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''Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands'' is a book written by Canadian lawyer, talk-show host and lobbyist Ezra Levant, which makes a case for exploiting the Athabasca oil sands and its sister projects in Alberta. Published in 2010 by McClelland & Stewart in Toronto, Canada,〔 the book became a non-fiction best seller and won the National Business Book Award for 2011. In the 261 page book, Ezra Levant makes the case that in terms of four criteria (the environment, conflict, economic and social justice and freedom from oppression) the Canadian petroleum industry is "heads above other crude producers like Saudi Arabia, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela". Highlighting perceived hypocrisy from Western progressive and environmental movements, the author confronts what he sees as unfair and excessive criticism of oil sands, stating that the "oil sands are not perfect, and criticizing them is fair game. But why has criticism of the oil sands been so disproportionately loud compared to criticism of other, larger, more disturbing sources of oil?".〔Levant, Ezra (p. 140)〕 ''Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands'' has popularized the concept of "ethical oil" as a neologism, giving ammunition to the Conservative government of Stephen Harper and providing the inspiration behind Alykhan Velshi's "EthicalOil" campaign in the United States and Canada. ==Background== Oil sands in Alberta have a proven reserve of , the second largest proven reserves of crude oil in the world. They have become the largest source of oil imported into the United States. With significant economic development and investment into the oil sands, the industry has been enjoying strong support by both the province's government and the federal government. However, the industry has also been subject to criticism due to the environmental impacts of bitumen exploitation. While the industry has attempted to resolve these issues by developing new techniques, such as ''in situ'' extraction, environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, have launched campaigns to delegitimize the resource, based on its greenhouse gas emission records. Canada's primary export market, the United States, has been ambivalent to the environmental questions surrounding the exploitation of the oil sands, with Republicans being generally more supportive of the resource, while president Barack Obama, a Democrat, said that "there are some environmental questions about how destructive they are". In an attempt to refocus the debate, Ezra Levant, a conservative political activist, former publisher of the ''Western Standard'' and the host of ''The Source'' on Sun News Network, examines the ethical aspects of importing oil from countries where political oppression and human rights violations are prevalent, and argues that oil sands production from Canada should be considered the only true ethical alternative to OPEC oil exports. His inspiration for the concept of 'ethical oil' came from the neologism 'conflict diamond', and its antonym 'conflict-free diamond'. Levant decided to write the book to change some minds, after realizing at the 2009 Ottawa International Writers Festival in Ottawa that he was the "token Alberta whipping boy" during a panel on the oil sands, and ineffective at convincing the audience of the merits of the oil sands. Ezra Levant stated that he wrote the book from a liberal point of view, in order to appeal to those who reject the traditional conservative point of view. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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