With apologies to all for whom this is stale news, I want to report on Ezra Levant’s latest book. Remember Ezra Levant? Yes, the guy who put his head way above the parapet to defend freedom of speech against the ridiculous ‘Alberta Human Rights Commission’, which had been busy trying to stamp it out.
I have not been paying much attention to Ezra Levant lately, but last night I happened to re-visit his blog, and I soon struck gold. Or rather: black gold. Oil. Shale oil, to be more precise.
A commenter on this later posting by me here about Levant mentioned Canadian shale oil, and now Levant has written a whole book about this.
Canadian shale oil is taking a huge bite out of the market share of those Middle Eastern terror paymasters who have been such pestilential opponents of free speech in the West in general and of Ezra Levant’s free speech in particular, which could just be how Levant got interested. The Greenies hate Canadian shale oil, probably for that same reason. The Mainstream Media … well, that bit’s obvious. What’s not to love about a book saying hurrah for Canadian shale oil?
As I say, lots of Samizdata readers will have seen these bits of video, of Levant talking about this book, Ethical Oil (brilliant title, yes?), at least a week ago. I’ve only had time to watch and hear half of the first bit of video, but already I know that any Samizdata readers who do not yet know about this book will likely be very glad to hear about it now.
Many bad things have happened during the last decade. One of the best things to have happened during that same time is that books like this one of Ezra Levant’s – thanks to all of, you know, this – can now become as widely read as they deserve to be.
I must disagree Brian.
The Coop got there before Ezra. I was in my local one about an hour ago buying fags (which I fully intend to smoke in front of children) and I espied they sell a range of “ethical water”.
Quenches your thirst and produces a first class essay on Spinoza.
Damn you Brian, so much for the posting planned for this weekend.
And not only do I remember Ezra, he is my personal hero. It is just a pity he concentrates on Canadian issues, although, I think that will change as his stature grows.
NickM
I don’t know how serious you are being about Ethical Oil, but Ethical Water doesn’t pack nearly the same punch. Ethical Oil, after all the propaganda against evil oil companies that there’s been, has a Black Whiteness thing going for it that surely pulls people up short.
Ethical Oil?!?!? What the *&*&* is that about?!?
It grabs attention in other words. It’s all rather subjective, I suppose, but it certainly got my attention.
CountingCats
Does it make sense to call this a merely Canadian issue? It certainly is Canadian, but only Canadian? I would have thought that slicing into the profits of Middle East oil nations is a big deal, globally.
It is also of more than merely Canadian interest that the USA is now getting so much of its imported oil from Canada, rather than from the Middle East only.
Just to clarify- Ezra is talking about oil sands and not shale oil. There is a staggering quantity of oil in shale but as yet no truly effective method of extracting it.
“There is a staggering quantity of oil in shale but as yet no truly effective method of extracting it.”
Can we call that “un-ethical oil” ?
When I was seven my family stopped to drink from a mineral spring fountain in New Brunswick. The path to it from the parking lot was gravelly and oily and I didn’t like walking on it in my sandals. For som,e reason unbeknownst to me my father told me it was oil and followed it up with the statement that the world is full of oil but that the seven sisters wanted to pretend the supplies were limited in a massive shakedown plot. Why he was telling all this to a seven year old is a mystery but he had his geologist’s leanings and in the light of oil discoveries and exploration here, there and everywhere it turns out he was rght and there is oil everywhere and the nasty oil ticks of the Middle East have run out of scares and threats. Furthermore the Chinese are heavy investors in Alberta oil development and are completely impervious to greenie squaking.
before spouting off about canada becoming the next suadi arabia a few things come to mind:
1) shale oil and light sweet crude are not anywhere near the same product. for simplicity’s sake imagine 2 communities looking for water. one community has a pressurized aquifier that can be plumbed and the water sprays out there’s so much pressure. job done but for some maintenance and distribution. the other community is less lucky. they have massive amounts of water as well, but it’s frozen and mixed with lots of sand and dirt/etc. it has to be dug out the ground, moved, melted, strained, purified, then distributed and used. an operation an order of magnitude slower, dirtier, resource consuming, labour intensive, wasteful and significantly underperforming compared to the other guys.
but it’s still water in a fungible commodity market.
2) the barons of industry may live like kings; the field labour however live like serfs.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/08/16/OilWorkersDontCry/
http://oilsandstruth.org/chinese-firms-say-they-don039t-owe-alberta-tar-sands-tfw-worker-any-wages
the 2nd link is especially interesting given the recent plowing of investment into the areas.
Ethicoil! What a name!
We here in Australia have a lizard that sheds its’ tail when being pursued by a predator. It takes months to grow back, but the tails could be harvested from thousands of the beasts- and you could then have moral meat. Good, ethical, products all round! What a world!
The geology of large areas of the United States is no different to the areas of Alberta (and so on) where the Canadian shale oil is from – indeed extraction would be less difficult in the United States (less extreme climate for one thing).
So why are the Americans not producing huge amounts of shale oil? Government regulations – as simple (and as brutal) as that.
It is not really about “saving the environment” – after all the same government has de facto banned off shore oil development (even demanding that existing wells be destroyed – if they are not currently in production) whilst AT THE SAME TIME sending loan money to both Mexico and Brazil for off shore oil development (some of the Mexican wells are in the same area as the American wells the government is ordering sealed – the Brazilian ones may be state owned, but George Soros gets a cut).
“The government really is incompetant” – yes it is, but not in this. This is deliberate – cue for shouts of “paranoid”.
Most people still have not fully understood that the government of the United States is controlled by people (such as Barack Obama – but there are many more like him) who are not “fools” or “misguided” (or whatever) they are active enemies of the United States (indeed of the West in general).
The position is so terrible (the alliance of corrupt business people and collectivist politicians) that people refuse to see it – regardless of the amount of evidence before their eyes.
Of course the power of ideology is strong – for example remember on September 11th 2001, the first reaction of the BBC (on seeing the first aircraft smash into the first tower) was to rant on about how the evil Reagan had privatized American air traffic control (they assumed it was an accident – caused by the wicked cost cutting, private company).
Of course Reagan did no such thing – it is CANADIAN air traffic control that is private (not American).
This is the secret of North America – in some things Canada is more statist than America (such as health care – but that is changing fast), but in many ways Canada is LESS statist than the United States.
In air traffic control, in oil shale production, and in some aspects of the law.
After all in the United States political foes can bankupt you by making bogus “ethics charges” again and again (and again and ……) which is (for example) what drove Sarah Palin from being Governor of Alaska.
In Canada if you make a false charge against someone – you pay their legal costs.
“But this prevents a poor person exposing corruption” not at all.
If you have expose real corruption you will not pay – only if you have made it up.
Of course the whole trial lawyer industry in the United States would collapse if people had to pay court costs for things they made up – for example injuries that did not happen (and on and on).
As it America has the worst of both worlds – endless Federal, State and local regulations. Plust out of control tort law.
Presently it is like a lottery where you do not even have to buy a ticket.
Want money from a big company?
Then go to a “no win no fee” lawyer and you can make up a case together (with a fictional injury and so on – or a real injury that was not caused by the company). If you lose – so what, the lawyer only loses a bit of time (and he will not charge you), but if you win……
Well then you will get millions – and the lawyer will get millions as well.
The above are some of the reasons that only a fool invests in the United States under present conditions.
“But it is O.K. if you have political connections Paul”.
The clever businessmen who made deals with Comrade Barack (and co) do not seem to understand that they will be betrayed at some point (most likely with no warning).
They think they have the cunning of foxes – but actually they are just pigs, waiting in the slaughterhouse.