Methanol: Public is being 'greenwashed'

Perhaps more dubious than the risks inherent in methanol itself is the fact that it’s being sold to the public as part of our state’s “clean energy future.”

Take fracked natural gas piped from Canada, add $200 million in special tax breaks, convert it using 16 million gallons of fresh water and 450 megawatts of nonrenewable electricity per day, ship it in tankers bound for China to fuel the Chinese plastics industry, to fill our landfills and pollute our oceans?

This dishonesty in messaging is referred to as “greenwashing,” and it’s used to sell environmentally disastrous projects to the public.

Please take their message with a grain of salt. It was crafted by skilled advertisers with the goal of easing your conscious just enough into believing there may be some benefit to sacrificing our water, electricity, safety and environment to someone who has never built or operated anything.

Dangerous refineries being built anywhere lose many at the word “plastic.” Thinking more broadly, most of us would agree projects so critical to health and safety should rise or fall based on their actual merits, rather than how many millions of dollars are spent to disguise them as environmentally friendly or conceal their risks.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 1:59 PM with the headline "Methanol: Public is being 'greenwashed'."