'Tactics as Dirty as Their Oil': Leaked Docs Reveal TransCanada's Propaganda Plan
Published on Tuesday, November 18, 2014
by Common Dreams
'Tactics as Dirty as Their Oil': Leaked Docs Reveal TransCanada's Propaganda Plan
Documents show that oil and gas companies are placing serious resources of time, money, and personnel into countering the growing climate justice movement. "What this speaks to is that they are losing," says one campaigner whose group has been targeted by company strategy.
by Jon Queally, staff writer
Internal strategy documents prepared by a public relations firm on behalf of Canadian pipeline giant TransCanada reveal details of an enormous and well-organized effort by the oil industry to neutralized the transnational grassroots movement which has grown up around the industry's effort to expand tar sands mining and the building of huge infrastructure projects designed to get "the world's dirtest fuel" to market.
Obtained by Greenpeace and given to The Guardian newspaper, the documents show that TransCanada—which has proposed building a pipeline called Energy East to bring tar sands from Alberta to New Brusnwick through the largest such pipeline ever built—is aligned with other oil and gas companies placing serious resources of time, money, and personnel into countering the growing climate justice movement which has so far successfully delayed building the Keystone XL pipelein and affirmed its commitment to stopping similar projects in the name of fighting global warming and the resulting threat of climate change.
"These tactics are as dirty as the oil the pipeline would transport," said Mark Calzavara of Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut regional organizer with the Council of Canadians, one of the groups named in the corporate documents. "Filling Energy East would mean the climate pollution equivalent to adding 7 million cars to our roads. It threatens over 1000 waterways along the route with a devastating diluted bitumen spill."
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Responding to the revelations, Andrea Harden-Donaghue, lead climate campaigner for the Council of Canadians, told the Guardian that the ambitious scale of strategy suggested TransCanada was concerned about growing opposition to the Energy East project. "What this speaks to is that they are losing,” she said. “What these documents reveal is that they are bringing Tea Party activists into the equation in Canada combined with a heavyhanded advertising campaign. They are clearly spending a lot of time and thought on our efforts. I’d rather see them address the concerns that we are raising."
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/11/18/tactics-dirty-their-oil-leaked-docs-reveal-transcanadas-propaganda-plan
