Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
I also think one of the bigger problems is that the oil companies themselves have a massive credibility problem after trying to fight and obfuscate the climate change debate for so long. It's come to the point where, even if what they're saying is true, people aren't going to believe them. I think that's also one of the reasons why having the Conservatives in power and basically being cheerleaders for the industry hurt things. People had the perception that government was just trying to cater to the oil companies, so nothing they said could be trusted.
We've seen similar things happen in other industries (anti-vaccines and "Big Pharma," anti-GMO and Monsanto). I actually am of the belief that Trudeau wants to get most of these pipelines built, because the Liberals have never been all that far off from the Conservatives on economic policies, but he has a huge credibility issue to address first.
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I agree that the cheer leading from the conservatives did not help at all. Instead of having projects assessed on merit we got everyone who hates the Harper conservatives (a lot of people, even some conservatives) automatically cheering against the projects even though they are well thought out and the environment is the last thing companies want to be responsible for damaging. The amount of hours that go into planning and environmental assessments/inspections is astounding and I think if some of these 'green peace supporters' knew the scale they would feel better but alas those things are not always disclosed in the public realm because of competition.