Beyond Propaganda: Oil giant BP greenwashes Alberta tar sands

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from In These Times:



Features > March 19, 2008
Beyond Propaganda
Oil giant BP greenwashes Alberta tar sands
By Michael Moreci


In 1997, after British Petroleum publicly acknowledged the harmful effects of global warming, it quickly became known as the oil company with environmental virtue.

While other oil corporations argued that climate change didn’t exist—most notably Exxon Mobil, which funded around 40 public policy groups that disputed the scientific grounds for global warming—BP was investing in emission reductions, going so far as to support the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement established to curb greenhouse gases, which took effect in 2005.

In 2005, BP Alternative Energies announced it would manage an investment program in solar and wind technologies, one that could amount to $8 billion over seven years. The company also marketed itself as an environmentally friendly oil corporation dedicated to moving “beyond petroleum.”

But a recent change in corporate policy threatens that green-friendly image. It’s a policy that Greenpeace calls “the biggest environmental crime in history.”

The policy involves BP breaking its long-standing, self-imposed ban on the production of crude oil from tar sands—which are a combination of clay, sand, various minerals and bitumen—found in the Canadian wilderness.

The process of extracting and refining tar sands—also known as Canadian crude—involves strip-mining a 50,000-square-mile span of forest (approximately the size of Florida) located in the western Canadian province of Alberta. The region contains an estimated 175 billion barrels of recoverable oil. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3568/beyond_propaganda/