In its attempt to maintain its social licence to keep looking for more oil and gas, the prospecting industry has used two arguments — that our economy relies on oil so we must keep drilling, and that gas can replace coal with benefits to the climate. Both are wrong.
First, that oil is useful and the economy depends on it. That argument doesn't take us very far, given that the economy depends even more on a stable climate for almost everything we do.
Does the industry really believe intense storms, sea level rise of a metre or two, heat waves, new pests and diseases in a warmer climate, shortages of fresh water as glaciers retreat, and millions of refugees from the Pacific and South Asia don't have an economic impact? There are alternatives to oil, but no alternatives to a liveable climate.
As long as fossil fuels are as cheap as they are now, and as long as they are subsidised by governments around the world, including our own, alternatives such as rail for freight, waste wood for boilers, renewable electricity for light vehicles and biodiesel for trucks, will stagnate.
The second argument says gas has "half the emissions of coal". This is deliberately misleading, it counts only carbon dioxide emissions. Yes, they are only a little more than half the carbon dioxide from coal — but carbon dioxide is only part of the story.
Natural gas is mainly methane, a hugely more powerful warming gas than carbon dioxide. When it is burned it converts to carbon dioxide, as coal and oil do, but unburned methane leaks out from all stages of the gas supply chain — from wells, pipelines, tanks, processing plants, combustion plant, abandoned wells, as well as blowouts and deliberate venting.