EthicalOil.org’s crude message may backfire

Apart from a real-life black and white photograph of a woman being buried prior to stoning the website also features unattributed images of young men being readied for the noose and human remains in a war zone. And these visuals appear alongside thumbnails of young children who are among the 307 people on Facebook who “like” the site.

There is unfortunately also a very jejune quality to the writing on EthicalOil.org – here is a sample from a story about tailings written by Velshi himself:

And that’s exactly what makes the oilsands so ethical: that governments and producers constantly strive for improvement. It means they care about the environment, and what the public thinks about their behaviour, unlike many other energy producers worldwide who couldn’t give a fig about human life, let alone wildlife.

EthicalOil.org plays the us versus them / Canadian vs foreign card frequently, says it relies on small donors to sustain its grassroots advocacy and asks for $5, $10, or $15 donations:

The No Tar Sands Coalition, Greenpeace, and other opponents of Ethical Oil are funded by grants from foreign foundations. EthicalOil.org, by contrast, will not take money from foreign corporations, foundations, governments, or lobbyists. We will not allow foreign corporate interests to compromise our independence.

Huffington Post quotes the author of the original book Ethical Oil, Ezra Levant published September last year as saying: “It’s a reminder that Canada, we’re the boy scouts of the world. We’re the gentlest country of the world, but the world is full of bastards.”

The UK’s Guardian among others points out the problem with this argument: China – one of the “bastards”, according to Velshi – also happens to be a major investor in Canadian tar sands. Just last week, CNOOC, China’s largest offshore oil producer, offered to buy Opti Canada, a bankrupt oil sands firm, for $2.1bn.

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell, another heavy investor in the oil sands, on Wednesday agreed to pay compensation to an Ogoniland community for two spills which were due to operational issues, adding that most spills in the Niger Delta – depicted in one of EthicalOil.org’s visuals reproduced below – were caused by theft and sabotage. A UN report out this week says cleaning up the pollution in the delta could take 25 to 30 years.

MyMcMurray says the website is raising money for an advertising campaign in major cities and quotes Velshi as saying “the way to sell the oilsands in Toronto, and Halifax, and Montreal, in my opinion, is with stark ads and shocking visuals.”

The Huffington Post writes the term “ethical oil” has become the centrepiece of a new application for a classic marketing strategy. After being added to the Conservative political lexicon, the slogan is slowly beginning to creep into the public discourse. And like other attempts by industry and advocacy groups to use value judgements to alter public opinion, it has the potential to change the way we think about Canadian oil.

The Globe and Mail opines that it’s a necessary and direct response to the salvos of some environmental groups, epitomized by the recent “Rethink Alberta” campaign, an alarmist attack that implies Alberta is awash in toxic sludge and populated by poisoned aboriginals and dead ducks.

Click here for a report from June when MINING.com looked at the troubles in oil sands’ next frontier – Africa.