Running on fumes
Campaign against oil industry is blowing a lot of smoke
We don’t expect that Calgary motorists will spot them anytime soon, but nonetheless, we are disappointed by the naivete of an environmental group that wants to place stickers on gas pumps warning of the negative effects of fossil fuels.
Our Horizon founder Robert Shirkey draws comparisons to the existing warnings printed on cigarette packages, and has designed a series of labels that state that demand for fuel products may harm wildlife, damage ecosystems, cause drought and famine, cause anxiety and depression in children and put 30 per cent of species at risk of extinction. Images of Arctic caribou, starving families in Africa and a sad child looking at his own reflection illustrate the doomsday warnings.
“The future of the planet is literally in the palm of your hand (when you pick up the gas nozzle),” said Shirkey, according to The Canadian Press. “A lot of people won’t like seeing them, but the placement is important because it speaks to diffusion of responsibility. Collectively, we’re endangering the planet.”
Our Horizon’s website includes a database of municipal councils and urges visitors to send an email to their local politicians asking them to pass a bylaw requiring that the warnings be placed on the nozzles at gas pumps within their communities.
The comparison between cigarettes and gasoline strikes us as an odd one, because tobacco is a dangerous product with no redeeming features. Oil, on the other hand, is a requirement for creating fuel to propel the great majority of the vehicles on our roadways. If Our Horizon is sincere, it would have to insist that the warnings are placed on tanks that fuel commercial aircraft, transport trucks, fire trucks, police cars, military equipment and marine vessels of all sorts — essentially the nub of what allows a healthy, prosperous society to function.
It’s not just oil, of course, that creates greenhouse gases. Coal is a far worse pollutant and is used in many jurisdictions for the generation of electricity. Just earlier this year, the respected scientific journal Nature said in an online editorial that U.S. President Barack Obama should worry less about the Keystone XL pipeline and more about America’s coal industry. Tellingly, a report by Greenpeace identifies coal as a bigger climate-change bogeyman than the oilsands.
If Shirkey is going to be logical, he’s going to have to lobby to place his grim warnings on light switches in homes and offices in cities that use electricity produced at coal fired plants.
And, we suppose, for consistency’s sake, he’ll also have to seek to attach the warnings to the many other products fashioned from oil: medicines, cosmetics, plastics, synthetic fabrics and lubricants.
“When you brushed your teeth today, you used a product made from oil — toothpaste,” says one American industry group.
“Look at your shoes — they are a product made from oil. Sunglasses, tires, tennis balls and TVs are all products of oil and gas.”
Our Horizon and its supporters would be better advised to work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a responsible fashion, not engage in unfair and selective fearmongering.