Gee, ya think?

Oil sands' impact on climate change 'overblown'

Updated Fri. May. 22 2009 6:59 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Rhetoric claiming the oil sands are a major contributor to global warming may simply be hot air, according to a new report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

"The relative contribution of the oil sands to global climate change is often overblown. People talk about this as being the make-or-break for climate change. It's not," Michael Levi, of the CFR, told CTV Power Play's Tom Clark on Friday.

Kind of stating the obvious, though people who rely strictly on the media and environmental groups for their information wouldn't likely know it.

Of course, this had to be added...

Nonetheless, he said emissions from the Alberta oil fields should be reduced because of its overall impact on environments in North America.

Gotta cover their butts, after all. The problem is, emissions (a term usually assumed to mean GHGs in general, or CO2 specifically) and environmental damage aren't the same thing. Reducing emissions isn't going to reduce real pollution and other types of damage. Heck, more efficient practises might actually increase CO2 production, as it did with improvements in the efficiency of our vehicle engines. The cleaner the fuel is burned, the less pollution, and the more CO2 is produced. It's a measurement of efficiency, not pollution.