http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20131205/worst-case-scenario-oil-sands-industry-has-come-life-leaked-document-shows
[multiple links and images in on-line article]
Worst-Case Scenario for Oil Sands Industry Has Come to Life, Leaked
Document Shows
Industry consultants said anti-tar sands push could become 'the most
significant environmental campaign of the decade' if activists were left
unopposed.
By Katherine Bagley, InsideClimate News
Dec 5, 2013
As environmentalists began ratcheting up pressure against Canada's tar
sands three years ago, one of the world's biggest strategic consulting
firms was tapped to help the North American oil industry figure out how
to handle the mounting activism. The resulting document, published
online by WikiLeaks, offers another window into how oil and gas
companies have been scrambling to deal with unrelenting opposition to
their growth plans.
The document identifies nearly two-dozen environmental organizations
leading the anti-oil sands movement and puts them into four categories:
radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists—with how-to's for
managing each. It also reveals that the worst-case scenario presented to
industry about the movement's growing influence seems to have come to life.
The December 2010 presentation by Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, a
global intelligence firm based in Texas, mostly advised oil sands
companies to ignore or limit reaction to the then-burgeoning tar sands
opposition movement because "activists lack influence in politics." But
there was a buried warning for industry under one scenario: Letting the
movement grow unopposed may bring about "the most significant
environmental campaign of the decade."
"This worst-case scenario is exactly what has happened," partly because
opposition to tar sands development has expanded beyond nonprofit groups
to include individual activists concerned about climate change, said
Mark Floegel, a senior investigator for Greenpeace. "The more people in
America see Superstorm Sandys or tornadoes in Chicago, the more they are
waking up and joining the fight."
Since the presentation was prepared, civil disobedience and protests
against the tar sands have sprung up from coast to coast. The movement
has helped delay President Obama's decision on the Keystone XL
pipeline—designed to funnel Canada's landlocked oil sands crude to
refineries on the Gulf Coast—and has held up another contentious
pipeline in Canada, the Northern Gateway to the Pacific Coast.
The Power Point document, titled "Oil Sands Market Campaigns," was
recently made public by WikiLeaks, part of a larger release of hacked
files from Stratfor, whose clients include the Departments of Homeland
Security and Defense, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and the American
Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby. It appears to have been
created for Calgary-based petroleum giant Suncor Energy, Canada's
largest oil sands producer.
The company told InsideClimate News that it did not hire Stratfor and
never saw such a presentation. Suncor is mentioned 11 times in the
document's 35 pages and all of Stratfor's advice seems to be directed at
the energy company. For example, one slide says, "Campaign ends quickly
with a resolution along the lines Suncor had wanted." In several emails
released by WikiLeaks, Stratfor employees discuss a $14,890 payment
Suncor owes the company for two completed projects, though no details
were provided.
The presentation is the latest in a series of revelations that suggest
energy companies—which for most of their history seemed unfazed by
activists—have been looking for ways to dilute environmentalists'
growing influence.
Earlier this year, TransCanada, the Canadian energy company behind the
Keystone XL, briefed Nebraska law enforcement authorities on how to
prosecute demonstrators protesting the 1,200-mile project. In 2011,
Range Resources, an oil and gas company, allegedly hired combat veterans
with experience in psychological warfare to squash opposition of natural
gas drilling.
"The Stratfor presentation isn't a complete surprise," said Scott
Parkin, a senior campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network and
volunteer organizer for Rising Tide North America, both grassroots
environmental groups. "As opposition has grown, coal, oil and gas
companies are all starting to put more money into responding—from
surveillance to protection to public relations."
Who Is Targeted
For each of Stratfor's categories of environmental activist—radicals,
idealists, realists and opportunists—the presentation explains how their
campaigns are structured and how the fossil fuel industry could deal
with them.
Three grassroots organizations—Rising Tide North America, Oil Change
International and the Indigenous Environmental Network—were labeled
radicals. Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network were classified
as a cross between radicals and idealists. Sierra Club, the nation's
largest environmental group, Amnesty International and Communities for a
Better Environment, among others, were labeled idealists. Several
mainstream environmental groups, including the National Wildlife
Federation, World Wildlife Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and
Ceres, a nonprofit that organizes businesses, investors and public
interest groups, were called realists.
It then lays out tactics the groups would use to push for change. They
include holding demonstrations outside annual meetings and marketing
events, generating fear of oil spills and other environmental disasters,
targeting CEOs and their families, collaborating with other green
groups, and splitting the fossil fuel industry on the issue by praising
companies working with activists and publicly shaming those that aren't.
The presentation says that while environmental groups are publicly
fighting to stop the expansion of the oil sands, their "real demand" is
for fossil fuel companies to adopt a "global code of conduct"—a set of
best practices not required by law, but that take into consideration
things like greenhouse gas reduction policies and human rights.
The Power Point also describes all the ways fossil fuel companies like
Suncor could choose to react to green groups' campaigns, such as
limiting contact with the organizations, intentionally delaying
negotiations, developing its own environmental initiatives to overshadow
activists' demands, or simply not responding. It provides the pros and
cons of each public relations decision, as well as the best- and
worst-case outcomes for each.
For example, Stratfor said that choosing not to respond could be useful
because in 2010, "activists are not stopping oil sands' growth and they
have no power in Alberta or Ottawa. Chance of success with U.S.
government is slim." The best outcome from a no-response strategy,
according to the presentation, is that green "groups move to fracturing
[natural gas fracking] or some other venue to press for the first major
code of conduct."
Stratfor would not answer questions about the presentation because it
has a policy not to comment on any of the WikiLeaks documents.
Several environmental groups named in the Stratfor presentation said
they weren't surprised by the consulting firm's assessment of their
work, but were disappointed, especially by its assumption that all they
wanted was a code of conduct.
"The environmental community has been very united in saying that we need
to stop tar sands expansion and clean up the mess already made there,"
said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the Natural Resources Defense
Council's international program. "That's the only real path forward if
we're going to protect not only the health of communities on the ground
in the boreal forests near the tar sands region, but also around the
world from the impacts of climate change. We're not looking for a code
of conduct."
For many, the leaked presentation provided proof that their work was
having an impact, boosting their confidence to keep protesting.
"Knowing that groups like Stratfor are targeting us, surveying us, and
also analyzing us shows how powerful these movements have become," said
Parkin of the Rainforest Action Network and Rising Tide North America.
"Obviously this wasn't meant for public consumption, but this doesn't
intimidate us. If anything, it emboldens us. It encourages us to push
harder."
==================================================================
Link to the Stratfor presentation document for Suncor (PDF)
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/873021-33714-suncor-presentation-1210-6.html
--
Darryl McMahon
Failure is not an option;
it comes standard.
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