Stelmach named ‘Canadian Fossil Fool of the Year’ by environmental groups
Award
SCOTT HARRIS / scott@vueweekly.com
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has been crowned “Canadian Fossil Fool of the Year” by a coalition of youth environmental organizations.
Stelmach was given the award, also dubbed a “Foolie,” for promoting increased production in Alberta’s tar sands and in recognition of the provincial government’s recent climate change plan, which focusses on intensity-based targets rather than absolute reductions in emissions.
Stelmach, who received 1063 of the 6000 online votes cast, was the runner-up to overall winner Kenneth Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, who received 1262 votes for “his company’s continued funding of dirty energy projects in Canada and the US.”
The contest was jointly sponsored by the Rainforest Action Network, Co-op America and the Energy Action Coalition, made up of 48 organizations in Canada and the United States, to coincide with the annual Apr 1 Fossil Fools Day. The event, now in its third year, is a North America-wide day of action “in opposition to dirty energy, [and to] show support for climate justice, strong legislation and corporate responsibility,“ according to the group’s website.
“This year we decided that we wanted to introduce an online voting component so that people could nominate their favourite fossil fools in the political and corporate arena, create some buzz around Fossil Fools Day and educate a wider population about some of the coal and oil CEOs and politicians who are really pushing dirty energy at the expense of our communities and our environment and start to raise the profile of some of those people,” explains Brianna Cayo Cotter, the communications director with the Energy Action Coalition.
Cotter says that she’s not surprised at Stelmach’s strong showing in a field of candidates dominated by Americans, given the profile the tar sands have been receiving lately south of the border.
“I think that it says that tar sands is fundamentally a global issue and a global problem and that the problems of the tar sands absolutely don’t stop at the Alberta border,” she says.
“Seventy per cent of oil from the tar sands is destined to the US marketplace and I think for too long now Americans have kept their heads buried in the sand, not knowing where their oil is coming from, not knowing the environmental impact of extraction of oil,” Cotter continues. “But all of a sudden we as a country are waking up to the very real threats of climate change and the environmental and social destruction that is related to fossil fuel extraction and burning, and are becoming much more aware of things like the tar sands and wanting to stop them not only for the incredible impact they’re having on communities up in Canada and the global greenhouse gas emissions that they’re releasing, but also the impacts that we’re starting to see down here in the US in terms of refineries and pipelines being proposed.”
GM CEO Rick Wagoner was another winner, taking home the Foolie in the “outstanding performance in corporate greenwashing” category for GM’s online touting of their environmental record at the same time the company is challenging vehicle emissions regulations in California and other US states. George Bush and Dick Cheney, meanwhile, received lifetime achievement awards for “their persistent efforts to deny the reality and impacts of global climate change, promote carbon-intensive energy solutions, and block progress toward curbing climate change.”
Full results can be found on the group’s website at energyactioncoalition.org/foolies. V
