It’s not often that the media gets a chance to make a headline out of “Kate and Wills” and “oilsands”.
The opportunity came on Friday, when the Royal couple, which is doing a cross-country tour of Canada, visited a greenhouse at the Calgary Zoo to learn about oilsands as part of their visit to the annual Calgary Stampede.
After seeing off the parade the Royals headed to a greenhouse at the Calgary Zoo to view demonstrations of technologies from the province’s energy sector – carbon capture and storage, an unproven technology the province hopes will one day reduce its carbon emissions; a hydrocyclone separation process, used to extract crude oil from the thick, grainy bitumen of the province’s oil sands; and new solar power cells from the province’s tiny, fledgling renewable energy sector.
Meanwhile, environmental group Environmental Defence took advantage of the Royal visit by unveiling a series of fashionable hats for the Duchess of Cambridge, ostensibly to draw attention to Canadian historical and environmental issues. The group opposes oilsands development.
“These hats tell the story of Canada, a very different Canada to the one Prince William’s parents visited 20 years ago,” said Gillian McEachern of Environmental Defence. “In a humourous way, we wanted to make the point that Canada is not the country the couple might be expecting, with the tar sands especially damaging our reputation around the world.”