PoPulationand Public HealtH etHics

Identify the key values and concerns of the identified stakeholder(s),
as well as any potential risks and benefits
For the purposes of making distinctions, three contrasts are offered: the oil
industry values profit; people in industrialized countries value being able to
function in an energy-dependent society; and, people in non-industrialized
countries value their traditional lifestyles of living off the land. In this dynamic,
the tension for government officials is to balance the need to protect
public health and promote economic activity. Canadian values must be taken
into account separately from provincial values. Furthermore, because the
oil industry has global reach, the reader must be sensitive to the principle
of solidarity with the global community, first through its economic activity
contributing directly to global warming and, second, by the need to think of
the global consequences of local actions.
Identify the options available to the decision-maker, including reasonable
alternative courses of action, consideration of implications,
and potential intended and unintended outcomes (consequences)
Decision makers could demonstrate leadership by keeping the oil in the
ground. Instead, they could provide incentives for developing green technologies
that depend on renewable sources of energy as opposed to perpetuating
dependence on oil as a non-renewable energy source. This would require the
adoption of a “steady-state”, “no-growth”, or even a “de-growth” economy.
Transitioning away from non-renewable energy supplies to those that are
renewable, could be granted the breathing space to do so through the abovenoted
principle of “contraction” in demand for energy in rich countries. The
need to balance “doing no harm” and “doing good” should be applied here,
as well as the precautionary principle, for a fuller ethical analysis.
The alternative is to maintain the status quo by continuing to pursue a path
that harms local communities, commits to boom-and-bust economic cycles
and feeds our dependence on oil, thereby contributing to an array of catastrophic
harms through more frequent and extreme weather events around
the world. While there are some who dispute this scenario, there are others
who dispute that technological solutions are possible. At the end of the day,
“who is taking the risks and who is deriving the benefits” from such an uncertain
future is the question that needs to be addressed in an ethical analysis.
Alberta oil sands
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