Oil and all that

How much oil is there still in the North Sea? When will it run out? I don’t know. You probably don’t know. Possibly nobody knows. But UK newspapers were full of articles a couple of weeks back arguing that there is less oil than previously thought and it will not only bring in less cash than we believed but it will run out sooner.

Interestingly, the other thing that happened that week that got loads and loads of media attention was the arrival of 56 SNP members of parliament at Westminster. If you only read the Daily Mail, you’d be forgiven for seeing these 56 as a demented horde of Glasgow street urchins, racing round the sacred halls yelling and brandishing weapons rather than the fairly dull gang of QCs, doctors, councilors, middle managers and TV journalists they actually are. The media have really struggled to find anyone among the 56 worth getting worked up about. There’s been mention of Chris Law. He has a ponytail! And there’s Mhairi Black. She’s young!

So are the oil and the arrival of the new MPs events connected?

Well, they are in the media. And I smell a rat. A media rat. Feed the media rat any kind of claptrap and tosh and, if there’s a decent front page headline to be had, they’ll print it or give it air time on the radio and the telly. Somebody fed the media rat a whole load of nonsense about North Sea oil, most of it inaccurate and very little of it verifiable. And none of it dealing with the real issues around energy.

And those issues are – in my opinion:

Oil exploration is going on all the time. The oil companies are currently exploring the area north and west of Shetland. As the technology continues to improve, the oil companies will go into ever deeper water. The oil we already know is in the Atlantic will be at our disposal.

But I’m a member of the Green Party and we say we’re at a point when we should stop exploring for new oil and start moving over to alternative energy sources. There’s evidence now that fracking is costly and not just in money terms: there’s a risk of polluting the water table, even of causing earthquakes. And like the oil, shale gas will eventually run out.

But that’s not what we’re being told in this story. The media go banging on about North Sea oil bringing in less money, not for financial reasons but for political reasons. According to the media, the SNP depend on oil money to create the picture of a wealthy independent Scotland. The SNP says it has never said this. But since 34 out of 35 newspapers are anti-independence and – I would venture to say – both BBC and ITV follows the unionist line, it’s unlikely you’re going to get much publicity for any alternative view.

So here’s my prediction for the next few months: this story is just one example of media anti-independence bias. The next time the SNP or the Scottish Government announces good news, expect a very negative story to hit the media. And all we can do up here is keep plugging away on the outlets available to us: keep reading Bella Caledonia, Wings Over Scotland, the remaining Yes sites on Facebook – and, of course, The National and The Sunday Herald. And if you’re a member of the SNP and the Greens, keep reading the party websites.