For Ed Wiebe, seeing prominent ads claiming that “B.C. LNG will reduce global emissions” while on his daily bike ride to work as a climate researcher was particularly galling.
“What really got me was it was just completely blatantly false,” Wiebe said about advertising displayed prominently on city buses and billboards in Victoria and the Lower Mainland. “I just could not understand how they could get away with it.”
Wiebe wasn’t alone.
According to the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, or CAPE, “multiple” anonymous complainants believed the ads were misleading and asked Ad Standards Canada to investigate. Wiebe confirmed to The Tyee that he was among them.
But Wiebe may never learn the outcome of his complaint. He has been cut out of the process after another complainant leaked an initial decision, which unanimously found the ads by industry advocacy group Canada Action Coalition gave an “overall misleading impression that B.C. LNG is good for the environment, amounting to greenwashing.”
Yep I’ve been a bit peeved by these ads. North American Oil industry advocates are pushing any way they can to stay relevant over the next decades. They won’t hesitate to tell misleading statements to get their way.
The sun stops shining, the wind stops blowing, but coal is here forever.