A storm is brewing and we\u2019re only in the middle of it.<\/p>\n\n
Earlier this month, Greenpeace Canada was sent a leaked copy of a strategy<\/a> to kill a major piece of the federal government\u2019s climate plan. When I opened up my email, I knew it was a big deal.<\/p>\n\n The strategy, ostensibly designed by the high-powered elite PR firm Navigator<\/a> for an unknown industry client, outlines a sophisticated digital, media and influencer campaign to convince Canadians that \u201cfighting climate change is a losing battle\u201d.<\/p>\n\n When we tweeted the leaked strategy out<\/a>, the reactions from people across Canada were swift and immediate.<\/p>\n\n Naked disgust: \u201cYuck\u201d.<\/p>\n\n Incredulous horror: \u201cHow do they sleep at night?\u201d<\/p>\n\n Knowingly disappointed: \u201cNot shocking and yet still appalling\u201d.<\/p>\n\n Straight up cynical: \u201cNavigator gonna Navigator\u201d.<\/p>\n\n Canadians of all identities, movements and walks of life expressed their disapproval: former Green Party leader Elizabeth May, young climate strikers, professors, parents, feminists, LGBTQi2+ activists, a marine scientist, a library employee, an architect, a beer podcaster \u2014 even fellow PR flacks<\/a> were scandalized.<\/p>\n\n But it\u2019s one poignant response<\/a> that has me fuming: \u201cAs I read this, what comes to mind most is that, in all likelihood, people with children discussed, agreed, documented, and then shared this strategy for convincing those children to just. give. up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n I don\u2019t shock easily. I\u2019m a mother to a toddler and a digital campaigner who has spent a good chunk of the past year supporting young climate strikers fighting an uphill battle for a safe and liveable planet to grow up on. I\u2019ve worked on Greenpeace campaigns to expose the impacts<\/a> of the fossil fuel industry\u2019s decades-long climate denial. Even so, the audacity of industry and their PR firms getting together to seed climate despair at a time when Canada is warming twice as fast<\/a> as the rest of the world, fills me with anger on my daughter\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n\n The leaked strategy, entitled Canadians for Fairness in Clean Fuel Policy<\/a>, was drafted in 2018 and attacks a sensible and much-needed climate policy: the Clean Fuel Standard, a plan to make sure that fuels like gas and diesel burn more cleanly. It\u2019s a stepping stone to the clean energy transition our kids deserve. But while the rest of us pull together, the oil industry<\/a> and other businesses<\/a> are trying to avoid doing even the bare minimum of making fossil fuels less harmful. Instead, the strategy advises building a coalition that is \u201cbroader than Big Oil\u201d but which will \u201cappear organic and not stage managed\u201d and which will target Canadians online with a \u201cdigital campaign toolbox\u201d.<\/p>\n\n Greenpeace Canada has collected evidence<\/a> \u2014 op-eds, reports by think tanks and more \u2014 that the strategy may have been implemented over the past two years. Groups including those named in the strategy have spent thousands of dollars altogether on Facebook ads<\/a> opposing the Clean Fuel Standard and positioning the financial costs as insurmountable. Of course, these ads ignore the fact that industry polluters are avoiding paying their fair share for pollution.<\/p>\n\n The strategy further recommends quietly supporting the government\u2019s climate agenda and counsels against fighting climate science \u2026 all the while having the ultimate effect of undermining the government\u2019s ability to act on that science by (falsely) convincing Canadians that we can\u2019t act. <\/p>\n\n There\u2019s a word for that: gaslighting. Manipulating a person or group by making them doubt their reality.<\/p>\n\n