Oil-industry comment not useful discussion

Re: “Balance needed in oil-industry discussions,” comment, June 24. Thomas Gunton calls for a “balanced set of facts” with respect to discussion of energy issues, and accuses Gwyn Morgan of failing to meet that test. Quite apart from what a “balanced set of facts” means, Gunton’s commentary offers little, if anything, in response.

To begin with, he speaks of a sevenfold increase in tanker traffic threatening the B.C. coast. In doing so, he apparently ignores the existing tanker traffic already servicing the large Washington refineries.

Then he writes of International Energy Agency forecasts, but fails to mention that the one he uses is a scenario based based on the Paris Accord and certainly not the most likely one. He speaks glowingly of renewables, but ignores the fact that until the huge problem of energy storage is solved, the role of renewables is limited. He also misstates their true competitiveness. Tidewater access to the U.S. Gulf is falsely equated to access on Canada’s West Coast.

Gunton then proposes a new refinery for Canada, notwithstanding that there is a surplus of refinery capacity in Canada and U.S. He also continues to support an apocalyptic view of human-made global warming, ignoring recent studies that suggest a much lower sensitivity of temperature to increases in CO2 levels.

In short, what Gunton offers is more a list of alternative facts than balanced facts. As such, it fails to make a useful contribution to any discussion respecting Canada’s oil and gas industry. John Sutherland Victoria