Leaked Document Highlights Disconnect Between Corporations, Environmental Activists

A leaked document written by the global intelligence company Stratfor is a poignant lesson in the deep disconnect between environmental activists and corporations on the ongoing controversy of tar sands oil extraction.

Created for the petroleum giant Suncor, the Power Point presentation released Nov. 22 by WikiLeaks reads like a how-to manual for counteracting activism around the subject of tar sand production, of which Suncor is a major player. While Bartholomew Mongoven, a former Stratfor employee whose name appears on the opening and closing slide, declined to comment and Suncor denied either hiring Stratfor or the firm presenting it to them, leaked emails written to and from Mongoven name Suncor as a client and mention a payment of nearly $15,000.

David Turnbull is a campaign director for Oil Change International, a group deeply entrenched in the fight against the development of Canada's tar sands and one of the organizations identified in the document. After reading through the leak, Turnbull said he's not convinced corporate officials understand the work he and his colleagues are really engaged in.

"It's not totally clear they have an understanding of what we're doing," he said in an interview with Nature World News, explaining there is a "whole litany" of tactics Oil Change is involved with. "The document is focused on things like leaflets, which are important. But it ignores important and fundamental research put out on how bad tar sand is."

And neither is Turnbull the only one feeling misunderstood.

When asked if the list of activities laid out in the presentation were an accurate representation of those espoused by Greenpeace - also named in the presentation as - spokesman Mark Floegel replied: "Not a chance."

According to Floegel, the presentation is symptomatic of a larger trend in the relationship between corporations and activists. During the last two decades or so, PR and so-called intelligence firms have morphed the issue of environmental activism into less of a "responsibility to be fulfilled and more of a 'communications' issue" when working with corporate clients, he said.

In an email Nature World News, Suncor simply stressed the company's "long history" of engaging environmental non-governmental organizations and stakeholders.

"We've been having conversations with many organizations since the mid 1990s, and we've had a long term track record of engaging with stakeholders and interested groups," spokesperson Sneh Seetal said.

The presentation's release comes at a time when opposition against the development of tar sands is high. Among those leading the charge is Canadian rocker Neil Young, who recently announced a series of benefit concerts for the embattled Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

The indigenous group plans to take legal action against the Canadian government after authorized Shell Canada to nearly double the size of Shell Canada's Jackpine mine in Alberta province from 7,500 hectares to 13,000 hectares - a project, the First Nation says, that will violate numerous federal laws having to do with fisheries and at-risk species, in addition to treaty rights.

Researchers from the University of Washington showed there is cause for concern when they revealed that, based on data taken each winter from 2006-2009, Alberta's already declining caribou populations are experiencing high degrees of stress due to human activity brought on by oil production and the timber industry.

It's not just Alberta that has to fear further exploitation of the region's tar sands, scientists warn.

Thick and muddy, crude oil from Alberta's tar sands is far heavier and impurity-filled than any other kind of oil, meaning more energy has to be expended to extract and process it. All told, oil from tar sands produces an estimated 14-20 percent more greenhouse gas emissions throughout its entire lifecycle - from extraction to use - than other types of oil the United States imports, according to a March report by the Congressional Research Service.

Looking at satellite data of the region around the Alberta tar sands dating from 2005-2010, researchers from Environment Canada, the country's environmental agency, said they detected levels of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide roughly equivalent to those seen over large power plants or medium-sized cities. Comparing the data year by year, the scientists found the nitrogen dioxide kept pace with the growth of the tar sands industry, increasing by some 10 percent each year.

Climatologist James Hansen, the former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warned in a New York Times op-ed last year that should Canada continue to harvest its tar sands, "it will be game over for the climate."

Packed with roughly double the amount of CO2 ever emitted by oil use, Canada's tar sands would alter the face of the planet if fully tapped, he wrote, saying global temperatures "would become intolerable" and 20-50 percent of the world's species would be faced with extinction.

"Civilization would be at risk," he said.

For Americans, the issue has come alive in the form of the Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed compliment to the already existing Keystone pipeline, which transports crude oil 2,150 miles from the tar sands in Alberta to places in Patoka and Wood River, Ill. and Cushing, Okla. The additional 1,180 miles of new pipeline would connect Alberta with Steele City, Neb. and is designed, according to developers, to "allow Canadian and American oil producers more access to the large refining markets found in the American Midwest and along the U.S. Gulf Coast."

Supporters of the pipeline argue the project will create thousands of jobs and pump billions of dollars from the private sector into the US economy. Opponents, meanwhile, fear the increased emissions it would introduce, as well as its impact on neighboring communities and potential spills. Hansen has even gone so far as to call it the "fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet."

Right now the pipeline hangs in the balance, awaiting a decision by President Barack Obama.

Both Oil Change's David Turnbull and Greenpeace's Mark Floegel see opposing its construction as one of the most important and largest fronts in the battle against tar sands development, with each organization working to raise awareness on the subject.

Oil Change, for example, is busy researching the risks the Keystone XL pipeline and tar sands pose, Turnbull said, adding, "We hope the administration makes the right decision."

But if Obama authorizes the pipeline's expansion, Turnbull said there are tens of thousands of activists ready to resist its construction. And here, he said, is one of the key places where the Stratfor presentation falls short: It ignores the power of committed, grassroot organizers.

"It is a pretty narrow picture of a pretty broad movement," he said.