes above and beyond the call of asinine, and don’t think most of the people commenting on this site haven’t set the bar pretty damned high as it is.

      • Jon A says:

        I was making a joke. Perhaps you were making a joke when you suggested that the choice of terms used to describe a geological formation and the accompanying industry reliant on said geological formation were somehow equivalent to CENTURIES OLD THOROUGHLY RADIOACTIVE RACIAL SLUR. Because if you did, well done. But if you put finger to key and weren’t totally intoxicated when you implied that every single critic of the oilsands are as bad as the Ku Klux Klan, then I’m going to have to ask for your “I ARE SERIOUS POLITICAL JUNKY” badge, sir. While you have not contravened the letter of Godwinn’s Law, you certainly violated its spirit.

        I eagerly await your response telling me how my critique is invalid because I drive a car.

    • I hope that I am not being implied as a racist.

      Thanks to Namesake and Jon A for their comments.

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