Alberta's "Aggressive" Oilsands Marketing Campaign

Today, the Alberta government released its long term energy strategy document, entitled Launching Alberta’s Energy Future: Provincial Energy Strategy. Although I have only skimmed the document, it appears to be consistent with Premier Ed Stelmach’s other vision documents: little substance and no real time frame. However, of interesting note is the province’s commitment to a 5% ethanol content in gasoline and a 2% renewable content in diesel by 2010. This is an interesting proposal, particularly due to the fact that it has been widely acknowledged that bio-fuels for have more of a harmful, rather than beneficial, effect on the planet.

Also of note is the Alberta government’s “aggressive global marketing” oilsands strategy, which will help the province reach a larger and more diversified energy market. Obviously this refers to the Alberta government’s current public relations campaign to combat the oilsand’s dirty image. This campaign has taken a series of hits over the last few days, as BBC has prominently featured two articles highlighting the environmental, social and human impact of the oilsands on their website. In addition to this, it turns out that Downstream, an Oscar nominated documentary also featuring the devastating impacts of the oilsands, received film funding from the Alberta government. Furthermore, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation will now be taking the Alberta government to court to force the government to actually consult them regarding the grant leases for oilsands development and address the impact of oilsands on the health of the community.

However, the Alberta government plans to take a more “aggressive” approach to market its oilsands and today we got a glimpse of what that exactly means. At the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland (where strategies are being developed to create a new agreement to lower greenhouse gases), a Canadian youth group attending the conference had their display – on the environmental impacts of the oilsands – taken down. This seems to have occurred during or immediately after the youth group (YOUTH GROUP) had a meeting – described by the youths as “fairly confrontational” – with Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner.

Aggressive indeed.