Yes. Without the wider relevant discussion of science around the industry's contribution to climate change and the technologies that offer a move away from carbon-dependence, it is unbalanced. You shouldn't get a chance to enter our schools with material targeting students around such a critical issue for our future without presenting the wider reality of its impacts.
Is there anything wrong with me criticising this roadshow without having seen it?
Of course. However, I did review the associated website and phone the National Science-Technology Roadshow Trust chairman Ian Kennedy to ask about their involvement. The Trust wasn't involved with the website but did contribute geology exhibits to be part of the tour. Kennedy said he stood by the quality of the science behind the exhibit, so I will be interested to view firsthand this weekend with my dinosaur-mad boys.
Overall, I want to offer some free advice for the oil and gas industry from someone who has a science degree (and even passed - just - introductory earth materials at Massey) and has managed corporate sponsorship, including educational packages.
You might be getting positive feedback from some visitors, but you're getting some serious bad press from a growing corner concerned about the push for high-risk, deep sea oil drilling. This roadshow looks like positioning from those with the big bucks.
Educational effort requires a broad presentation of risk and impact, like talking about the speed at which we're consuming our carbon stores compared with the millions of years they took to develop - this may be a natural resource but it's not a sustainable one.
How anyone thinks they can talk oil and gas without talking climate change is beyond me. One of the website statements was "everyone uses oil and gas every day. We can't live in the modern world without it. There are other types of energy. Maybe one day you could help find a type that replaces oil and gas." Duh, there already are alternatives - why not talk about them. Why not talk about movements away from carbon - perhaps because it's not education, it's PR.
This statement about tax on their website seems like blatant influencing not science education: "This results in sums of hundreds of millions of dollars (and in the future perhaps billions of dollars) that the NZ government can collect to help the whole population of New Zealand". I'm guessing that there isn't a display on the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill with mention of the billions of dollars in fines.
Yes we need oil and gas for our lifestyles today and yes we need geology education but this combo smells off to me. In related news this week, Stratford District Council was outed as not providing a report critical of a Tag Oil oil drilling application (one of the roadshow sponsors) to the hearings commissioner prior to his decision.
The commissioner criticised this approach and it simply doesn't build trust. We rely on our councils and government departments to operate fairly when we have commercial interests at work and these two examples don't reflect best, or even good, practice. A shiny dinosaur roadshow isn't enough.
