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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Letter of the day: 'Nothing ethical about oil'

Posted: 01/26/2012 3:19 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Jason Franson / The Canadian Press Raging grannies protest the oil sands pipeline project hearings in Edmonton on Tuesday.

Would the Free Press run a column from a spokesman for "Ethical Climate Change" or "Ethical Smog"? How about a piece arguing that if you want to get lung cancer or heart disease the ethical way, start smoking Canadian cigarettes, because our country is run by decent folk? That's essentially the sort of argument contained in Kathryn Marshall's Jan. 24 column, Obama breaks a promise, which represents the worst type of spin-doctored nonsense.

Regardless of where it's drilled, there's nothing ethical about oil, which causes pollution and climate change. Marshall engages in McCarthyist green-baiting. She calls environmental groups, who represent the democratic societal consensus on saving the planet, "extremists," as if they were unwelcome or illegitimate.

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Ultimately, instead of putting the critical focus on society changing to green energy, Marshall tries to change the subject to the ethics of buying from undemocratic countries. Yet she remains oddly silent on other imported products from such regimes, like cheap gadgets from China.

Fortunately, your Jan. 24 paper also gives a good clue why in the business-page story Canada-China energy link a 'win-win,' an account of how Prime Minister Stephen Harper has quieted his past criticism of China's human-rights record in favour of selling more Alberta oil to the communist dictatorship.

Perhaps Canada, winner of five fossil of the year awards at international conferences to fight climate change, doesn't have quite the green record that Marshall boasts about.

JONATHAN SINCLAIR

Winnipeg

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 26, 2012 A11

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