Simply Misleading

SAMUEL ALEXANDER teaches consumerism and sustainability at the Parkville Asylum, also finding time to lecture Fairfax readers about peak oil and co-helm a bizarre little entity called The Simplicity Institute. Well, simple is as simple writes, and nobody could accuse of Alexander of not sticking to his guns. He has a simple message and a simple way of broadcasting it: He simply doctors quotes.

Here he is citing "the chief executive of one of the world's largest oil companies, Total", as holding to the belief that "expected demand [for oil will] outstrip supply as early as 2014 or 2015".

Must be true, surely? A rising academic at a top-flight tertiary institution writing in a publication avowedly devoted to "quality journalism", how could readers not trust the information presented? Such a man could not possibly snatch and run with an entirely out-of-context quote. Why, the mind boggles!

Yet here is what Total's Thierry Desmarest -- who is the honorary chairman, not CEO --  actually said on the subject (emphasis and link added at the Billabong):

In our opinion it will be very difficult to raise the oil production above 95 million barrels/day, which is something like 10% above today's level - so it's not enormous. It's not that we lack reserves, there are plenty of oil to [be] produced, but a lot of it is difficult to be produced. Huge resources like the Athabasca oil sands for instance - when you look to the newsflow of the last 2 or 3 years you have just seen a lot of postponements, not that much because of lack of profitability of projects but also with environmental concerns.

The oil is there, but simple green souls like Samuel Alexander keep raising rackets and putting roadblocks in the path to its development.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Fairfax to correct the story, qualify the quote or invite a writer to expose Alexander's sleight of hand. Fairfax is, after all, entirely dovoted to the virtue of simple things. Indeed, its newsrooms and editors' offices are populated with nothing else.