Campaign launches during two-year anniversary of deadly 2021 B.C. heat dome

VANCOUVER | UNCEDED xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (MUSQUEAM), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (SQUAMISH) AND səlilwətaɬ (TSLEIL-WAUTUTH) TERRITORIES — Today the David Suzuki Foundation launched an advertising campaign about “natural” and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to counter misleading industry claims. The campaign is focused on British Columbia but speaks to issues of urgent national and global importance, as B.C. is home to the sixth largest fossil fuel reserve in the world and Canada’s biggest carbon bomb.

Big oil and gas companies have spent millions in Canada and billions globally lobbying politicians and flooding the public conversation with misleading advertising about fossil fuels, including fracked (“natural”) gas and LNG. These efforts are rooted in the increasingly lethal pursuit of profit: the fossil fuel industry has made more than $3 billion in profit every day for the past 50 years, totalling $52 trillion and counting.

In recent years, fossil fuel companies have turned their attention to the massive gas reserves in B.C. and the province’s LNG industry. They seek to expand fracking and LNG exports when the world’s leading climate scientists and energy market experts all say no more fossil fuel projects should be built anywhere in the world if we want a livable planet. They make no exceptions for particular technologies or geopolitical dynamics.

“We live in an era of fossil fuel supremacy, where oil and gas companies spend millions on marketing their business and covering up the human and environmental costs,” said David Suzuki Foundation executive director Severn Cullis-Suzuki. “The claim that fracking methane gas is ‘natural’ is misleading and dangerous. The science pushes back on industry greenwashing and, in this case, ‘natural gaslighting.’”

“There is no reconciliation without truth, and the fossil fuel industry continues to peddle lies,” said Janelle Lapointe, Foundation public engagement and mobilization lead, Stellat’en First Nation. “They have traded climate denial for a glossy marketing campaign that presents fossil gas as a cleaner, sustainable alternative. In a vacuum of options, First Nations are buying into an industry that isn’t ecologically or economically viable. We must reject false climate solutions and corporate profiteering and instead ensure there are strong options for Indigenous people in a rapid and just transition to a clean, renewable future where Indigenous rights and title are upheld.”

“The fossil fuel industry has ramped up its efforts to sell Canadians on the idea that increasing fracked gas mining and LNG exports is a climate solution. These efforts distort and misrepresent the science. And they get a lot of traction,” said Shane Gunster, associate professor at Simon Fraser University’s School of Communication. “We need to hear more from critical voices — scientists, physicians, local communities, Indigenous nations, environmental groups — to counter these greenwashing efforts.”

The campaign will run through July, including targeting attendees of LNG 2023 in Vancouver from July 10 to 13.

The Foundation is calling on the B.C. government to focus on the transition to a healthy, affordable and safe renewable energy future, by stopping LNG expansion in B.C.

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About the campaign:

The David Suzuki Foundation (DavidSuzuki.org | @DavidSuzukiFdn) is a leading Canadian environmental non-profit organization, founded in 1990. We operate in English and French, with offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. We collaborate with all people in Canada, including First Nations leadership and communities, governments, businesses and individuals to find solutions to create a sustainable Canada through scientific research, traditional ecological knowledge, communications and public engagement, and innovative policy and legal solutions. Our mission is to protect nature’s diversity and the well-being of all life, now and for the future.