Warning labels at the pumps? Climate-change activist wants to stick it to gas retailers

Nationalpost.com
May 10, 2015
By Victor Ferreira

An activist wants climate-change warning stickers - claiming effects from at-risk caribou to sick children - made mandatory on every gas nozzle. To the surprise of gasoline retailers, some Canadian municipalities are listening.

City council in West Vancouver, B.C., unanimously voted to support the placement of warnings, similar to those found on cigarette packages, about species extinction, ocean acidification and respiratory problems in children on every gas nozzle. The municipality will present the idea and look for support at the Union of B.C. municipalities in September, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Conference in 2016.

The Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities and the city of Moncton, N.B., have voted to support the recommendation. City council in Guelph, Ont., will be voting to do the same in late May.

Rob Shirkey, a Toronto activist and lawyer, founded Our Horizon in 2013 and has been travelling across Canada, presenting the idea of warning labels as a simple fix that can change the world.

“It’s just a sticker. It’s low-cost. It’s compelling,” Shirkey says. “It’s the world’s lowest cost to climate-change intervention.”

But what may be simple to Shirkey, isn’t for retailers.

David Knight, a spokesman for the Canadian Convenience Stores Association, says municipalities shouldn’t be able to force their view of climate change onto gas retailers.

“If municipalities are truly serious about increasing climate-change awareness and effecting behavioural change among consumers, then perhaps every home, business and public institution consuming energy linked to fossil fuels for heat, power or air conditioning in a municipality should be required to have a climate-change warning label on the front door,” Knight said.

The legality of a municipality forcing gasoline retailers into such an action is already being challenged in the U.S., and Knight said similar questions could arise in Canada.

West Vancouver Mayor Michael Smith said his municipality is seeking support at higher levels of government in a bid to protect against such a challenge.

“What we really need to do is get it mandated by the province and federal government,” Smith said. “The issue is, I don’t think we really have the legal right to insist that west Vancouver service stations put those labels on.”

Smith himself owns several commercial car lots and said he’ll hoping to begin using the labels on his pumps before the end of the summer.

“We just want an information label so that when people are filling their car up with fossil fuels (they) realize that there’s an environment impact on the climate for doing that.”

Guelph city councillor Bob Bell said he worries about the city facing a lawsuit from the gasoline retailers and that’s why council is considering making it voluntary as it pushes the idea to the Association of Ontario municipalities.

“We’re trying to find a way that gasoline retailers can voluntarily label their pumps,” Bell said. “One Esso retailer has already stepped forward and said he’d label his pumps. There’s hope that most local gasoline retailers will voluntarily participate in a program rather than starting a fight.”

After a Canadian tour without much success, Shirkey had a similar fight on his hands to keep his idea relevant. He was invited to lecture in Nanaimo, B.C., in January, but with his budget spent, he couldn’t afford a place to stay.