“At the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission hearing in Santa Maria on March 13, the statistics presented regarding “responsible domestic energy” were inaccurate. Mistakes were made with figures for oil operations both at Cat Canyon and elsewhere in the world. At the hearing, we were told that extracting oil domestically is preferable to importing oil specifically in terms of carbon intensity. This claim, however, is false.

 

Our fact-checking also shows that in the most recent data available, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) gives Cat Canyon a carbon intensity, or greenhouse gas emissions, of 7.83 g/MJ (grams per megajoule). This is almost double what we heard at the hearing, where the out-of-date figure of 4.08 g/MJ was presented.

 

The state’s official figures for the proposed steam injection techniques at Cat Canyon are much worse than those presented last week. It would be irresponsible for the county to allow the project to proceed.

 

Challenging the misuse of statistics is crucial – particularly when corporations mislead the public. Historian Naomi Oreskes has meticulously documented how fossil fuel companies deliberately misused statistics to sow confusion and mislead the public on climate change, spreading doubt and weakening support for environmental policies. The same occurred in the tobacco and chemicals industries.

 

What follows is a correction using the same official data sources cited at the hearing; it requires a bit of explanation: Carbon intensity figures are used globally to measure greenhouse gas emissions associated with the life cycle of different energy sources. They are measured in grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule (g/MJ) of energy produced. Higher figures are worse than lower ones, meaning more emissions are created and released into the atmosphere. Effects on climate change, people, and the environment are equivalently negative.” 

 

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