Fossil fuel industry I once worked for now threatens to burn my house down

As dangerous wildfires rage, writer Sandy Winterbottom wonders when oil and gas companies are going to take climate change seriously

Scotland has once again been on ‘extreme’ wildfire alert, with some areas seeing barely a drop of rain for weeks, and the south seeing less than a third of what they would usually expect at this time of year.

Where we live, near Kinross, we’re surrounded by non-native Sitka woods that have been repeatedly trashed by winter storms, most recently January’s ferocious Storm Eowyn. The dry brash is now stacked up within feet of the lay-bys on our access road.

In recent days, under an ‘extreme’ wildfire alert, I’ve assessed how far a passing delivery driver or dog walker would have to flick a cigarette butt to set it alight. I’ve been alert to the faintest whiff of smoke and checked the wind direction often. I know our escape-routes.

Being vigilant of risk is a habit I picked up when I used to work in the fossil fuel industry. Once a month, our boss would walk us round the office to identify hazards: too much loose paper on the desk (fire hazard), a bag not put away (trip hazard).

Accidents cost money, there are high penalties for regulatory breaches, and companies with poor safety records lose contracts. I’ve since moved onto other things, but the health and safety habit has stayed with me.

A wildfire a mile wide ravaged land at Colintraive on the Isle of Bute earlier this month (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images

Fires and floods

Now, when extended periods of drought hit – three times in the last four years in Scotland – I walk the land around our hillside house like we used to walk the office, picking up on every possible hazard. Knowing the risks and having a plan settles the queasy feeling in my stomach brought on by images of Goatfell on fire and campers being rescued by helicopter from the burning forests of Dumfries and Galloway.

It’s not just me who is watchful during these extremes. I recently visited folk in Brechin who keep as keen an eye on flood risk as I do on fire risk. They talked about the anxiety that arises when the rain seems relentless.

Climate change in Scotland means warmer, wetter winters that saturate the ground and cause flooding. But it also extends the growing season for vegetation. In a dry spring, thicker growth means increased fuel loading and a significantly higher wildfire risk.

This flip-flop of our weather patterns from extreme wet to extreme dry is all too familiar to that those who have been on the frontline of climate change for decades.

Risks known since 1965

The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius was agreed at the Paris Climate Summit in 2016 because, above that threshold, we all become significantly less safe. The stability of our climate worsens and our weather becomes more unpredictable, flipping between extremes.

We are careering into this 1.5C world far sooner than expected, but without the infrastructure or contingency plans needed – in Scotland or elsewhere – for the worsening disasters that come with it.

The fossil fuel industry has known about the risks of burning oil, gas and coal since 1965, indeed they have even planned for it when building their own infrastructure. These companies, that have long prided themselves on their impeccable health and safety records, have put every single person on this planet at a significantly increased risk from the dangers of climate change, and they have done it in full knowledge of their actions.

They have inveigled their way into our politics and media. Their tactics to delay, distract and deflect from any serious action that would have kept us safe, are well-evidenced.

Few oil firms investing in renewables

Many of the major oil and gas companies are also now backtracking on their commitments to renewables, even though they hold much of the finance, expertise, supply chains and personnel required for us to transition to home-grown secure renewable energy sources. Just a handful of North Sea oil and gas firms are investing anything in Scotland’s renewable energy industry despite our unrivalled potential.

Further delays to serious climate action keep us reliant on increasingly volatile global markets and our bills high. And what further price will we pay? Burning the oil and gas from Equinor’s Rosebank oilfield alone, for example, would pump an additional 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.

This one-oil field off the coast of Shetland would create more climate pollution than the 700 million people living in the world’s poorest countries do in a year, with all the human misery, displacement and exorbitant financial costs caused by extreme weather events that will result.

Generous tax breaks

Despite claims by the industry’s cheerleaders to justify this monumental breach of our human right to a safe environment, oilfields like Rosebank will not boost our energy security or lower our bills; around 80 per cent of North Sea oil is exported for refining and then sold back to us at full market price.

Meanwhile the UK taxpayer would effectively cover over 80 per cent of the development costs for Rosebank, thanks to generous tax breaks, and yet the profits will go into the coffers of its owners, Equinor and its majority backer, the Norwegian government.

As for claims that Rosebank will create thousands of jobs, Equinor's own estimates suggest 255 direct jobs would be created in the UK over its 25-year lifetime. Unions are rightly angry that it hasn’t yet led to a single design or construction job in Scotland, with the developers choosing to build the main offshore vessel in Dubai.

Meanwhile, Scotland is left ill-prepared for the ravages and financial costs that an increasingly destabilised climate will inflict upon its people, land and wildlife. That the fossil fuel industry and their chief executives persist in their reckless course of action in order to keep shareholders happy is yet another damning indictment of their culpability in further endangering our lives. Isn’t it time they were held to account?

Sandy Winterbottom is a writer living in Central Scotland. Her first book, The Two-Headed Whale, is published by Birlinn and Greystone.