Global Warning (2019) - full transcript

What is behind you right now,
so what's behind us right now?

So, this for us NST-line 4
for so non-segregated tails.

So, in the pipe,

is sand, fines, water and some rock.
A minor part of bitumen, but very minimal.

So when you look at it,
it doesn't look very appealing.

No, it doesn't, but of all
the unappealing things we

uncovered while making this documentary
about fossil fuels and climate change,

this tailings pipe didn't
seem so bad in the end.

This empire has the ability to destroy
life as we know it on this planet.

I mean, the timelines on
climate change are so short.

A warming world is not a smoking
gun for a CO2 catastrophe.



It's possible. The creator might say:
I want to start again.

Canada does not have a long
history of pulling its weight.

If it doesn't get resolved, I don't
know that the country can survive.

I'll stop this province. I do not
want this province to be polluted.

So if you protest, you have to put your
body on that machine in order to stop it.

And I'm sorry to do this my friends,

but time is important.

Agents, you know better than that.
He's trying to put a cell phone on my face.

Please help me.
You know that this is not right.

You know that I shouldn't be
treated this way. My friends,

you have a moral imperative. We all live on
this planet. Quit lying to yourselves...

That's my point. It's to help you, stop, lying to
yourselves. It really hurts. I'm sure you'll fix
the eye-finger ...

To Catherine Abreu: coming from Northern America.

What do you think about how
Canada is currently performing?



Canada has never met a climate
target that it couldn't miss.

We've been setting climate targets

in Canada since the early 1990s,
and we've yet to meet a single one.

And current projections show that we're
off track to meet our 2030 Paris target.

We, in Canada are one of those countries
that is historically far more responsible

for the problem of climate change and has
economically benefited, from a ..., from the

various economic models that have
contributed to a warming planet.

We are really avoiding addressing

the overextraction and, and export
of fossil fuels, from Canada.

So by no means does our current climate

plan actually deliver the level of ambition that we

need, in order to do our fair share
to confront the global challenge

of climate change, but it gets the ball rolling.

I think a big focus for us this week is
going to be meeting with countries to

have conversations about how

addressing the production and supply

of fossil fuels can be a bigger part
of the conversation in this space.

Talking about fossil fuels is something
that countries don't want to do

because they feel ashamed,
because I, ... totally

Meet Catherine Abreu.

Catherine is the Executive Director

of Climate Action Network, a coalition
of more than 100 organizations

working on climate change
and energy issues in Canada.

Catherine is an internationally

recognized, award winning campaigner
who is literally listed with the Pope as

one of the world's 100 most
influential people in climate policy.

I met up with Catherine at the U.N.

climate change conference in Bonn,
Germany, where she was set to meet

with youth, advise political delegates,
and speak out on the global stage.

We need transformational shifts,

and that's going to look
different for every country.

Right. So it isn't
necessarily that we're

thinking of a baseline of three asks
that we make of every country,

but that we're thinking of what the most
ambitious ask to make of every country is.

And that's why I say, you know,
there are several countries where

the gap in ambition is directly related
to the refusal to address the production

and supply of fossil fuels,
my country included.

While Canadian companies are taking
steps to reduce CO2 emissions,

Catherine and her team still have
their work cut out for them.

We all know fossil fuels aren't
going to go away tomorrow.

But if we can't talk about it, then we're
not going to be able to address

this extremely serious issue that people
are suffering from the world over.

So, that's kind of where
my energy is right now.

A hard won lesson for many

environmentalists is that
facts don't change minds.

So, while I think we have moved

into a place where most people accept
the science, it hasn't necessarily meant

that everyone has made up their
mind to do something about it.

Climate change and global warming
are perhaps the most pressing issues

in the world right now,
they're important to me, too.

I have two children.

I worry about their future, humanity,

and the well-being of the
Earth, like most people.

In fact, I've been trying to create
awareness around global warming since

my Grade five science fair
project back in the 80s.

That's me, little Matthew Embry,

before I started making
investigative documentaries.

My project hasn't made much of an impact
because here I am in Germany three decades

later, following Catherine as she tries to
affect Canadian policy around this issue.

I'm a Canadian too,

and along with not reaching our emissions
reductions targets, there have been other

problems in our country due to climate
change that I have witnessed first-hand.

My hometown is called Calgary,

it's located in the province of Alberta by
the Rocky Mountains and global warming

policies have had a chilling
effect on the entire city.

So this is your typical situation.

This was a chemical company, it was, but...

How many people would have been
on this floor previously, Kendra?

There would have been, you
know, sort of north of 60 people.

It's humbling.

This floor has been vacant for...

two and a half years now.

In any normalized market, this
is a pretty appealing offering

because you have a basically a turnkey
type solution where, move in, bring your

personal belongings, bring in your
computers, hook up your IT, away you go

But even with the sort of plug and play

situation, it's very hard
to move space in town.

This is definitely unprecedented.

Vacancy downtown is just
shy of twenty five percent.

And to put that in perspective, in 2012,
vacancy was two and a half percent.

So, you know, 22% in this market,

you know, you're looking at close to 10
million square feet of additional space,

versus what was available seven years
ago. To compare it to other cities,

You know, Silicon Valley
in the tech burst and then

the financial crisis, which led
to the auto industry issues

so Detroit and Silicon Valley, their
vacancies, when they peaked ...

It's similar to where Calgary sits today,
sort of just to put it into context, so,

you know, we're dealing with
a significant real estate issue.

The question is, how do we fix it?

We walk through space and
you look at empty desks,

these were viable employees. You
kind of look where are they now?

What are they doing now?

If we have twenty five percent vacancy

downtown, that's over 30'000 jobs
that have vacated in the last four years.

Where are those people now?
There's all of these desks that are empty,

there's chairs empty.

Lots of empty office Towers. Even my

Bow building is, is not full

anymore. At that time, when we built it.

We thought we were going
to run out of space,

but everything changed.

Meet Quinn Morgan. This Alberta

farm boy founded a Calgary based business

that employs thousands of people,

grew its operation internationally and
was at one point listed as the number

one company on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

This is my history section.

I've been given the number of

honorary degrees, Universities.

That just happens to be my Alma Mater

on there in Alberta. And ...

that's from Stephen Harper,

congratulating me on my order of Canada.

I was saying at home,

how proud I was, to be a Canadian and

do what I could for, for

the country in my own way. And and so

it was a recognition that, that

I'd done OK, and it was

very special.

Albertans are resilient, you know,

they're hard to keep down,

you know. If they push them in one way

and they come up somewhere else.

They figure out a way.

But today in Alberta. I've never seen

these resilient hard-working people

so down. They just have

almost given up hope.

And you know the worst thing of all, whatever

is, whatever has happened to you, physical,

whatever,

is when you lose hope.

We got Dwayne on line 20. Go ahead.

Hey Danielle, here's something

right today in my job.

I have to lay off 25%

of my Workforce ... Oh man ...
Right before Christmas ...

What kind of what kind of work are you in because

we've been talking about the Oil field Services guys

on the front, on the front lines.
That's where you are. Wow.

And I love my guys,

and you know what? I gotta lay off ...

I got to lay off 25%

of these guys. They made ... Yeah ...

they made between 70,000

and a hundred grand a year ...

I got to get rid of three million dollars.

Do you know what my bosses are saying

3 million dollars, like they're not people.

And, and they're going home

to tell their wives tonight.

Christmas is over,

and you know what, we got nothing, and

my bosses are trying to save

other people's jobs.

They're not trying to save their
own, because you know what,

we're management. We've taken

a 40% pay cut,

so we can keep as many people

employed as we can.

And today, I gotta break people's hearts.

And I gotta tell them that

you're no longer useful to us, ... because

of money! This is what socialism

does everybody. They're chasing

out investment. This is Venezuela

coming, and you don't think

it's happening, and it can't happen in Canada

folks? Open your eyes,

because this is just the beginning.

It's the frustration of

these guys who?

Well, they just they just want to work.

They just want to take care of their families.

And they don't they don't know if
they'll ever be able to work in their

field again,

you know these phone calls, its a ...

You know those people telling me that they're

they have contemplated suicide.

So when you don't have a job and your marriage

breaks down or you don't have a job, so you

get into a drug or alcohol addiction,

or you get into drug or alcohol addiction, and it

causes you to have domestic violence. Like all of

these social issues are interconnected.

We've got a huge social crisis

that is only going to grow,

if you don't have people able
to take care of themselves.

And these are, these again are all people

who are willing to.

They want to take care of themselves,

but they've got Governments
making decisions that

are standing in the way of the

economy getting back on track. And that's, that's

to me, the greatest frustration.

It was because they ... I do

know that if certain decisions

could get made at the provincial level,

at the federal level, that

we'd be able to flip that switch back
on again. Because I've seen

it, I've seen us be able to recover

from these kinds of, of

downturns, but this one feels like

it's possible that we

move on to cover from it.

Floor after floor of these towers are empty.

Downtown windows are covered with

"For Lease" signs and
unemployment numbers

continue to rise.

This is not the Calgary, Alberta,

I grew up in, this was a vibrant and

growing city. The home of the world-famous

Calgary Stampede and the

1988 Winter Olympics.

Calgarians were celebrated for their
entrepreneurship and can-do attitude.

Calgary is often listed as one of the best cities

to live on the planet.

So how did we get here? How did Calgary,

a city that was once experiencing record

growth and prosperity,

transform into a city
of anxiety and despair,

in less than five years?

Well, here's the backstory:
Calgary is fundamentally

and economically fueled by

the oil and gas industry.

Ever since Leduc number one started producing in

1947, things have more or less

been on the upswing but the province

really hit Pay Dirt with the development

of the Athabasca oil sands, estimated to

be the third largest oil Reserve in

the world. For more than half a century

Calgary companies and citizens have been

drilling Wells, laying down pipelines

selling fossil fuels building high-rises

and suburbs, two-stepping and flapjacking,

and raising families. People from all

over Canada would flock to the industry.

It was a liquid gold rush, but for now

that rush is over.

Obviously the world oil price collapse

was a devastating blow.

But we'd all been through that before,

you know, eventually it changes.

But, what's really happened is

we've gone into another period

of political purgatory for the industry.

They were projecting that

we could be 7 million

barrels per day producer. This is part

of the reason we had so many pipeline projects

that were on the go. Northern Gateway and Keystone

and the Energy East and

Trans-Mountain. It seemed like

it was going to be Skies the sky's the limit

and all we needed to do
is just make sure we had the

pipeline takeaway capacity
to continue to develop it.

We've got a government that's ideologically

opposed to the oil and gas industry,

where emissions reduction,

trying to do something about
climate change if you like, at least,

that was the ostensible reason,

trumped everything else.

One of the biggest places that it's

been seen, is the pipelines.

Alberta's land locked.

And there's our major problem.

An enormous amount of
oil and gas that we produce

is landlocked in Alberta without new

pipelines. And Calgarians,

like their crude, are taking it lightly.

We haven't been building pipelines.
Resource investment

has absolutely collapsed,

and, you know,

all of Canada should be incredibly
concerned and I think we're building up

momentum next all
the good work you're doing,

and all the good work that Geoffroy, Fox is doing

you know,

Cody batters Hill is the
founder of Canada action,

a Grassroots movement,
encouraging Canadian

citizens to take action and support

the Canadian oil sands
and energy sector.

I guess when you're going to do
a march, you get a lot of police, eh.

Thanks for coming, appreciate it.

We've seen images of protests

against pipelines across the country.

Cody and his team have organized a rally

for Calgarians to show support for

pipelines.

Here is a fact:

When you're blocking any oil pipelines,

you are harming the global environment,

because other countries
will take our market share,

and our families have seen the repercussions

of this economic downturn.

We're going to do a march!

A march for prosperity, a march for pipelines,
a march for our natural resource sector!

A choking, that solidary proud

Canadian families are very bad at living,

in the natural resource sector!

The Trans Mountain pipeline
would run from Alberta

through the province of British
Columbia to the West Coast.

It's one of the many pipelines

that could bolster Calgary's economy,

but its construction and
the construction of other

pipelines have been halted by politics

and environmental activism.

Cody is as pro Canadian Oil and Gas

as it gets, and his activism

has resulted in online abuse,

and death threats. This absolutely

puts fuel in the tank, you know.

It's hard sometimes, because
there's a lot of barriers.

There's a lot of frustration.
There's a lot of negativity,

a lot of attacks, personal
attacks and everything else.

But, you know when you
see this, you just know it's

all worth it. You know,
it's really all worth it

for the global environment,

for our families and our economy.

So yeah, we're super happy

today.

Look at these beautiful wind turbines.
They're gorgeous ...

I know a lot of people who

are struggling with the ways in which

that sector has been impacted.

Because of the shift in

global oil prices and the loss of jobs that

Alberta has experienced recently.

And I, I like feel that

on a, in a personal way.

I have so much empathy,

and I think when we see the world

moving to a clean energy

future, we're not having a

conversation about how we

have a really prepared

and planned-for transition

in Canada's energy sector,

that protects workers and communities.

In order to make this transition real,

we're going to have to build a bunch of

electricity transmission
East to West in Canada,

so we can get all that good
renewable energy flowing

across the country and like

guess what the exact same

skill set for building a pipeline

is required to

to build an electricity

transmission line. And this kind

of suffering that we've been
seeing for the last couple of

years in Albertan communities

is going to worsen.

It's not easy to imagine,
that things could get

worse for Calgary,

but it is a possibility.

Because if we don't

do what we need to do
to address climate change,

we're just not going to keep being able

to live in Canada, and the
ways that we're used to.

And if we don't figure out

how to make that

transition happening, for
Andrews' energy sector

the future prosperity and
job creation in Canada

is at risk.

I look forward to the day
where Canada is covered

in wind turbines and solar panels

in the same way that Germany is.

About ten, almost 10 years ago.

There was a group of environmental

very rich environmental groups. Like

Rockefeller Brother's foundation and a

few ... Hewlett Packard Foundation

or former owners of Hewlett-Packard;

number of others, put hundreds of millions of

dollars into a campaign,

the landlocked Tar Sands campaign.

And they, they actually had a strategy to dock it.

They published it, and it's available

for people to look at.

When I got back into radio is when I found out

about the, a …

Tar Sands Campaign which began in 2008

I saw the documents for it. So there's a PowerPoint

presentation where they went through, and

the purpose of it was to

demonize Alberta

oil sands and Canadian Oil in particular.

So Greenpeace was
one of the organizations

that was most involved in exposing

the tar sands on the global stage,

in exposing the massive
amount of greenhouse

gas emissions that come out of the

tar Sands.

In showing the world
what's happening there.

The images, the tailings ponds,

the huge removal of forests,

the toxic emissions. We've been

very involved in that and
that's been a game-changer,

really, I know for Alberta,
but, and also for

for Canada and the

global climate movement. To understand

the severity of what's happening there.

Oh, well, one of the things they

said right in their … manifesto

they put together, was that they

would also engage the celebrities,

you know, they were
mentioning Leonardo DiCaprio

coming because of the
oil sands, and he did.

I've personally flown DiCaprio,

Archbishop Desmond Tutu,

Bill Nye, the Science Guy,

just all sorts of documentary teams from

BBC, and

Sierra Fund, the World Wildlife Fund.

We fly for everybody,

and we have some people
here recently from a

news outlet in England.

Well, I asked him, I said, why
are you here? Why, why protest

the environmental record
and what's going on …

in Fort McMurray? Why not Russia or

Venezuela?

Or why don't you go and protest

coal-using generating stations in China?

And the simple answer is,
is because either

they'll be arrested and put in jail in Siberia

or somewhere in China …

or they'll be shot, or they'll just disappear ...

The celebrities are usually being hosted

by somebody who already has

an agenda with one of the anti-

oil-sands or anti-oil

in general people.

They have these ideas in their mind,
and they look out of the helicopter

and try and find something
that validates what

they think they already
know, but you

look at these dead trees,
they'll say: these dead trees …

you know, like the oil sands destroyed that …

No, that was a fire in 2011 that did that.

So it looks like a lot of
smoke coming up by those

all those little round units. That's

just steam evaporating in the sky.
Those are heat-exchangers.

So, people take pictures, then say it's pollution.

A lot of folks who come here to protest, never

look past

the production of the material.

And really, oil sands or

any oil production or any mining activity

is not a supplier issue.

It's a consumer issue.

You know, look at these
highly toxic tailing period

Gold and Silver mines and Lithium,

all the chemicals that we extract from the Earth

to make batteries,

are lifestyle chainable.

and even you know, jewelry.

Well, if we didn't buy it,
nobody would produce it.

Though, it's not

really a production problem,

it's a consumption problem.

But how do you tell people in LA or

New York: well, you shouldn't have any jewelry

you should'nt be wearing synthetic
clothing and you shouldn't be

driving a car, and your goods

shouldn't be delivered in a
diesel-powered tractor-trailer ...

That conversation. Nobody
wants to have that one.

After his helicopter tour with Paul

Leonardo DiCaprio compared the Alberta

oil sands to Mordor from Lord of

the Rings and his analogy and tweet

made headlines all over the world.

Dramatic images of the oil sands tailings

ponds and open pits appeared in blogs,

magazines, newspapers, documentaries,

and a spread in National Geographic.

The tar Sands campaign was a success

and Alberta oil was branded

dirty oil, across the country

and around the world.

Everyone knows that the
tar Sands is controversial.

Everyone knows that these
pipelines are controversial.

I think there's a lot more
public knowledge now,

about the risks the pipelines

and the tar Sands both, but also

about the, the tie

between pipelines and tar Sands,

and increasing global
emissions. And that

is in part the work of Greenpeace
and other organizations.

Everything that we do is,

it's meant to expose the reality and,

and help people to understand the situation

at hand.

We will show you

some of our own reclaimed facilities,

but you're going to drive through

literally acres and acres of reclaimed

site going down. And it looks like any

national park.

People just choose what pictures they show.

Eager to fix the Public's perception of the

Alberta oil sands development.

One of the largest producers of

oil and gas in the world, Canadian natural

resources limited gave us unprecedented

access to tell their side of the story.

My favorite vision, my
vision for tailings ponds

is a, well

and it will return to lakes is, is

Parks and

because that's in essence ... that is what they

that is what they end up as.

Looking forward to the day to ...

well, I probably won't be
around but nonetheless,

my grandchildren could come and play.

We were given a standard media tour that

included some reclaimed
areas and a compensation

lake they had built.
But then they got serious

about transparency and took us right

to the source of some of the oil sands' most

controversial images.

Really haven't invited
a lot of media here to

have these discussions,

and I think that's

part of the "you got to get the message out".

So people understand

what we're doing how we're doing it.

So behind me is an image that's

often portrayed on social media and, …

and the news. And the words I hear

things like toxic tailings pond.

Those are the words that I hear.

Realistically, what's in this pipe

for us, is sand, fines

water, and some rock.

A minor part of bitumen but

very minimal. So when you look at it,

it doesn't look very appealing.

How toxic would that be?

It's the …

This has actually had, we actually

add captured

CO2, that we capture from our

hydrogen plant, to this,

and when we add CO2 to

the water to help this settling take

place. It actually brings

it back to a pH of 7 which

is equivalent to River water.

So, if we went for a swim in this,

it would be a little bit dirty,

but it's not, and I wouldn't drink it,

but it's not it's, it's

fine. I mean, I need a bath.

And if I go play in the mud
puddle with my grandchildren,

I need a bath if I go play in

this I would need a bath, but it's

not going to harm me. So obviously

not potable water. Neither

is a mud puddle.

This is a great big mud puddle.

But when you, when you swing around

and you go ... I'll take you over

to this area.

So over on this side is the

exact same material that was going through that,

that pipe there but was coming out

of the pipe up top here.

So the exact same Tails coming out.

The difference is: we haven't
poured from here in three weeks.

So in three weeks

the sand, the fines have settled out.

What happens is the water,

rolls off the top and you can see it

off in the distance.

And then we pick the water up at our siphon
intake, so all of our water is reused.

But it's a complete

different picture. If you show the two of these

side by side, it's different than

social media portrays us, and

to me, not bad to be around.

Our next stop was the open pit mines.

Remember when we were at the

at the tailings ponds, and we looked at

the long long white

beaches.

This is what it began with.

So, those long white beaches.

The sand grains are inside

of this oil sand and during the process.

What we do, is we remove the bitumen

from the sand. And those long white

beaches are the sand grains that

remain behind.

And so, when they're talking about what goes

back into this pit, we took

this out of this pit,

we removed the oil from it,

but before it's reclaimed what goes back in here

is the sand without the bitumen.

So we actually

clean up the oil from here

and ship that out as product,
and we turn the clean

sand here then cover it and reclaim it.

Filming near the open

pit was uncomfortable.

It was windy, dusty and

hot.

The enormous size of the machinery and

the scale of the operation was surreal.

It's hard to imagine that this

mine could have looked like

this.

And even harder to imagine, that

this tailings pond could
one day look like

this ...

Mining is not pretty,

and the scope of a project
with a hundred year timeline,

is impossible to capture in one

National Geographic photo.

That's Alberta's predicament.

For now, further transportation

of Alberta's oil and gas is stalled

without new pipelines,

while the world's demand for
fossil fuels continues to grow.

And tankers from

Saudi Arabia line up in the port

of Montreal to fulfill Canada's

own unquenchable thirst for oil.

It's curious, that I've never
seen DiCaprio taking
a helicopter ride over a

Saudi facility like this.

Or facilities like these …

What we're seeing right now, is

a strategy from Saudi Arabia

to the U.S. To block

the reference of the 1.5 report.

So there's this like consistent effort to water

down. Yeah, the climate science.

It really hurts, the

impression that we might have,

about the importance of the IPCC

in policymaking so ... which is crazy

because the IPCC report which

landed in October has like completely

changed the way in
which the world is talking

about climate change … Yes.

Climate change activists
often refer to the

IPCC.

The intergovernmental panel on climate change,

is the United Nations body for assessing science

related to the issue.

The place where I get my knowledge is

largely from the intergovernmental

panel on climate change the IPCC,

that's where the world scientists come together to compile

all of the science from different corners of the world

into these large reports that give us a really accurate

look into what's happening. How the global

temperatures are rising. What that means for different

parts of the ecological systems across the planet.

The IPCC recommends policies for governments.

And UN conferences like this one,

that Catherine and 6,000 other attendees are here for,

are focused on whether or not to implement
and promote those recommendations.

This is like real push-pull between the politics

of the moment and the

ongoing technical negotiations in

this space that are like setting the rules that the countries

who are playing in this political space are agreeing to live

by when it comes to climate change internationally.

Canada is one of the countries promising to play by these rules

and Alberta's fossil fuels likely aren't part of the long-term

plan. However, climate change science

and politics aren't the only reasons
that pipeline development

has been stalled in Canada.

Right here.

See the stick.

See ... look at it ... Here ... Here,

its level. When it come here, watch

it's going to hit me.

See it jumping, come back. Here you

go. There's the water. There's an underwater

stream here.

There's an eagle feather. I'm speaking with

the power that I get from there.

It gives me the truth.

You can have progress. There's
nothing wrong progress,

but do it on a scale that's

going to be not harmful to the environment.

Your biggest thing is the First Nations'
concern about the environment.

What are you doing about the
environment? If you harm it,

any way, then your project, it's not much good.

We will ... we don't want to see it.

Take it back to ... wherever you dreamed up this concept.

Take it back to Europe or in the States ...

Keep it there.

When Europeans came, aboriginal peoples
were here and they were never conquered,

and we then have this Royal Proclamation of …

The Royal Proclamation 1763 and the fundamental
treaty. The first treaty, Treaty of Niagara 1764.

We have a treaty making process, that is to
provide for orderly development and settlement
of the lands of Canada. A peaceful settlement.

And once the treaties are signed, they are
to be respected. They’re legal instruments,
they’re protected in the Constitution.

We know that on several occasions,
during the hearings for C48, and told
him that we were never consulted.

Senators didn’t realize that there
were 31 communities

that actually supported Northern
Gateway. There are industry leaders

who didn’t realize there were 31 communities
that supported Northern Gateway.

The Canadian public did not know that 70% of the First
Nations along the right away in Northern Gateway approved
the project and were willing to sign on as owners.

That's the biggest amount of support
you could have for any project.

Unlike many countries, Canada's constitution gives
indigenous groups the ability to challenge industry
development, until they have had proper consultation.

There are over 600 recognized indigenous groups in
Canada, and although many have supported the growth
of ministry through the consultation process, others have not.

I don’t trust consultation, so … wait. Nothing against whites,
but just the white guy that comes in and say we’re going
to consult with you. He's making the rules…

He makes the rules.

Don't forget it’s Canada. There is no judge sitting
over there defending the Anishinabek side of the issue.

We gotta deal with the… with the Government issues,
the white issues, the way they think, their law.

Ray owl is one of the founders of the
traditional ecological knowledge elders group.

This Ojibway activist has spent years protesting
the impacts of industry on First Nations land.

Here, mankind does not have the authority to take
one species away to make something else.

You’re going to get totally against with what the creation
has for us. What we got to share, slowly depleting, being
stolen. Don’t forget I changed my wording … stolen!

Stolen is a very harsh word!

There's … there is that: pressures between
a western world view of resource development,
job creation, royalties, and revenues,

and an indigenous perspective, Mother Earth.
A circular perspective, and one that is more in
harmony I think, those are the teachings I perceived.

More in harmony with the seasons, the
passing of the days. Less in harmony with
watching the clock and the watch every minute …

And that’s what we’re that’s… that’s the real
challenge in this country we call Canada.

Because I can tell you when it comes to justice
for First Nations people in this country. It takes
a long time, even in the court system.

You have a right to come into the courts. You
would make an application for an injunction.

You would argue that you were
not properly consulted. You
would have to speak as one voice.

You file your papers in the court
and you go before a judge.
The judge will be likely non-native.

Governments don't like this. They
don't like being brought into court.

We mean business.
We've always been timid.

Timid, this is you know almost
like you're you're cowering.

You're cowering to say no.

Our lawyer says: how much
money you looking for right?
You guys don’t have enough money.

Both you and Canada don’t have
enough money for what the damage
you’ve done for the last 50 years.

Oh my God there’s not enough
money in anybody’s pocket…

to compensate the First Nations.
What would you do?

We’ve had the government by the balls.

Probably the most important word in
this room today is reconciliation.

Ultimately I think to get to reconciliation.
It’s a distant goal step by step by step,

but ultimately to get there you’re looking at
consensual agreements along the way…

If that's the new reality in this country, then it’s
the new reality under something that, from
about what I’m speaking about: the rule of law,

legal principles handed down by
the Supreme Court of Canada,

and the impact of section 35 of the
Constitution Act of 1982. And now worldwide,

the United Nations declaration of the rights
of indigenous peoples. A lot of this
sounds to me like it's rooted in justice.

Canada is changing and it’s clear
to me that a combination of
constitutionally based indigenous issues,

and climate change based activism has more or
less shut down Canadian pipeline development
and scared away foreign investment.

What’s stifling our fossil fuel industry means
for the rest of the country, is hard to predict.

Canada might be headed down a lonely road.

I traveled to Texas with my friend Jeremy
who works in the Canadian oil patch.

Jeremy introduced me to Brad, an
American counterpart who showed us vast
oil fields and huge industrial development.

You guys really have an uphill battle. I mean here,
you know, they made the decision when they saw
the amount of volume of oil that was coming out.

Six big Pipelines applied for permits, and within two
years they were they were working, building them.

I think there’s two of ‘em that came online already, and
another four that’ll be online by the middle of next year…

and once that happens, I mean. I think you’ll see a
second or maybe third boom here because …

really, I mean there’s no reason to
spend the money bringing wells online,
if you have nowhere to send the oil.

Much like your situation in Canada, you
have the oil but you can’t get authorization
to build pipelines to get it out of there.

The US is no longer part of the Paris climate agreement.

Their fossil fuel industry is booming
and experiencing exponential growth.

They are well on their way to becoming
the world’s top producer of oil.

So I think it’s shocked the world. I don’t think anybody
thought the US would be one of the largest exporters,
soon to be the largest exporter of oil and gas.

You got any concept of how many
wells there are in Texas, total?

It’s gotta be hundreds of thousands…
don’t think maybe even close to a million.
I wouldn’t doubt it it’s gotta be…

I mean, there’s wells everywhere …

Without the pumpjack, I mean we would
have never had access to the energy that
we had over… over our lifetimes, right?

Yeah, when I look at this, I see a lot of seat of the
pants innovation. That to me illustrates a lot of
people that work their asses off to get to this point.

Texas fossil fuel production is intense.

Pumpjacks, fracking operations and
enormous flares were not hard to find,

and pipeline development
seems unaffected by activists.

The protesters that were
protesting the Keystone pipeline,

when they found out that Apache was going
to develop fields near and around the
Balmorhea Springs, which is South of here,

they made an attempt to make a statement
and they came down and camped out.

It was like a week’s worth of camping.
Basically it was too hot for them

and they weren't getting the type
of coverage that they wanted and
the quantity of coverage they wanted so…

They literally packed up and went home.

I think most people know this is
an oil and gas producing state …

but we have a substantial amount of wind
power and solar power here in in Texas.

So we’re in the middle of the Texas desert
and there’s a massive solar project… right

and that is supplying power to all of the … all the
industry in the sites rather than to population.

I mean, you can see those lines that are
shining right there, they’re brand new…

Yeah, oh for sure. I mean, this whole, this is everything,
all these silver towers are all absolute brand new.

You don't build the type of transmission infrastructure like
you see behind me here, if you're if you're not planning on
delivering power somewhere for a long time into the future.

A solar farm filling the needs of the oil and gas
industry is something we rarely hear about…

But it’s a clear sign to me, that fossil fuel
development in Texas will continue for decades,

and then, a mix of energy sources will
likely be the way forward for the US.

In 2019 wind power surpassed coal, and accounted
for more than 22% of the electrical needs in Texas.

Surprisingly, a larger percentage than in Germany,
the country that has long been hailed as the
environmental leader for other countries to aspire to.

My name is Fritz Vahrenholt and I’m the
CEO of the German Wildlife Foundation.

Meet Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, he’s also an author,
a former advisor to the IPCC, and was the CEO
of a wind turbine company in 2001,

as the German government was embarking on
a vigorous plan to transform the country’s
energy sector by phasing out coal and nuclear,

and replacing them with
renewable energy sources.

15 years ago in Germany or 20 years ago,
nobody was supporting renewable energy.

And I said OK let’s do that because 10%,
maybe 30% of our energy system can also
rely on renewable energy like wind turbines.

Nobody wanted to hear that, so I was also in
those days let's say an outlier or outlaw …

But today, they all think we can do it with 100%.
And I say: look, 30% is good, 20% is better, 50%
is very costly, very expensive, and beyond
50%, the system will breakdown.

I have built thousands of wind turbines. I know
the volatility. That we have in winter times, high
winds, and produce two thirds of the wind energy.

But in summer there is nothing, and on the other hand
photovoltaics … you know. We have from May until
September a lot of sun, but in winter, nothing.

And therefore, this can be solved by
storage yes. But not the storage which we know
from batteries, from this day to the other, no …

We need inter-annual, inter-seasonal
storages, which is totally
un-economic with batteries.

The best thing is to have is
a stable mix, the best parts
of that and the best part of that …

But today, nobody will hear that.

Although the German government
and private investors spent billions of
Euros on solar and wind technologies, …

the country has been unable to phase out
coal, will not reach their 2020 emissions
targets, and only about 35% of their
energy comes from renewables.

But not meeting the targets is not the
only problem they have encountered
in their attempted transition.

And in Germany you see, the country
is falling apart. We have now the
highest prices of electricity in Europe.

The people in Berlin and Hamburg all say:
“we want more of these wind turbines”
And meanwhile, we have 1000 initiatives,
protests against wind turbines in the countryside.

The people in the landscape know better.
They have the noise in their ears, because
within 500 meters they are living. Because
they see the birds under the wind turbines.

We have investigated in Germany. If you …
we have 29,000 turbines and we kill every year
12,000 birds. Eagles and … important birds.

We kill 200,000 bats in Germany by wind
turbines. And now we have investigated
they are killing also insects. So it is not
per se "eco-friendly" what we are doing there …

So that is nothing the young people
surrounding Greta want to hear …

The photos remind me of the pictures
I’ve seen of dead birds after an oil spill
used in environmental campaigns.

I can’t recall ever seeing the
casualties of wind turbines.

Perhaps controlling the image is
vital in controlling the message.

Greenpeace was founded on ... by journalists, really.

It was founded by journalists who were
really aware of the need to bring
images to people to change their minds,

and to make them understand things. So you
know one of the most iconic images that
came out of Greenpeace in the early days …

was Greenpeace activists on an
inflatable Zodiak, between a huge
industrial whaling ship and a whale.

That, that action was an action of
protection of that whale you
know, but it was also a way to

make the world understand
what was happening there.
The scale of it, the severity.

This is me driving the first boat into
the encounter with the Soviet
factory whaling fleet in 1975.

This is off California, about 50 miles,
all off, open off the horizon.

This one is me sitting on the baby seal, being
arrestested off the east coast of Labrador,
just North of Newfoundland that was 1978.

This is my credentials up here. I’ve got a Doctor
of Science in Ecology here, and an Honorary Doctor
of Sciences from North Carolina State University.

They didn’t give me a plaque or anything,
but I was awarded the National Award for
Nuclear Science and History in 2009 …

in Albuquerque New Mexico near the, Los Alamos.
I was quite proud of that ‘cause I’m in in the same
group as some pretty heavy duty scientists:
Oppenheimer … those kind of people.

Here we’re being made into brothers
of the Quag Youth or Namgis as
they’d be called now at Alert Bay.

I heard about this little group that
had started to meet regularly in the
basement of the Unitarian church,

which was in the process of planning
a voyage to Alaska to oppose
US hydrogen bomb testing,

and I wanted to do something
real. I was studying ecology
and had books and, and that,

but I wanted to get up out of
my chair and go out into the
world and do something.

So, I joined that group
and was accepted as the
ecologist on the crew.

We sailed to Alaska, made
World News, and President Nixon
canceled the hydrogen bomb tests.

So Greenpeace began with a major victory
over the most powerful institution in the
world, the US Atomic Energy authority.

I stayed with Greenpeace for the next
15 years after I graduated from UBC.

So I came straight out of a PhD in
ecology, into an environmental
activist role, and was instrumental

in founding the international organization.
In the mid to late 70s there was a threat
that Greenpeace would break up

into a million pieces because of various
egos and etc… And so I … I forced the
legal settlement of Greenpeace which
became Greenpeace International,

then stayed with that as one of the six
Directors for the next six years till 1986,

when I decided to leave, because I didn’t
like what Greenpeace was turning into.

One way of putting it is: organizations
like Greenpeace often start out with

good intentions, with volunteers. There’s
no financial interests in the situation and …

but gradually as they grow and are
successful, they evolve into a kind of
business; where you have a payroll to

meet every month because you got 20, 40,
80, 100, … pretty soon 2000 people on staff.

So now you’ve got hundreds of millions
of dollars involved in this "business."

So you’ve basically gone from being a volunteer
group of hippies, to being a big business.

And, unfortunately the big business
sometimes evolves even further
into what is basically a racket.

Morning,

We hear of two solutions to this coming
apocalypse. The Paris treaty, green new deal.

All this, is supposed to reduce carbon
dioxide, you know. What does that mean?

We have actually, we have inadvertently through our use of
fossil fuels, in the same way that calcifying green organisms
inadvertently by making armor plating for themselves

basically threatened the end of life,
by taking all the CO2 out of the system.

We have inadvertently, by burning the fossil fuels
and putting the CO2 back which plants took out in
the first place to make coal and oil and gas,

we’re putting it back and are actually restoring
a balance to the global carbon cycle.

Dr. Patrick Moore, the former president of
Greenpeace, is about to go into a congressional
hearing, to argue that burning fossil fuels and
CO2 emissions are a good thing for the planet.

But I particularly know that I’m right on the
fact, that we are restoring balance to the
global carbon cycle by burning fossil fuels.

So we are life’s salvation, not it's
destroyer. And that is going to maybe
take a long time to sink in, but it is true.

Well, good morning and welcome to our panelists.

The administration’s shortsighted plan to
withdraw from the Paris climate agreement

will set back global action on climate change,
further exacerbating the extinction crisis.

While the current Canadian government
considers the CO2 science surrounding
climate change settled.

The debate in other jurisdictions continues.

And despite what we’re told, there’s a
vigorous debate within the scientific community,

over how human activity compares with
vastly more powerful natural influencers,
that have driven climate change
for four and a half billion years.

The scientific evidence is unequivocal.

Marine biodiversity has been impacted at
unprecedented rates by human activity.

The last time this happened it was because

an asteroid hit the planet. Today we are that asteroid.

As with the manufactured climate crisis, they
are using the spectre of mass extinction as a
fear tactic to scare the public into compliance.

There is no hard evidence that CO2
has anything to do with the changing
temperature of the earth’s climate.

And there is strong evidence, that we are seeing

increases in extreme weather events.

More heat waves,more droughts and more
floods. And there’s no question it is
promoted by greenhouse gas emissions.

I go back to 1960s and show that from overpopulation
deforestation global cooling resource scarcity,

no matter the environmental scare, the solution
was always the same. Wealth redistribution,
central planning and sovereignty limiting treaties.

I’m here to tell you that the three top
officials from the UN are part of this con …

First let me comment that IPBES is not a UN body,
it’s a truly independent intergovernmental body.

These are the words of a salesman
a science bureaucrat, not a … dis…

I’d like to ask the witness to direct your testimony
to the chair … Sure! … not to your faction…

Dr. Watson, these are the words of, not
a scientist but of a science bureaucrat,
doing the bidding for his organization.

Coal reefs are projected to decline to 1%
at 2 degrees warming. Along coastlines, the
upsurge in extreme climatic events and sea-
level rise will cause further loss of habitats.

CO2 is the most important food for all life on earth,

and we, thankfully are putting some of the
CO2 back into the tub … Thank you Dr. ….

that was sucked out by life over the millennia and
are restoring a balance to the global carbon cycle …

Thank you Dr. Moore. If there’s no further business,
this committee stands adjourned. Thank you.

It was one of the most bi … bipolar hearings I’ve ever heard.

The last place you go, to find out
the truth, is a congressional hearing.

These are Kabuki theater member’s
posture, and sort of set up their
statements for that there’s a floor dissem…

Average people are getting sick and tired of the
doomsday claims around climate change 'cause
they can see, that it isn't getting worse in any way.

What we need is a constructive conversation. And
I’ve chaired not only IPBES but IPCC. And there is
no question that these increased gases are indeed
leading to human induced climate change.

A lot of the way this climate change crisis
narrative is put forward is to ignore
anything that brings it into question …

and basically say you're a science denier
if you bring anything into question …

And then just repeating over and over
and over again, that CO2 is the problem.

What the atmosphere cares about, is
emissions, and what we’re putting up into
the atmosphere and it’s going to react,

it’s, it’s a very brutal logic. Carbon logic is is very,

very strong, very powerful and it’s not going be
affected by rhetoric, and it’s only action … Yeah …

And so he’s been at this for so long and
works with the union of concerned
scientists. What's your first response
to climate science skeptics ?

Well, I mean the first the first response is
to present the facts to what they’re doing.

To point out sometimes to their industry
funding. Many of them are funded by
the fossil fuel industry, to go out and
and put out their disinformation.

And … and to basically remind people of the
overwhelming consensus in the scientific community
that’s reflected in the IPCC reports, or our national
climate assessment report by 13 federal agencies.

This is not some conspiracy by the international
scientific community. This is what science
is supposed to do … Yeah …

is, is put forward hypotheses, test them in the acid of
a peer review and put forward the best understanding
of the science for policy makers to consider,

and the IPCC has done a
tremendous job over 30 years.

The IPCC documents are the Bible
of the global warming community.

People say: well, the science is settled.
Well, the science is never settled.

And this idea of a consensus is
silly. Science is never, should
never be done by consensus.

You know, we have to move forward with our
understandings. We have to test hypotheses …

and it’s remarkable what we can learn by
having an open mind, thinking outside
the box, and problems are solved that way.

If you want to come over here, we
can sort of look at the layout of the lab.

We’ll go in and visit this, but it's
an accelerator mass spectrometer.

We installed this five years ago and
it’s an instrument for measuring
radiocarbon amongst other things,

and radiocarbon is of course
a very important tool for
dating in the geosciences,

but it's also a tracer, and remarkably, it's
been one of the key tools that we use
to see how long CO2 lasts in the atmosphere.

OK. So welcome to the accelerator
mass spectrometer laboratory.

We use the adage, that: the more
trace the isotope you’re looking for,
the bigger the machine you need.

So we’ve got a 25 meter long machine
here, with an 18 ton magnet to bend our
ion beam, and a very sensitive detector.

When we measure radiocarbon
in atmospheric CO2, we can see
how long it takes to cycle that.

It turns out it’s cycling very very
quickly, about every four years the
entire inventory of atmospheric CO2
turns over. We can measure that here.

Meet Ian Clark. Professor Clark is the
director of the environmental science
program at the University of Ottawa.

For more than a decade, Dr. Clark
has questioned the computer modeling
that is used by many of the climate
change scientists in their research.

Well, I guess many people have been
talking about the evidence for links
between CO2 as a greenhouse
gas and temperature and a…

There is zero evidence for it, except models.
And models are based on the hypothetical
link, the climate sensitivity … right …

which is under reevaluation. By the
scientists, by the modelers themselves.
But you never hear about this in the media …

In fact, the IPCC has, in their science report
demonstrated, you read it. You see, all these
guys really don't know what the sen…
what the climate sensitivity is.

We have to challenge paradigms. And
if we're always coming up with more
evidence to support the one hypothesis …

which remains based on models, not
empirical evidence, then we’ll get nowhere.

And that’s why I feel, and many other scientists
feel, an open debate is what we need to have.

Complex computer models and algorithms have been
used to create global warming predictions. Prof. Clark
is critical of the accuracy of many of the predictions,

and suspicious of the lack of transparency regarding
algorithms, that have led to famous findings. In particular
the hockey stick graph credited to Michael Mann.

So the hockey stick became the poster child
of Environment Canada and many other
global warming reports and institutions.

And the hockey stick is basically an
evaluation of temperature over the past
thousand years and it basically showed

a relatively flat period of temperatures for
the past thousand years up to about a 100
years ago and then a rapid upshoot.
So, it looks exactly like a hockey stick.

Michael Mann and his colleagues would not
release their algorithm. You would think that
a document like this, with such impact on economic
consequences, because of the global warming mantra ...

you'd think that they would want to release
this to Congress and they wouldn’t.

Michael Mann would also not respond
to our request for an interview.

What else have you guys been up to this week?

We've been following the science discussions

with the IPCC stuff. It's … it’s frustrating,

but it’s also interesting … it can be fun

because it gets a little bit heated,
with Saudi Arabia being very difficult
the way that they are, … based …

This morning they were saying that
the scientific knowledge about
climate change is only starting to emerge.

Terrible … wow … yeah … and that
we need more information on the
climate change before we can start to act.

So we’ll continue to … to talk back and forth.

I wrote a book about the role of ocean
... oceanic fluctuations, of oceanic
oscillations and the role of the sun.

Then I was asked from the IPCC, by
the IPCC to … to assist them and
I made comments and I saw that

it was a shaky ground where they … on
which that they build their prophecies.

From 2000 to 2010, it was not
warming as they thought.

You should think that they discuss
this in the summary for policymakers
… and they decided to sort it out.

Not irritating the public, of things which
are not in line with their models …

So I said OK, then I will do it
on my own with colleagues.

And so we did scientific work, and we
published in peer reviewed journals.

And what he could show, is that
the medieval warm period from
950 to 1250 was as warm as today.

The IPCC said: yes, it is only in northern Europe.

So what we did is we investigated South America.
We investigated Africa, Antarctica, Oceania …

and could show in all continents, of the Earth,
it was as warm as today, 1000 years ago.

And the question is: how could that come?
There was no CO2 issue. So is Mother
Nature really able to do that on her own?

And if you go further to the Roman
period, you have the same thing. Every
thousand years you have a warm period.

And if you look at the, at the images at the
pictures of the IPCC you see it is flat. The
medieval warm period is not there, the little
ice age is not there. It’s like a hockey stick.

They changed the past … to influence the future.

I’m sure that CO2 is changing
climate. It is influencing …

that's true. But what we have to discuss is:
Do we really think that natural forces are zero
since 1820? Are zero after the little Ice Age?

Mother Nature has stopped anything of the
changing, what she has done thousands
and other thousands of years?

So yes, there is a CO2 issue: 50%, maybe 60,
maybe 40, I don’t know nobody knows.

But the good message I have to .. to ..
can .. can tell is: we have more time than
three periods of legislation. We have
three, three generations to settle this.

Yeah, I can send an article in
one of the journals and, but …

And if I have a one on one with my colleagues from the
political party, they say “OK yeah, maybe you are right,
but if I go into the Congress … they would laugh at me.”

So, there is a very strong …
media supported mainstream.
The mainstream is very strong.

I think 99% of the young people
are educated in that direction:
CO2 is a bad bad molecule …

And it’s wrong! And it is
responsible for all evil…

What do we want? Climate action!
When do we want it? Now!
What do we want? Climate action!
When do we want it? Now!

On September 27th 2019, millions
of students around the world
walked out of classes to participate
in a global climate strike.

My home town was no exception.

No more discussions, no more delays. We
can no longer allow the fossil fuel companies
to manipulate governmental policies and
destroy our future! It’s time to move on!

So let’s get out there and
make our voices heard!
What do we want? Climate action!
When do we want it? Now! …….

We've got hysteria …

embedded, ingrained in our, in
our youngest generation, where
we parade 8 and 10 year olds
before the UN commissions,

and have them express their fears and
demanding action to save their future.

And they don’t have a clue what they’re
talking about ‘cause all they know is
what their high school teacher or
primary school teacher taught them …

And all they’re teaching them is
what they hear on CBC. They're
not reading the documents,
they're not reading the science.

And so, there's a huge disconnect.
And this is very troubling …

Let’s just talk about fossil fuels every
single chance we can. Because the
absence of conversation about fossil
fuels in this space is totally bizarre.

One of the delegates Laura was talking to
me this morning, and she’s like: why are
we accounting for upstream emissions?

We’ve been here for a week, in like
we, we already kind of have our heads
wrapped around the talking points.

And like, oil and gas isn’t in our
talking, but I, I also noticed this, I did
an interview with the CDC last week,

and I, I didn’t freaking mention
fossil fuels. Why didn’t I do that?

It’s really important that youth are at the
table in decisions around climate change …

because we are the ones who are
inheriting the, the future that …
that our parents have built for us …

So we're the ones who disproportionately
are going to be feeling the impacts of
climate change, and yet, we haven't
been the ones who've caused it …

So, it's important for us to stand up
and ... and demand justice from our
leaders on this issue that ... that is
going to affect us and our children.

We're going to start with IPCC, and then
we’ll move to the meat of negotiations,
maybe like finance loss and damage,

and then overall ambition, which can
I think include a conversation around
response measures. Great. Thanks guys.

The public is informed, that we are heading
for a catastrophe in the next 10 years.

Everything which is happening in the world
is now related to climate and to CO2.

If it is: the forest is burning, Mr. Trudeau
says: OK, that’s climate change. No!

It's not the warming which makes forest-
burning. It's the dryness ... it's the draft …
It has nothing to do with temperature.

Those journalists, those media, those scientists,

those politicians who exaggerate the things …
are … who are the loudest, I recognize best.

We are just in front of the Canadian delegation
office, and we are waiting to head in, to
speak to the Canadian negotiators, including
the head of delegation, Catherine Stewart,

about how the negotiations are going this
week and also push for some strong leadership
from Canada in defending climate science.

It’s also a real privilege to get to speak to
the head of delegation Catherine Stewart.

She’s got a very busy agenda and so carving
out time to chat with her is really critical …

and she’s of course the person who’s kind of
driving the Canadian agenda in these kinds
of meetings so, yeah …. so really great …

First of all you have to see: the IPCC is a
U.N. body, and is not a scientific body.

Those who are deciding what is in
the summary for policymakers,
they are delegates from the states.

It's not a scientific issue then,
(any)more: it is a political issue.

If we reduce CO2 and reduce oil
consumption, the price will fall globally
by that, and others are stepping in …

Because then they can use more
of the oil reserves, it’s very easy.

So if the others say … if two
thirds of the, of the globe said:

It’s your task, Canada, Europe.
You have to do this, we not.
And you did, you're reducing it,

It's better for them. They get the cheaper
oil and the coal. Fine for them. Therefore,
this is not a good contract for the world.

So thanks so much for meeting with us
Catherine and Eli. I wanted to start our
conversation with an observation that we’re
once again kind of seeing some pushback …

against receiving the science around
global warming, particularly the latest
report from global scientists …

and we know that Canada is a huge
supporter of science and, of course,
of that 1.5 degree target. So we would
love to hear your guy’s take on that.

Thanks and I think that’s an excellent
net to start our meeting off on.

Because you know, we see these reports,

it’s absolutely critical…

I mean why are we here, right? The Science is clear.

And a, and we want to be able to advance and
give these things the profile that, that we feel they
need to have, in order to spur climate action, right?

I mean, there’s there’s a great urgency. The IPCC
report, you know, underlined it for us last, last
fall in the lead up to COP24. And I think it, it helped
parties to come together and give us the rule book …

that we’re able to, to get. So the science is
the underpinning of everything and we have
Canadian scientists involved as well in helping
to produce those reports and the peer review.

So I, I think it’s a very critical part for us. And we’re
going to continue to be advocating for the welcoming,
and the recognition of these reports, and their
value to, to what they bring to our discussions here.

So we're going to keep … we're going to keep
working on that with, with countries that also
feel the same way as us. And that's something
that we’re not going to let go of … easily.

Good to hear, so we can count on you to join
other countries in advocating really strongly
for science of climate change to be accepted and
add space. Yeah, good to hear. Thanks, Good!

The next step is, to kill coal, gas and oil.

Reliability of the power will
suffer. Blackouts will be more.
Prices … exploding.

That means at the end, losing industry.
And deindustrialization will come.

Normally people would not accept that, because
it is their labor, their work, their income.

But if you can tell them: if you do don’t do
that, Armageddon is waiting for you, the hell
is waiting for you; and you believe in that,
you’re acting against your own interests.

We have to negotiate, but then all
players, and the real players have to
be at the table. And nobody should
go outside and play their own cup.

And therefore it is silly to think, if we run
forward, if Canada runs forward, Germany
ahead, the others will not follow. They will not.

Canada should be looking at Venezuela
very carefully, because, in a way

Canada is in a similar position.
Canada is a very wealthy country today.

And Venezuela was that way, back in the
50s and 60s, the wealthiest country in
Latin America on a per capita basis by far.

And it was all based on oil and gas.
Their wealth was totally based
on that, and what’s happened?

And Canada is, I think in a similar
position in many respects. That Canada
is a very, very prosperous country, but
it’s very dependent on oil and gas.

John Perkins is a New York Times
bestselling author, with first hand
experience in global economic imperialism.

The oil and gas issue is a, a really
fascinating one at this point in history,
because here we have this resource,

that our economic development in the
United States and basically every other
country is built upon. That’s the foundation.

And many countries’ economies
depend on those resources of oil
and gas. Venezuela’s a great example,
Canada’s certainly an example.

So here we are at this point in time, where
there are alternatives, which, in some
respects look like they’re better alternatives,

but from an environmental standpoint: solar,
wind and who knows what’s next to come …

But at the same time, there's
this huge resource that's
buried beneath the earth,

in so many parts of the world,
that so many people depend on
to ensure their economic growth.

We in this province, are very educated
about energy, the role it plays in our lives
The growth in energy demand is
not only here, but around the world.

But it seems like the there’s a bit of a fantasy
taking place in the rest of the country, where
nobody is winning themselves off fossil fuels.

We’ve got not just American environmental
foundations and environmental groups
campaigning against us. We’ve got Canadian
environmental groups campaigning against us ….

partnering with First Nations leaders,
who are campaigning against us. Partnered
with politicians who continue to give
misinformation, to campaign against us,

and so we feel like there’s this big disconnect.
That, we understand where our energy comes
from. We understand how to produce.

We understand some of the environmental
tradeoffs. We understand that you can
produce it in a way, that has less
and less impact on the environment.

But the conversation that seems to be taking
place in the rest of the country, is a completely
different one. If it doesn’t get resolved,
I don’t know that the country can survive.

And I wanted the same thing. It’s clear to me that
the future of Calgary, and the very sovereignty of
Canada is at risk due to climate change. And most
of the reasons have nothing to do with temperature.

The climate change debate is fiercely polarizing.
But to love our country, our current way of life,
and our planet all at the same time can be done.

I think it will take a new conversation.

The world’s population and demand for
fossil fuels is only increasing, and Canada
has the third largest oil reserves in the world.

We are in a unique position to not only supply
our own needs, but to be a global leader, in
demonstrating how to decrease emissions,
protect the impact on the environment,

create a healthy and sustainable
mix of various energy sources,

imbed new technologies, and create
lasting relationships, and partnerships
with indigenous communities.

We can show the world how
it's supposed to be done.

Instead of being scared that the world is
going to end in 12 years, we should be excited
about the possibilities of a new world,

that Canadians can help create,
by harnessing what we have.

We can have a significant voice
in the climate change debate,

but it’s a voice that doesn’t fit
easily within the two camps.

There is a middle way, a third approach
that doesn’t get the headlines,

and I found it through rethinking my
own biases and challenging my own
perspectives, and through listening.

Hi, Catherine, Hi … Ian Clark …

I’m so pleased you’re here ‘cause I’ve
wanted to talk about the … the current
state of the climate debate. Yeah …

and I mentioned that I’m an environmentalist,

I teach a course, quaternary geology and
climate change, which I’ve been teaching
for 30 years. And when I first took
it over it was just quaternary geology.

But this is in 1988 … right … and just
then, the debate was started …

Yeah, yeah, that’s when the IPCC got rolling …

That’s right, and I got involved and
I was teaching students about CO2
as this potent greenhouse gas and a …

but I’ll tell you quite frankly, since
that time I’ve been studying the
carbon cycle. I've been looking at
it from a scientific perspective ...

It’s less obvious that CO2 is driving climate. When
I look at environmental degradation and all the rest.
My question is what’s driving that, and it seems to
be other items than that which we're fighting.

And so, that’s why I’m very interested to
talk with you about the IPCC’s perspective
and their understanding of the science.

I mean, I think it’s probably important to note
that it’s not necessarily about the IPCC’s
understanding of science. It’s about the
scientists who are inputting into the IPCC reports …

So you’re absolutely right, and that’s why
I dig down on the science documents …

It’s pretty obvious that there are a lot of ways in
which people have lived on this planet, for quite
a long time that are becoming untenable,
because of the warming we’re experiencing …

I’m going to call you on that. That I don’t see.
When I look at extreme weather events, drilling
down again on the IPCC scientists reports,

they don’t suggest hurricane activity is stronger. They
don't even mention wildfires, although we continually
hear wildfires as a climate driven phenomenon.
So we can't connect all that stuff with warming.

Well, we can't connect the occurrence of those
natural phenomenon you're absolutely right.
So fires, floods, sea level rise, erosion.

But climate change is responsible for
them becoming far more extreme.
So it has this amplification effect.

Those, … that amplification isn’t discussed in the
IPCC documents. I don’t see this in the literature,
and I hear it on CBC, and I hear some people talking
on the radio, but I don’t see it backed up by science.

It is not … everything I have seen
about that contradicts you …

No, absolutely not. I’ve got the
data and I can show it to you.

The climate disasters have been going on
since biblical times. We can attribute a lot of
that to warming, if you want to: 75% natural.

So what are we going to do about that?
What are we going to say about the
occurrence of these events if it’s all natural?

We can’t change it with CO2 … You're
fixating on this 75% of it is natural …
… It’s not in the IPCC documents …

But, I just don’t understand like why
that means we shouldn’t do anything
about it, when there’s 25% of it that
you’re saying we have control over like…

I don’t believe we have done the other 25% … that’s the
models. And the models are running hot but these are…

I guess I just like … even if I disagree with
a person on the extent to which humans have
the ability to affect a change in climate.

From my perspective it’s an issue of
risk management. So if you agree that
there’s even a 50% likelihood that we
are responsible for a changing climate,

is it not worth our while to figure out how
we can mitigate that impact to the greatest
extent possible? All the while creating a
better way of living on the planet?

I mean it just doesn’t make any sense to me, that
we would avoid taking action that we, that we would
let ourselves off the hook, even if there’s only a
25% of that problem that we’re responsible for.

I mean, I am going to take
responsibility for that 25% then.
That’s what I’m going to do.

The environmental industry is a billion
dol… more than a billion dollar
a day industry, and 95% of that is
towards climate science and mitigation.

What about some of the pressing
environmental issues, that really could
be addressed if we didn't have this focus
on something we really can’t change?

Fortunately, a lot of climate solutions
actually entail bringing human society into
a better balance with the natural world,

and can have knock-on effects
that help us address
many other environmental ills.

So my question is, well, if one doesn’t agree, that
that’s the number one reason to switch to renewable
energy. Why not agree that, you know, making sure
kids grow up without asthma is a really good reason?

I, … I think fighting pollution is a prime objective that
should be a prime element of any environmental
policy with our governments … Absolutely!

I’m just a little concerned about our
reliance on renewables for big energy,

if, … if we’re going to do that, we’re going
to compromise our economic strength, and
then we’ll be overtaken by other major
countries that that don't embrace renewa …

This is not me saying that we need to kill
an industry tomorrow. But I do think that
we need to do some creative thinking …

about, how we plan for a future where we are
creating prosperity and generating jobs
sustainably, for a long period of time.

I certainly agree with you on that. I think
we come at this from the same heart, in the
same … same emotion, that we want what’s
better for the planet, for humanity.

My fear, and my concern… really is just
that we’re focusing on one thing which
is climate which … I’m a scientist, I’ve
been looking at this for 30 years …

and I know we will do nothing about
climate, we will not have an impact on
climate. I don’t think we’re going to get
out of the fossil fuel game anytime soon.

I think it’s going to be part of the mix,
2040, 2050, just like it is now.
I think we have to be honest about that.

And further, I think we have to put
a lot of environmental goodwill
into fixing the problems we can fix!

Scientific, science, oh that that’s a big word,
scientific. Scientific to me, is only … a farce.

A farce and, … a theory. Science is only …
is a theory. It's not … it's not a fact.

Can you see the child? The child’s
on top. There’s a straight line …
straight down. See that rock there?

Below, there is the chief. See the
face of the chief? The mouth,
the eyes and the eyebrow?

And look up higher. You see the
face of a child, and it’s a girl.

That means, each time you come by
here always reminds you who you are,
and your … Whatever you do in life …

you got to think about that child, your
children ahead of you. That’s what you got to
think about, anything you do, your actions.

Anything, before you decide
anything. Think about this child
that you’re going to leave behind.

It’s written in rock, not on paper.
It’s on rock! Who you’re
supposed to be! Who you are!