Some stories you just can’t make up. It would require too much imagination, too many farcical sub-plots, with tie-ins that would stretch the credulity of even the most generous of minds.
Hand it over to our B.C. Liberals these days, and they happily continue with their liquefied natural gas (LNG) script, sounding more and more like it comes out of a gimcrack, imaginatively overblown, production.
The LNG market has been saturated by Russia, Australia, even the U.S. with floundering and dubiously projected profits. Tax rates initially promised by Premier Christy Clark at 7 per cent now dropped to 3.5 per cent. Billions of dollars of what was projected as coin for the “Prosperity Fund” are disappearing into thin air.
Speaking of tricks, conjuring vapid fantasies and slight of hands, comparatively speaking, that’s not the worst news about LNG.
Understand that the science of LNG exploitation is the very opposite of carnivals, slight of hands, and tricks of illusion. After all, LNG is a serious matter.
It’s about fracking. Poisoning millions of litres of water per well to get the product. Leaking methane into the atmosphere that removes any benefit to using natural gas, making it worse than coal.
The latest stint by the B.C. Liberals is a LNG, travelling side show through the province. Worse, they’ve unfortunately charmed Science World into a House of Mirrors gig, to tour alongside. All in the attempt to grant legitimacy to the LNG scheme.
Consider Bryan Tisdall, Science World’s CEO, in a recent interview with CBC. Tisdall muses that the B.C. government thought having Science World participating would add a bit of “spark.”
“Spark”? I guess when speaking about methane, a highly flammable gas, piped into Squamish under an estuary into a compressor plant in the middle of town, shipped down the populated narrows of Howe Sound, that’s not what us townies back home like to hear.
Despite the foreboding Freudian-slip of his half-rate attempt at future-telling, Tisdall continued by saying Science World was there to help us understand “the basics on the science of energy” and “how is it used and released.”
“To learn about the science of LNG, [and] the careers that might be involved,” as the publicity states.
What about all the concerns LNG brings? This isn’t part of what Science World is presenting. Then the zinger: “Our shows will be quite neutral,” Tisdall boasts.
Wait: You are there to explain the science of LNG, but your shows will be “quite neutral”? Of course! Because when it comes to the history of scientific discovery, “being neutral” is what first comes to mind! Copernicus and then Galileo on the neutrality of the earth’s place in the solar system. Louis Pasteur on germ theory. Darwin on the neutrality of our evolution. Einstein on relativity, and so on.
And here I was, thinking that one is only neutral on non-factual issues, like the colour your socks should be.
Hearing Tisdall talk and jiggle through his lines defending Science World performing for LNG – with no mention of renewable, sustainable energy options – I asked myself, “What a strange way for a scientist to talk. I wonder what he did his PhD in?” No surprise, given his flabby and outrageous description of the scientific method, no PhD.
LNG is no laughing matter. The serious science is growing louder every day – despite industry’s attempts to squelch it.
Unfortunately, there’s as much “science” in Science World these days as there is “liberal” in the BC Liberals. And that’s shameful for both Science World and the B.C. Liberals.
