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There are few terms in the Canadian vernacular that irk me more than “ethical oil”.  Since Ezra Levant’s 2010 book “Ethical Oil” hit the scene, it’s become the favourite language for government newspeak, and the media.  Worst of all, its given tar sands proponents and the Conservative Government fodder for their debunked argument that tarsands oil is good for us. 

Levant’s book looks at the ethical cost of our addiction to oil, and argues that Alberta tar sands oil is more ethically responsible than oil imported from despotic regimes in the Sudan, Russia, and Mexico, where human rights issues are of concern. 

Though neither Harper nor our new Minister of Environmental Destruction have read the book, the term was exactly what the Conservatives needed to bolster the much-maligned tar sands.  Prior to the echochamber that ensued after the publication of Levant’s book,  tar sands oil was often characterized as “dirty” and “controversial” - much to the ire of the government.

 Levant may well have learned the art of spin early in his career while spending the summer in an internship arranged by the libertarian and clean energy/climate change enemy Charles G. Koch Foundation, or through his work with the Fraser Institute.  Levant himself coined the term “ethical oil” in 2009 after being involved in a panel on tar sands oil.  The spin doctor finished the 90-minute debate having not managed to convince his audience of the merits of the toxic oil.  Without admitting defeat, Levant quickly realized that he was going to have to find a different way to spin the dirty oil apart from economic arguments which just weren’t resonating with people. 

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British Columbia has the best carbon pricing scheme in Canada. That’s the conclusion of a national survey and analysis of climate policies compiled by Sustainable Prosperity, a progressive think tank based at the Univeristy of Ottawa.

According to a Globe and Mail report, the authors of the study invested a year speaking with top economic, business and environment leaders across the country before identifying eight key principles of a carbon pricing plan—think tranparency, reach, simplicity, and so on. The group then applied those principals to score Canada’s existing carbon laws and proposals. B.C.’s carbon tax, introduced a year ago, scored an 87. It fell short in the areas of national reach and long-term impact.

The group also informally examined the limited cap-and-trade policy that B.C.’s New Democratic Party is presently campaigning on. Sustainable Prosperity’s carbon-pricing director told the Globe that her group’s “score card would rate [it] as the weakest policy in Canada.” With few details of that plan yet available, the group was only able to conduct a back-of-the-envelope analysis. It was enough, though, to suggest that New Democrat’s plan would introduce “huge instability and doubt” to the market.

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A cartoon in The New York Times brilliantly captured the mentality behind the latest green trend. It showed a man kneeling at the confessional praying, "Forgive me, but I have SUV'd."

The minister takes the proffered bag of money and replies:

Go thy way, thy sins are offset. You too can be forgiven of your carbon emitting sins and achieve the exalted status of being 'carbon neutral' without trading in your SUV or cancelling that overseas vacation."

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"It [the IPCC report] has finally ended all serious debate over climate change.

There can be no more denial. Global warming skeptics and deniers now find themselves in the company of creationists, flat-Earthers and those who dispute the scientific consensus that HIV is the cause of AIDS."

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Dear Editor,

While introducing a mostly excellent weekend package on climate change, Globe and Mail Editor-in- chief Edward Greenspon says, "We are in the business of promoting debate, not dogma…

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TVO Producer Daniel Kitts makes the case in the Globe and Mail online edition for not giving climate change "skeptics" equal time.

But he misses a couple of arguments, at least.

First, if you surveyed all those legitimate scientists who accept or contest the theory of anthropogenic global warming and then quoted them proportionately, the deniers would get to comment, but only very, very rarely.

Choosing one person on one side and one on the other - as journalists so often do - makes it appear that the scientific community is evenly divided, that there is a hot debate. As Naomi Oreskes demonstrated in Science , no such debate exists in serious scientific literature.