Ebenezer Scrooge is lucky he's not alive today, because things are so complicated that once he'd reformed and decided to do good, he'd never be able to figure out which form of altruism is the truest and the purest.

I'll give a couple of examples which have been simultaneously thrown at me, (although seemingly in random fashion) and have caused enough Christmas confusion to make me thankful I'm not Ebenezer Scrooge.

Let's start with Nigeria. Most of us only know the place as the source of poignant emails beginning with urgent reassurances that the sender is an honest-but-long-suffering widow of General Obacha who needs assistance depositing a gigantic sum into an American bank account. The unfortunate reality is that very few Nigerians have millions to share with kindly American beneficiaries. While it's true that the country is rich in oil, most of the money goes into the hands of government kleptocrats who refuse to share it with ordinary citizens -- even when the oil is pumped directly from their land.

A recent example of this is the ongoing protest (a series of sieges, really) at Nigerian oil platforms:

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Protesters seized oil platforms run by Royal Dutch/Shell Group Cos. and ChevronTexaco Corp for a second day Monday, shutting down 90,000 barrels a day in oil production, company officials said.

On Sunday, hundreds of protesting villagers from Kula community, including women and children, invaded two oil pumping facilities owned by Shell in the Ekulama oilfields and another belonging to ChevronTexaco at Robert-Kiri island in the swamps of the oil-rich delta, demanding to see top officials of both companies.

Shell pumps 70,000 barrels daily from the two stations, while ChevronTexaco pumps 20,000 barrels daily from its own station.

Nigeria, at 2.5 million barrels a day, is Africa's leading oil exporter, the world's seventh-largest exporter, and the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.

A Shell spokesman in Lagos said protesters have not made known their grievances but are blocking dozens of oil workers from leaving the platforms. Representatives have been sent to the villages for negotiations, the spokesman said, on condition of anonymity.

For nearly 40 years, oil giants like Shell, Mobil and Chevron have worked in joint ventures with Nigeria's dictatorships to exploit the country's vast petroleum resources, often against the wishes of the local communities of the oil rich Niger delta. Protest against these oil giants has often resulted in a bloody response from their military business partners. Again pro-Democracy activist Chima Ubani.

Chima Ubani: "it is the same kind of relationship that the slave masters had with those traditional rulers and local chiefs of that period who actually sold our people into slavery to the European and American slave masters. That is exactly what has happened all over. What we find is that the Nigerian military creates the conducive environment for these multinational companies to come and exploit our people. They impose laws that favor such an exploitation and disempower our people. And most importantly, when our people rise to fight against this exploitation, it is the Nigerian government that uses its own troops to suppress and kill our people for fighting against exploitation by foreign companies"

Far be it from me to defend Big Oil, or kleptocrat governments which enable their profits while socking away the money in foreign bank accounts.

In the spirit of the Ghost of Christmas Present (and for the sake of this argument), I'll even concede (confess, even!) that oil is evil, oil is all our fault -- for being alive and for needing it and consuming it. We who live in the cold Northeast are the evilest and greediest of all, but all of us should allow "the people" all the oil profits they want.

But there's something troubling my soul, even as I confess. At the same time I was researching this issue (and trying to think altruistic thoughts about things like oil drilling), I had another "drill" thrown at me on the front page of day-after-Christmas Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer: the plight of the Drill monkey. Native to several West African countries, it is endangered in Equatorial Guinea, and I was shocked to see that the reason is not poverty, but oil-rich affluence:

"If we don't act soon, this animal could be extinct in a few years, and there will be nothing left to study," she said.

"We're just duty-bound to try to prevent the extinction of these animals; that's it in a nutshell," said Wayne A. Morra, 55, an Arcadia economics professor who joined the Bioko project in 1998.

This year's expedition has taken on a greater degree of urgency.

Chronically underdeveloped, Equatorial Guinea is suddenly awash in income from new offshore petroleum discoveries. And with new wealth, the demand for wild game, or "bush meat," is soaring. Monkey meat - much like venison in this country - is part of the traditional hunting culture of much of Africa and is eaten on special occasions.

Since 2002, the average daily number of monkey carcasses sold at the public market in the capital, Malabo, has nearly doubled to more than six, according to a daily count that Hearn organized in 1997.

Eating bushmeat (yes, "bushmeat" is a word!) is a sort of status symbol for the wealthy, and thus, the more money people have, the more likely they are to buy it:

Not eaten for its flavour, bushmeat is a sign of affluence - the more expensive the meat the more it enhances status.

Poaching and export laws in central Africa and West Africa are largely ineffective. The Ghana Wildlife Society estimates that barely one-in-10 people caught with bushmeat are convicted. While the fine for killing a pangolin is L1, the animal can be sold for L6 - big money in villages where a household may have an annual income of L300.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals said in a recent report: "Governments have been slow to respond to this crisis and action has been piecemeal and largely ineffectual. Unless more is achieved, entire populations of wildlife will be eradicated within the next few decades."

This week the United Nations launched a L1 million pound campaign to co-ordinate conservation efforts for apes around the world after it became clear that gorillas, chimps, and pygmy chimps face extinction within five years due to bushmeat and logging.

Jane Goodall, one of the world's foremost experts on chimpanzees, said: "The growing, grisly demand for bushmeat threatens to deliver the coup de grace to these critically endangered animals. Bushmeat is being sold at markets across the tropics. It is increasingly turning up in markets and restaurants all over the world, from London to New York, the demand fuelled by wealthy African expatriates."

I find it more than ironic that in Nigeria, where humans are denied the oil profits, the drill monkey appears to be doing better than in Equatorial Guinea:

We now have over twice as many captive bred drills, including second generation, than wild born. This year, we will begin contraception- I never thought I’d see that day! We are working with the AZA’s Population Management Centre at Lincoln Park Zoo on deciding who to breed, so as to maximize diversity of the wild genes in our population. They’re also helping us select the first release group.

As an organisation, Pandrillus has been able to step back a bit from Afi Mountain. Our successful invitation to FFI in 1998 to join us has resulted in a partnership that is actually working past my expectations. WCS and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation are the other NGO partners with the Cross River State Commission.

Which "drill" would he favor?

AFTERTHOUGHT: Is collusion the answer? I can't help but notice that the oil companies are heavily funding the environmentalists mentioned in the Inquirer. As an idea, funding one's opposition appeals to my Machiavellian side, of course. But what would Scrooge do?

MORE: To the extent that the ideas expressed in this post are unoriginal, I should credit Douglas Kern's wonderful essay, A TCS Christmas Carol, which I found via InstaPundit.