WANT SOME PUBLICITY ON THE CHEAP? COME AND BASH THE CANADIAN OIL SANDS!!

If you happen to live in North America and get a sudden fetish for public attention and publicity and you do not have much money or resources to spend, what do you do? You just pack your bags, land up in Canada, meet some anti-oil sands groups and/or people and tell them that you are willing to start another anti-oil sands movement in some shape or form. Just get started with your form of protest against oil sands with some sensational verbiage (but may be factually incorrect, who cares?) and you are off to media attention and publicity!

Curiously, some celebrities whose careers are heading in to sunset and who wanted to get some publicity ‘high’, chose the oil sands bashing route to get back in public limelight. Example? Robert Redford some time ago, and now Neil Young (Young who?).

Frankly, I had never heard of this guy Young – a rock star? Really? Anyway, this fellow, for some strange reason (and may be some personal agenda which needs to be investigated and established) parachuted himself in the midst of Canadian landscape as a messiah for and on behalf of Fort Chipewyan folks and as an anti-oil sands crusader in general.

It seems his umbilical connection with Canada by virtue of having being born in that country seems to be helping him to get some traction in Canada on his oil sands related utterances and some attendance in his so-called concerts in various Canadian cities. Young is taking the opportunity of his so-called fund raising concerts to launch in to anti-oil sands tirades with all sorts of assertions that are clearly indicative of how ill-informed/mis-informed and pathetically biased he is.

Unfortunately for the Canadians (see later narrative as to why I say so) the television channels of Canada seem to be slanting the reporting about this fellow’s views with a negative bias toward oil sands. And more unfortunately, some sections of Canadian public also seem to be getting an itch to jump on the anti-oil sands bandwagon.

Why is the purported negative bias toward oil sands unfortunate for Canadians at large? Because the narrative of most of anti-oil sands rant of these people indicates that they have:

-      NEVER visited Ft McMurray;

-      Absolutely NO idea of actual foot prints of oil sands projects (i.e. land disturbance) vis-à-vis total area of Ft. Mc expanse;

-      Absolutely NO idea of historical presence of bitumen like substance for millenniums in Athabasca region and its dynamics with the environment (water and others)

-      NO factual idea (or any idea!) of official situation on various agreements, consultation with First Nations folks;

-      NO firsthand how oil sands projects are ACTUALLY taking care of environmental impacts, reclamation;

-      NO factual information about commercial venture opportunities for the First Nations folks in oil sands development process (and the economic benefits accruing to them).

The above is not taken from any leaflet of any oil company or from CAPP. The above is based on first hand understanding of the ground realities. Moreover, the perception that oil sands development would bring calamitous consequences for planet Earth is as nonsensical, blighted and mis-informed as saying that Sun goes around Earth.

The gullible Canadians are getting carried away by the scare mongering rhetoric of the so-called environmentalists. The lay person is not challenging the global warming models - that the so-called environmentalists allude to when talking of calamitous consequences of oil sands’ contribution to global warming - which have so many parameters that are fuzzy, half-baked, incomplete, un-validated.

Based on the above 'models' there is this scare mongering going on that GHG going to wreak hell soon and oil sands is a major villain in this regard. This is utter crap, balderdash, clap trap. Why? Because the GHG’s contribution to global warming in totality is no more than 5% and oil sands contribution in all this is 0.1% or even less (depends on what is the basis of calculation).

Global warming is taking place – yes, it is correct. What factors REALLY contribute to it, is not clearly understood by so-called scientists – there are so many theories, schools of thoughts, models, explanations of inter-relationship of parameters and so on. And, amongst all this, one thing is fairly clear – the overall impact of GHG is no more than 5% (and impact of oil sands ? Even less). Sounds unbelievable? Well, this is correct - the fear mongering environmentalists may not like to hear this though.

So, folks, ascertain the facts, challenge the so-called scientific material thrown at you (creating scare and negative biases), challenge the sensational verbiage (which may be zillions of miles away from facts and reality) used by people like Young and more importantly look for the hidden agenda and ulterior motive folks like Young are having. Do not get carried away by the purported grandiose sounding ‘messianic’ image sought to be conveyed by such individuals.

Remember this: Oil sands is NOT a game changing contributor toward bringing about catastrophic consequences to this planet. On the contrary, it contributes significantly towards maintenance of ‘first world’ basis/status of Canada – the whole gamut ranging from health care to education to seniors’ care to social development at large.