Ethical oil and original sin

Father de Souza asks:

. . . . how is a mine in a remote part of Canada’s northern emptiness more despoiling than a large auto plant on the shores of Lake Ontario in Canada’s most densely populated region?

By the assumption that the wilderness is more deserving, less guilty, more worthy of protection, than the people. Yet those who feel this way tend, unlike Father de Souza, to disbelieve in original sin.