Fragmented words fracture the land ( Whitehorse Star Oct. 3, 2016 Comment )

Is Premier Darrell Pasloski being duplicitous on a carbon tax? Nothing new there.

I have pointed it out over years in the Star and syndicated columns (yukonblogger).

But, unlike recent commentaries on his cabinet discussions by Liz Hanson and Sandy Silver, I didn’t let the premier get away with his consistent understating of the ecological and economic harms of a carbon tax. 

A carbon tax or price has never succeeded to work against emissions, as it had been designed by PR firms of the oil industry to depress renewables and subsidize emission increases with money and false language. (See also IPCC report part 3 as well as leading energy economists, journalists and climate modellers.)

It is educational to take a look at Synergy Alberta, an unregistered oil and gas financed and staffed lobby group, of which for example the Pembina Institute had been a member organization (exposed by the author in 2014), that manages community consultations with psychological crowd control or recruiting methods.

The premier gets to cash in on public opinion, which is learning that the abstract “carbon price” locks in complex business deals, with a title that spells “not transparency.”

The weird non-language of it sounds different for a reason to a plain vanilla propane tax or perhaps a motor sport racing fuel tax.

At the same time, together with carbon pricers from the opposition parties and environmental NGOs, he gets to hold the door open for the frackers who want the “carbon tax”, as it is roughly identical with the “social licence” to expand pollution, debt, carbon off-set speculation, structural unemployment and injustice.

On July 30, 2012, Chris Turner observed in the Canadian Marketing magazine: “Oil industry executives like to talk about ‘the social licence to operate’”. And green-washers eat it up. 

Corporatist think tanks figured out that mentioning the “social licence” provides it, irrespectively of stating nay or yay to somebody having one.

It happens simply by downgrading the threshold of people’s agreement or democratic approval or refusal thereof into therapeutic mush words.

In a lighter moment, perhaps, just listen, really listen, to the oil-drumbeat of the pipeline coalition of Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, and B.C. Premier Christy Clark that is coming through 24/7 on the CBC and other corporatist media.

Or listen to Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobile’s CEO, who announced Oct. 7, 2015, “It’s just the right moment to introduce carbon taxes.”

Like a boxer in a rigged match, the premier may poke well in setting up to lose a carbon tax fight over a federally mandated carbon tax. Whereas a serious no to carbon pricing based on renewable energy initiatives and credible carbon accounting is bound to win out. 

Pointing out model carbon pricing of B.C. is methodically exempting Encana’s emissions would help an honest and legally effective argument (B.C. Auditor General report 2013).

It’s double-dealing all around by the Yukon Party on carbon taxes, and the NDP and Liberals on fracking.

All three are militantly united in hiding guaranteed fracking harms, such as water pollution, behind the uncertainty of “risk” language.

The point of converting scientifically established certain damage into the uncertainty of “risk” is to falsely suggest regulations for what can’t be regulated and therefore should have a moratorium.

The Yukon Conservation Society (YCS) consistently recommends “robust regulations”, unfortunately thereby softening up evidence against fracking.

It had largely endorsed the draft 2015 Yukon Oil and Gas Act (YOGA ) by responding “Agreed” to eight out of 11 proposals in the online consultation. 

The fundamental and surreal dissociation of the YOGA to the fracking problem is not rejected by YCS nor Yukoners Concerned About Oil and Gas Exploration/Development.

(I had warned against the leg-hold trap of fracking out of conventional drill language all through the frack committee process and its 21 best practices oriented pro-frack recommendations.)

Along those spineless carbon pricing lines, NDP and Liberal MLAs have voted together with the Yukon Party for the December 2015 YOGA that continues and entrenches the abolishment of the oil and gas veto right of the Kaska First Nation on their land in southeast Yukon.

Foreseeably the act, which hides away fracking completely, forced oversight bodies like the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board to deal falsely with brute force area fracking as spot drilling into a conventional reservoir.

The latter is very different to the only one decade-old current standard of unconventional drilling, HVSFLL.

Such a parallel reality version of environmental assessment and administrative oversight is already happening re. EFLO’s Kotaneelee drill permits and re. the China-National-Offshore-Oil-Corp./Northern-Cross-Yukon shale fracking exploration at Eagle Plains.

Checkerboard-style build-outs across large shale rock formations with high-volume, slickwater fracking from long laterals on multi-well pads is a necessary mouthful that fracture engineer Dr. Antony Ingraffea, skyped in to the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Centre last Thursday, apologized for. 

Proven conventional oil and gas reserves do not exist anymore in Yukon according to Yukon Geologiocal Survey-commissioned studies such as the one by Petrel & Robertson, July 2012. 

Any oil and gas extraction development from now has to mean “carpet bombing” of southeast Yukon, the Whitehorse Trough, the Peel or Eagle Plains. 

“Carpet bombing” fittingly is the industry jargon for HVSFLL. The purpose of supporting the 2015 redoing of oil and gas regulations speaks for itself.

While committing to carbon pricing, the NDP and Liberals, together with the Yukon Party, do not commit to a single kWh of new green energy, not to a single wind turbine, not to a single EV turbo-charge station nor comprehensive renewable energy source framework for private and public investment.

Armed with the freshly amended act in their pockets, the NDP or Liberals in government could continue to pay lip service against fracking while simultaneously forcing it through remote country backdoors on to citizens who typically are not geologists or petroleum engineers.

Yukoners Concerned had organized last week’s well-attended session.

Ingraffea, a well-known Cornell University professor, pointed out the YOGA never even mentions “shale” or “fracturing”, “conventional” or “unconventional”, not in any form.

He explicitly responded to the author in agreement on the deceptive character of the YOGA, which, in Ingraffea’s review, could only be matched on the negative scale by Texas regulations.

Peter Becker is a Whitehorse energy consultant.