Dear Editor:
Every day I open Facebook in the morning. It’s only 6:30am, and my little dog, Pip wants to get up, so to soothe my old bones and his, I turn on the TV to select soothing music but before we can settle down, the ad comes on.
It opens with music that could put us in a trance if we let it; a clear blue sky and pristine nature panoramas. Then it begins, driving the message home in a smooth, seductive voice, claiming with certainty that the dirty energy industry is succeeding in cleaning up their act to make oil and gas a “clean and ethical” choice.
Pathways Alliance – launched by six companies responsible for over 90% of tar sands production in Canada – is a multi million-dollar misinformation machine which has been flooding social media, airwaves, and newspapers with greenwashing ads. Clean, ethical gas and oil is a fiction! And we can’t let the fossil fuel industry get away with spreading their big fat lies with the public.
The problem is that people who want a clean planet for their kids are being seduced into believing that those big fat lies are the truth. The ad even caught my attention with its introduction. It draws you in.
Please don’t fall for the sinister greenwashing you are seeing on TV and lots of other places, too. Dirty energy companies are like the Pied Piper, trying to lead us to a place far from the truth. We, unlike the children in the fairy tale, can think for ourselves. What will save us is an informed public, ready to fight for the climate solutions we deserve.
Gerry Walsh,
Erin