I do agree with you about these guys.They prefer to sit down ,smoking weed and dream everything is just fine. To my point of view there must be a mid way solution so that economic expansion and environment can go hand in hand.
Today I saw on our news that in one of our provinces which had closed coal mines since many years they have the idea to inject CO2 in the shafts and also would use the water (these mines are plenty of water now) which had a degree of 38 ?C ,to warm houses.So as you see with some good thinking many things can be done .They also in my country ,the Greenies would close the nuclear power plants too.Even I like nature myself I'm not so radical .But I can tell you that in Europe since Al Gore was here the politicians of the socialist and green parties use the CO2 item as an election goal a lot more then in Canada.
Car makers like Porsche and BMW face some problems with the CO2 emission from their heavy engine.So that's why Porsche has a take over bid on Volkswagen right now because they can now spread the CO2 over more smaller engine cars .I think next step will be an extra tax on powerfull engines.To give an example.I have an M 3 320 HP engine in my BMW and I pay now 850 ? per year on driving tax.Cars in Belgium are a money milk cow .Huge tax on fuels,tax on driving and soon on emissions.

If I'm right Canada must have many mines so they could also inject CO2 .Also like Brian stated the water pollution is not that big only a 5 %.The nature and the area around a SAGD plant is not so rough like a strip mining system.I've seen once a documentary about a strip mining facility and it was like a moon landscape.

I'm not an expert but if I'm right upgrading bitumen from a SAGD plant is maybe easier then from a mine stripping field .Also cost price to upgrade is less I think.Maybe some guys have some more info on that issue.