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STEVE MAICH Mon Jun 9, 12:00 AM

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Is oil from Iran or Venezuela 'clean'? How about Iraq?

It's a shame about the oil sands. It really is.

It's too bad we drive so much, and that we built our cities on a sprawling commuter model. It's a shame that petroleum is at the heart of so many industries that employ millions and pay the tab for our healthy, modern lives of leisure. It's frustrating that so much of the nice, light, sweet crude is buried in places where the governments are hostile and know that every dollar on the price of crude applies a little more pressure to the windpipe of our decadent Western lifestyles. It's also really too bad that burning fossil fuels produces gases that accumulate in the atmosphere and mess with our climate and our ecosystems. And it's depressing that half the world's population would rather face the possibility of environmental catastrophe than give up their shot at the kind of affluence and comfort that we westerners now take for granted.

It would be better if things were different — if we all rode our bikes from our geothermally-heated homes to our jobs at the windmill, and the evening news was filled with stories of how international co-operation saved millions from poverty and pulled another animal species back from the brink of extinction. Yep, that'd be some great world. But, for now, we're stuck with this one, which brings us back to the oil sands.

Not so long ago, defending the oil sands meant arguing that they were, in fact, economically viable and that Canada deserved a place among the world's big energy powers. But things have changed. These days the oil sands are quickly becoming an international disgrace. Well-meaning environmentalists are pleading with the Alberta government to slam the brakes on "runaway" development of the province's estimated 173 billion barrels of sludge-like bitumen spread across an area the size of Florida. The latest shaming comes from left-leaning U.S. magazine Mother Jones, which recently sent a reporter to Fort McMurray to assess the damage that oil sands development has wrought: air pollution, deformed fish, suspicious cases of rare cancer, a seriously overcrowded hospital, drugs, hookers and even an astonishing scene of two people having sex on a picnic table in front of the mayor's office (in autumn, in northern Alberta!). This story had it all.

It's a compellingly grim rendering of the "wasteful business" of extracting "some of the world's dirtiest oil." But what it does not address, and what the environmental movement always carefully sidesteps in its denunciations of the oil sands, is the economic and social equation at the heart of the issue. Nor does it go anywhere near the massive and devastating ripple effects that would flow from the kind of moratorium advocated by the most outspoken oil sands opponents.

Canada has roughly 179 billion barrels of oil reserves and about 97 per cent of them are in the oil sands. Right now, they are providing a little more than a million barrels per day into a world market that is increasingly panicked at the prospect of a global shortage. That's roughly 1.5 per cent of the world's daily supply. The various oil sands developments also produce an estimated 40 megatonnes of carbon dioxide per year — about 0.14 per cent of global energy-related emissions.

By 2015, the oil sands are expected to be producing three million barrels per day, representing three-quarters of Canada's total output and a little more than three per cent of global supply. According to the Pembina Institute, greenhouse gas emissions will by then hit 67 megatonnes. That works out to about 0.19 per cent of the industry's worldwide total, according to Energy Information Agency projections. Let's restate that for a moment: if the outlook is correct, the oil sands will account for less than one-fifth of one per cent of the emissions of the world's energy industries by 2015, while providing about three per cent of the world's oil. When it comes to pollution, coal is still king.

Now it is true that oil sands require more natural gas and water and electricity to extract than other forms of petroleum, but does that make Canada the producer of "some of the world's dirtiest oil"? That depends on how you define dirty. Is the oil that bankrolls repressive regimes in Iran and Sudan "clean"? What about the oil money gushing into the absolutist monarchy in Saudi Arabia, where being convicted of a serious crime can still get you beheaded? Anybody care to make the case that Iraqi oil is "clean" these days? What about other international oil superpowers like Russia, Nigeria, Libya and Venezuela — are those places one can buy crude from with a clear conscience?

You don't have to tell anyone in those countries about the spectacular gift of being in an oil-rich region, but here in Canada, we must constantly apologize for our place among the world's great energy providers. Mention the impact on employment, on government finances or standard of living, and you'll be denounced as greedy and irresponsible. But since we're on the topic let's keep in mind some useful numbers.

A few years ago the Canadian Energy Research Institute projected that by 2020 roughly $100 billion would be invested in oil sands development. That investment will, in turn, generate an estimated $885 billion in economic activity, create 6.6 million person years of employment, and inject $123 billion into federal and provincial government coffers through taxes and royalty payments. Do those numbers still hold up? No they don't — they now look incredibly conservative because the projections assumed a long-term oil price of $32 per barrel. Prices are now more than four times that high.

With prices skyrocketing, and with the obvious ecological costs of burning fossil fuels, it only makes sense to try to reduce our demand for oil, the faster the better. But cutting off supply is pure madness. It'd be a crippling blow to Canada, and the impact on the environment would be vanishingly small.

The oil sands are a trade-off, and, on balance, Canada comes out ahead in the deal.