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Kind: captions Language: en

[Music]

anybody who already knows you knows of

your background and I think that extends

to a great number of people but just for

the saving us a minute I give me the

compressed version of your originality

in this field you started with and where

you are now well I started on the north

end of Vancouver Island on a float camp

with no road to it till I was about 14

so I grew up in total nature just boats

and the odd airplane float plane came in

now and again and we were there all year

round

without any contact with the outside

world and went out at Christmas time for

a few weeks to Vancouver usually which

was town for us because there was

actually no road to the north end of

Vancouver Island he had to go across

support hardy and take the steamship

down to Vancouver ment overnight yeah

very much it was like an out port very

much and so I really related to

Newfoundland when I visited there on

numerous occasions yes I I grew up there

and then I was shipped off to boarding

school in Vancouver an english-style

boarding school named st. George's and I

excelled in the life sciences there as I

came up to my later years in school and

then went to UBC for eight years doing a

Bachelor of Science in biology and

forest biology forestry being the

biggest industry and the industry my

family had been in for a hundred years

before we got out a little while back

and so I've got a fair amount of

knowledge on that subject of trees and

then I learned the word ecology it had

never been in the public press and a

professor of Latin or Creina who was a

Czech refugee from the Communists had

come to UBC and was a forest ecologist

had been Deputy Minister of forests in

Czechoslovakia before he fled I heard

the word just interrupted slightly I

heard the word ecology first time in

1967 when would that be for you around

the same time

mid-sixties probably 66 and it had

actually not appeared in the public

press at that point it was a very

obscure division of biology it came from

the Ukrainian steps in the study of soil

science there in the in the breadbasket

of the Ukraine and it eventually then

applied to all life and then to the

whole world yeah so ecology is really

the synthesis of many other sciences and

how it's basically about how everything

is interrelated yeah how we are related

to nature how nature is is is formed the

evolution of nature the minerals of the

air the water it's all the signs of

being exactly and so see I'd been

growing up in a completely secular

household we didn't talk about spiritual

things around the dinner table and that

little floating logging camp and when I

discovered ecology though and I'd always

thought science was a purely technical

matter that you could measure everything

in inches and feet and when I discovered

ecology I realized that through science

you could gain an insight into the

mystery of nature in the universe and

the infinity of it basically you know

and and because infinity is a strange

concept but if you think about how many

interrelationships there are amongst all

the moving parts of just this one little

planet yeah it's a lot and when I need

to go to the climatic moment or in the

early days or been other since you're

involved and probably what is still the

most brand recognized ecological group

or environmental Greenpeace just sketch

sketch that period well I was doing my

PhD in ecology when I heard about this

little group that called the don't make

a wave committee that was starting to

meet in the basement of the Unitarian

Church in Vancouver to plan a protest

voyage against us hydrogen bomb testing

in Alaska to take on the world's most

powerful organization the US Atomic

Energy Commission and I thought gee

that'd be better than just sitting

around here in the desks reading books

and writing exams I want to get up and

do something about this because it was

the height of the Cold War the height of

the Vietnam War

and the height of the threat of all-out

nuclear war between the superpowers and

the and also the emerging understanding

of ecology and environment was just

happening then and the youth so

Greenpeace became joining together the

newly emerging consciousness of the

environment with the longstanding

tradition of peaceful or nonviolent

resistance to what you thought was

unjust or should be ended just another

interruption yeah I for a long time

thought I don't like the organization as

you probably know but I thought that

that's probably the most either skillful

or clever or most intelligent one-word

name for any organization that

identifies both cause has appeal I don't

know who fashioned at first but it was a

brilliant work it came innocently at the

end of a committee meeting Bill Darnell

a carpenter and union guy we were

breaking up the meeting and in those

days you said peace is almost like see

you later

and he looked up and said why don't we

make it a green peace just like that

it's it's of although they're they're

out there I'm just a lot out there

that's that's the key one now then we

skip a lot because again biography is

one thing but at some point even you who

are one of the originators even though

some are arguing with you these days but

you are you were one of the originators

of the planets most recognizable protest

group at some point something happened

and you and it were no longer in sync

that's right well we we stopped the u.s.

hydrogen bomb tests we we drove the

French atmospheric nuclear test

underground then we went out into the

Pacific I was on four voyages four

summers in a row against the Soviet and

Japanese factory whaling fleets then we

did the baby seal hunt which I think

you're familiar with and then we got

into toxics and that was a really good

area to get in the rivers of Europe were

practically all dead they didn't have a

clean air act or clean water act like

the United States and Canada was

bringing that in already by that

in the late 70s early 80s and so we

worked on that a lot but as we moved

along the the piece sort of got dropped

off the green piece and now all there

was was green and we started with a

fairly strong humanitarian orientation

to save civilization from all-out

nuclear war and that means you care

about the people too and by the time

1015 years was gone by Greenpeace was

starting to like and the rest of the

movement too was beginning to

characterize humans as the enemies of

nature the enemies of the earth as if we

were separate from the rest of nature

and should somehow be downgraded you

know morally downgraded and I'm going

like that's just way too much like

original sin for me like everything else

is good all the other animals and plants

and rocks and everything is good and

humans are bad no I don't go for that so

that was the sort of overarching thing I

realized we had to develop an

environmental policy that included the

needs of people otherwise it wouldn't be

accepted very readily and and we were

getting off into areas where I say you

didn't have to be really a nuclear

physicist to understand that we should

end nuclear war you didn't have to be a

marine biologist about the whales you

just wanted to save the whales but when

it comes to toxic chemicals and

chemistry and science in general it

helps to have a little bit of science

and I ended up as one of six

international Directors in Greenpeace

for the last six years I was seven years

I was there and not one of the others

had any formal science education they

were basically political activists

social activists entrepreneurs because

now you could actually make a living in

the environmental movement and so they

were carving out a career in it but no

science at what point in grebes is the

massive exemplar but you've had

experience with many many groups at what

point does the original motivations

which I will quite readily acknowledge

you're either pure it may be naive but

you're pure their intent on what it is

they're saying that they're doing we

to do this we want to clean up this

river and that we're going to approaches

but at one point and it seems to happen

a lot does the attachment to to the

right cause become some sort of self

propelling thing and suddenly the person

backing the cause becomes I don't know

not a dictator but consumed by our own

virtue to the point and then they say

well whatever disagrees with me you're

against all that's right it there's an

infection there somewhere there's two

major aspects to it one is that at a

certain point you have tackled all are

really important subjects and one we

could do we cleaned up the rivers in

Europe we stopped the whaling fleets we

drove the nuclear tests underground or

I'll stop them altogether so we you know

it's kind of the low-hanging fruit when

you're an environmentalist and

eventually when everybody agrees with

all the reasonable things you're wanting

the only way to remain in a

confrontational adversarial bad guys

good guys situation is to adopt ever

more extreme positions eventually

abandoning a science and logic

altogether in political science or

political act activity that doesn't make

any sense like for example ending the

use of fossil fuels worldwide I mean

that is not a logical thing to do but

they're pushing it now and so I wouldn't

be any part of that I know that that's

not possible

in in our civilization but they're

saying it is they're wrong the other

aspect of it is that many organizations

start out as volunteers with a noble

cause and but not too long after if

they're successful they actually end up

being a kind of business with a payroll

to meet and fundraising suddenly comes

to the forefront as being the primary

objective and then it turns into a

racket and that's what happened with

Greenpeace they have turned into a

racket this whole plastic war on plastic

they invented that in their back room

and they and they don't come out anymore

and talk to anybody that's all done

behind the scenes you can't walk into a

Greenpeace office anymore the door's

locked you have to make an appointment

to get in there so it wasn't like that

in the beginning we were totally open

and we weren't plotting in

same way that they are now they're

hiring the top PR and communications

people to help them design their new

campaigns and so this war on plastic

which is actually a proxy war on fossil

fuels yeah because they're all made out

of most plastics are made of fossil

fuels it's as ridiculous though I gave a

presentation today to a board meeting in

downtown Toronto where I showed them

that this sea of garbage in the Pacific

that that's twice the size of Texas yeah

does not exist you can take a satellite

photograph on a cloudless day of the

whole Pacific Ocean and there is nothing

there except the Hawaiian Islands and

Fiji right there is no giant patch of

garbage out there doesn't exist yet but

no one can see from the land because

it's way out it's out in the Pacific

Gyre apparently and if you go on the

internet you see all these maps of the

world with photoshopped seas of garbage

in them it's not real this is an

exhilaration but it really comes in I'm

glad you're talking about that

particular bit of business this is all

from the other side of the fence in a

certain kind of way because I didn't

have your background more that's the

opposite why is it that when all the

great news organizations of this world

that a story is big as twice the size of

Texas a physical object in an ocean and

we're in the 24 hour satellite age and

the news media you have the money why

don't they go out and look and say well

we couldn't find the damn thing or bring

the organizers and we're saying and

we're gonna ban this or we're gonna fix

it or whatever show it to us when you

confront them first they use all kinds

of fake images to make it look like

there's something and they they show

Birds cut open full of plastic right

it's staged no there's no such

possibility as that ever happening and

so there's all that but then when you

challenge them on it like you say look

here's a picture of the Pacific Ocean

there's no Giants thing size twice the

size of Texas if all you can see is the

Hawaiian Islands they're not twice the

size of Texas you know so you can bet

you can see them and you can't see the

Garbage Patch they say oh it's only the

clear plan

stick that's in the guru someone

actually said that to me as if it sorts

itself out by color and then the next

one I got was it's just under water

right like it's got a buoyancy

compensation device on every piece of

plastic or something no

so things either sink or float generally

in the ocean they don't go down to feed

and stay the size of Texas they do yeah

and then when you bust them on that they

say well it's actually micro plastic and

that means you can't see it of course

but as soon as the size detects oh of

course

yes each particle is not quite the size

of Texas though because it's so small

you need a microscope to see it and then

they conjure up this image of all the

fish in all the birds having giant wads

of built-up micro plastic in their

kidneys or somewhere in their livers I

don't know where it's not true because

when you ingest something like a piece

of plastic even microplastic your body

knows it's not food it just kicks it out

the other end right I mean that that's

what you do well to pick it up I don't

have any problem seeing that this is an

invention even in in the locale where I

am presently today one only didn't need

name it the Sobeys they've announced

said in three weeks that if you got five

tens of means and six times six packets

of macaroni dinner and some ice cream

you're either gonna have the car in your

hand or buy another bag that's the whole

grocery is not going to give any bags or

seldom why is it so easy for these fads

to take hold in municipalities

supermarkets corporations kind of

vibrating their own virtual why do

people buy into it I guess they have too

much time on their hands believe it I'm

not sure look at the straw thing I know

right

like as if turtles have got straws

sticking out of their eyes everywhere in

the ocean I think they poked a straw in

a turtle's eye and took a picture of it

I'm honest to god I'm sure that's what

they did but if you go to Costco now you

can't have the straw in that flimsy

plastic thing that goes on top of the

yeah paper cup you have to have this

dome piece of plastic with a most place

to put

your mouth right the dome thing has more

plastic in it than the old thing did

with the straw in it and the flimsy top

there's more plastic there and it makes

no sense at all to be against plastic

especially seeing as though there is no

giant patch of plastic garbage in the

ocean

well it's friend of mine I'll pass this

on to you you might want to use it as an

anecdote he went to one of the ski

lodges somewhere in the Rockies in

Alberta and I don't know we had to fly

in or not but its way up and it's way

out and specialized it's fairly near the

top of one of the peaks and in that

isolated sybaritic an expensive chalet

when he went to get his drink he was

told that we don't have plastics from

here weren't any virtues - we don't use

plastic straws anymore so he started to

think and he sees under a mountaintop in

Alberta and they're worried about this

disease and cramming straws in the

turtle's eyes and he said well how does

a straw getting from here and to the

Pacific surprise their ingenious those

straws grow legs just leads to another

easy thing when you hear about the

plastic bags or the straws or City

Council's we're gonna blatent straws and

everyone this is wonderful it gets on

all the six o'clock newscast and then

Divac turn on the other moment you got

agree to Thornburg telling you you got

five years to live how do you go from

such trivia and such inconsequential

gestures to Apocalypse all within the

same Missy mental cloud

I absolutely at a loss of words to

describe my feelings about that I mean I

cannot understand how the world could

have come to that when the Enlightenment

you know was supposed to be about using

logic and science to address public

policy issues and just in general to

address knowledge and now we've got to

this point like what does it look like

when the world comes to an end does it

actually explode or what how can the

world come to an end

and they're saying that those words

you're saying in 12 years it's circling

in live and of course it won't I would

make that prediction and quite you know

positively great but when they when this

claim is made unmade so both vociferous

ly and by the highest international

organizations and by kind of totem

spokespersons and then the next day

someone says well in in Windsor

Newfoundland we're gonna bland plastic

straws there's no connection between the

gesture and the imminent global peril

it's all co2 that's causing this problem

yes something that's invisible and

that's like the Garbage Patch and so

I've got a new presentation that I've

started with an essay and I now got a

full PowerPoint presentation called the

fake invisible catastrophes and threats

of doom and it turns out wrecks

I never realized it was quite this

widespread until I started thinking

about it again that nearly every scare

story about the environment is based on

something that is either invisible

completely like co2 for example what's

ever bad in a GMO has anybody ever seen

it on a plate

it's another scandal where is that where

is the thing that you're supposed to not

eat and and then of course there's

remoteness like polar bears yeah no one

can go and count them by themselves so

if something is invisible remote or both

like Laurel reefs right there they're

underwater and only a few people go and

see them and very few people are

actually studying them

most of those are on government grants

and are inclined to make it seem as

though the reefs are in far more danger

than they actually are so they can get

another grant next year to study them

some more so like the polar bears even

like the polar bears and so it turns out

that nearly every scare is based on

something invisible remote or both and

that means that the public has to get

its information from the activists the

media and the scientists who are

studying these things they cannot verify

it with their own eyes and observation

and verification are the basis of

science

and replication and replication right so

there there there in every case they're

picking issues that cannot be verified

by the individual person in in in the

world and and they're baking up stories

like the stories about the Great Barrier

Reef dying in in April of 2016 around

the world shot the 93% of the Great

Barrier Reef is bleached which implied

in the story that it was dying or dead

yeah of course right well the actual

fact the data point under that was that

93% of the reefs in the northern section

of the Great Barrier there's northern

central and southern and the northern is

the warmest 93% of the reefs may say

there's 200 reefs have have experienced

some bleaching that was the that that

was the actual data so it could be one

percent bleaching on each reef yeah that

would be some bleaching on or on 93

percent of the reefs so that's how they

exaggerated that and went all around the

world on every network like every day

for weeks and then the next year the

word was terminal in 2017 the Great

Barrier Reef is now terminal and just

like on the fake news on TV every one of

those stations uses the same phrase like

as if someone's given them the same

talking point and/or the same word to

describe an issue the same thing happens

with the newspapers there they used the

word terminal terminal terminal terminal

all around the world within eighteen

months the headlines were Great Barrier

Reef surprisingly is recovering right

well it was never dead in the first

place and this guy Peter rid professor

peter rid at James Cook University in

Queensland Australia was fired a year

and a half or two ago and he went

crowdfunding and got the money to defend

him to file a lawsuit against the

university for dismissal improper

dismissal and defamation and the judge

in the federal court awarded him 1.2

million dollars and had 18 points about

what the university had done wrong

firing you know the university has

appealed or using public money it's

gonna cause Peter rid over a million

dollars to defend himself or to continue

with the case at a higher court he's

going to get the money and he's gonna

win because now seven of the researchers

at James Cook University are are charged

with fraud in the coral reef and other

studies and so they I believe that the

scientists in the coral reef cabal in

the academic world in Australia the

reason they're doing this is so they can

get their asking for half a billion

dollars a year for more research now you

tell me how research can save the reef

from dying even if it was right what are

they gonna do to prevent it from dying

by studying it it's it's this this is

liable to blow the lid off ocean

acidification to that if you've heard

that term it's totally bogus it is

absolutely a fabrication of when when

the temperature stopped rising around

year 2000 and the so called hiatus or

pause came along they had to come up

with something to keep the ball rolling

on the climate change thing and they

invented this idea of ocean

acidification where increased co2 would

increase the acidity of the ocean they

always use that word actually what

they're really talking about was that it

would reduce the alkalinity because the

oceans can never be acidic they have so

much buffering capacity and salts in

them like calcium and sodium that they

will always be they always be basic or

alkaline rather than acidic fresh water

is generally a little bit acidic the

rainfall rainfall is acidic it has no

salts in it to make it basic and so and

so this is a total fabrication there's

no possibility that increased co2 could

cause any problem with the alkalinity or

acidity of the oceans and in fact the

the least alkaline place in the oceans

is the Humboldt Current off Peru where

there's high co2 and it is responsible

for 20% of the world's fish catch

so actually co2 just like in the air

where it fertilizes the trees and the

crops and the plants the higher it gets

there's every plant out there in the

real world if it's getting enough water

and nutrients from the soil it's

starving starving for co2 even at this

level today three things one is just an

incidental but I don't want to let it go

then I want to go a bit more general

when I hear our own government not being

partisan they're not but when I hear our

own government reiterate for the

millionth time that we must put a tax on

pollution and they said it's carbon

dioxide is a pollutant what are they

saying

they are saying that carbon dioxide

shouldn't be there in those quantities

because people first think that

pollution is a science word it's not

something as dirt yes but it's also a

judgment yeah

it's people it's it's people deciding

that a certain thing shouldn't be there

now yeah right it is just like some

things are not a pollutant like gasoline

isn't a pollutant in your gas tank it's

meant to be there right but on what's

it's a pollutant if you dump it in the

water in the river but in what possible

or regions of mind or atmosphere is one

of the key elements of nature in itself

a pollutant well this the problem is is

under Obama the EPA in the United States

ruled that co2 was a pollutant an air

pollutant under the Clean Air Act so

they've put it in that category when in

fact it's the most important food for

life on earth it's reverse it is the

opposite yes and right right now co2 is

still at extremely low levels even with

what we've put in compared to the

history of co2 co2 is it now just over

400 parts per million when we started it

was at 280 during the height of the last

glaciation it had gone down to 180

nothing to do with us but because when

the Seas cool they absorb gases from the

atmosphere and with co2 so low in the

atmosphere now the oceans contain 45

times as much co2 as the atmosphere so

during the glacial cycles as the sea

cools down in the in the peaks of the

glaciations the the ciub

orbs co2 from the atmosphere and the sea

can absorb 1% more co2 and that makes

the atmosphere lose 45 percent of its

co2 and just because of the ratio gotcha

and so and when the Seas warm they give

off co2 so coming out of the last

glaciation co2 went from 180 which is

only 30 parts per million above the

death of plants in other words since the

beginning of life on earth co2 has

gradually declined from six to ten

thousand parts per million to at the

beginning of modern life about 4 to 6

parts per million for 4 to 6 thousand

parts per million and then gradually for

the last hundred and fifty million years

has gone from 2,500 to 180 180 to 80 400

and that yes and now 400 so we have

actually restored a balance to the

global carbon cycle to a small extent

but we haven't brought it back up

anywhere near it was when the massive

forests Carboniferous forests were were

flourishing in high co2 environment and

going up at the very beginning when you

came out of your small town when you

interested in nature you did all the

University study you became activists

with Greenpeace so you've seen the

emergence of environmentalism and

concern for the environment they're

slightly different and so you've seen

how these things grow how do you as a

trained mind in this particular field

account for the enormous grip that this

this last 20 25 years I'll call it of

the spherical alarmism with reference to

co2 and the death of the planet that has

swept the globe newspapers most

academics middle-class speak to the

point where most people are afraid to

say even if they disbelieve it to say

that they disbelieve there's a bunch of

elements to it I think one is that there

is no other impending apocalypse like

all-out nuclear war there's no world war

underway right now there was Wars going

back into history forever always

happening huge huge conflicts happening

all through history we've had the most

peaceful period

in the history of humanity pretty well

since 1945 exactly so that's one thing

is people don't have anything really bad

other to where you actually need

something but this is another problem

the end is nigh guy on the street corner

has been there since the beginning of

time right so the end times

apocalypse doomsday is deeply buried in

our brains and whether that is a

collective thing or whether it's just a

projection of our own fear of deaths you

see I don't buy into any of these things

because I've never been afraid of my own

death and but I think a lot of people

are and even even if it's fairly deep

psychologically they think that when

they die that's the end of the world I

think but that's one way of looking at

it another aspect of it is the modern

communication system has made it so that

you have five six if you count Hollywood

and the media as two separate things

or five if you count them as one in the

same or less so you start with let's

just start with the green movement okay

fundraising instilling fear right in the

in the populace fear and guilt

so you while you're driving your SUV

down the road you're afraid you're

killing your grandchildren and that

makes you guilty

that opens wallets right so there's the

fundraising campaigns of the whole green

movement then you've got the the

politicians and the media the

politicians want this scare story

they're buying it actually because

almost all the money going into climate

change research is public money from

politicians who want scare stories to

scare the electorate and tell them

they'll save their grand grandchildren

from a certain death if they vote for

them and then the media needs sensation

to sell stories and of course the

mainstream media is shrinking every

day's to smaller and smaller as the

Internet takes over and organizations

like Ezra lavance and like the post

millennial and yeah there's a whole

bunch of still it and yeah and these are

not fake news outlets they're actually

hard news like it used to be in the

mainstream media so you've got the media

participating willingly in this in

spreading fear then you've got the green

business

who are how large is that the crony

capitalists the whole wind and solar

industry now Tesla's doing really well

right now I see but that all started

with the same kind of thing with

billions of dollars of public money so

the rent seekers right there's a lot of

them and there's a lot of money involved

in that all around the world now that

mean the cost of climate change research

is nothing compared to the cost of all

these wind and solar facilities that are

being built in response to the science

so-called science so you've got them and

then you've got the scientists the

climate scientists yeah the opposite of

climate scientist is climate denier yeah

right that's the language today so if I

am skeptical even though it doesn't

matter how many qualifications in

science I have BS CS and PhDs and years

of study it doesn't matter if I don't

buy into the narrative of the

catastrophic climate emergency then I am

a climate denier as opposed to a climate

science what does it say I'm gonna stop

you not stopping but I interrupt you

again what does it say that when to

confute their opponents that one of the

purest causes that we know which is the

environment that the advocates of

environmentalism pick one of the

dirtiest words of the last century and

associated with the dirty is deed of the

last century

instead of saying Patrick Moore you're

confused or you were a skeptic or

whatever it is no word Holocaust of

silent

your denier but you're the same moral

plane as those manic Desperados who

still hate the jews and deny the

greatest tragedy ever visited what does

that tell you about the cause that they

used that level of absolutely gutless

rhetoric that they're intellectually and

scientifically bankrupt and immoral

I think the immoral part is is the part

that I think is more interesting it is

because I would prefer to focus on the

intellectually and scientifically

bankrupt because I like to argue facts

and morality is a bit squishier than but

in in in the business of promoting a

cause rhetoric in this particular case

is an index of either sincerity

cleanliness of mind yeah and if I can't

deal with you without calling you the

equivalent of a Holocaust denier I don't

know why you should listen to me well I

tend not to anymore actually I've kind

of given up on the people that talk like

that it's no use arguing with them it

actually is a cult if you've seen

extinction rebellion dressed up in those

red suits that are sort of a cross

between Catholic priests and Star Wars

people it's really bizarre but it's

obviously that people who dress up all

exactly the same in a bizarre uniform

are a cult yeah you wouldn't do I know I

wouldn't do that with anybody like

especially not a hundred other people

all dressed up the same looking like

some kind of pseudo religious figures

and also like grease of some kind and

also assuming the the authority to tell

other people what it is their lives

should be that's another element of this

particular cause that because the world

is at stake but Greta is so wise that's

I want to ask you specifically about her

but this is part of it is it in

rationalism is it some sort of retreat

to the medieval mindset when does it

come to pass that the congress's and and

parliaments of europe and high elements

prime ministers here are sitting down to

listen to and not gonna be straight and

not very well schooled sixteen-year-old

to get advice on the future of the

planet is everything upside down pretty

much I I get in trouble for criticizing

a girl right they say you shouldn't be

criticizing a child you're a grown man

you know and I'm actually not

criticizing Greta I'm seat but I

understand that she's a tool and she's a

tool of Al Gore and Arnold

Schwarzenegger and George Soros and a

whole cabal including her own parents

who write most of her tweets

she's people right for her she didn't

rate that speech for the you know

everybody's going to they they just need

her a Davos you know all those billion

Aires need her there to advise them what

a joke

I think Boris Johnson made the smartest

first move of his prime ministership

when he says he's gonna boycott that

thing right why would you go there and

hobnob with all those people if if they

think a 16 year old child can offer them

advice about the whole future of the

world give them orders I'm not much I'm

not jumping at her again but how dare

you but it is but it is a tactic that

you appointed a near infant to be your

spokesperson and then you say oh you're

attacking in their infant you're not the

one who put her out there and she isn't

her own voice I won't argue with tyrants

and dictators have used children all

through the centuries whether whether it

was Stalin or Mao or Hitler they've used

children waving little flags by the side

of the street all the time and and I

mean and it's true that children are

brought out for royalty sometimes too so

but they're not political the these

people are political the ones that work

for tyrants and and well they don't work

for them they're recruited by them and

and and and so they're using children to

get your sympathy I guess because it's

not because it's not nice to to

criticize children the green movement

global warming movement since 1991 I

suppose done in Rio if I'm correct how

much of that is or has become not about

the environment I know there are always

sincere people there are always some

people who are doing what they're saying

that they're doing and trying to save

what they say they're trying to save but

then I mobile becomes so powerful so

widespread so global international

conferences millions and possibly

trillions of dollars in various how much

of the your I want your judgment how

much of the global warming movement in

all its facets is just about the

environment and how much of it is a

political instrument or instruments for

far other goals I don't think very much

of it is actually about the environment

anymore

most of the campaign's are made up as

I've explained about the garbage path

and we with the rivers of Europe have

been cleaned up you know there's no need

to clean them up anymore now where the

real work is to be done is in Asia and

there is a plastic pollution problem in

Asia they throw it all in the rivers and

they throw all their spoiled vegetables

and stuff in the rivers too it's just

their habit that's how you get rid of it

and that kills the river because it's

just too much organic matter in there

and the plastic is just a big mess in

the mouths of rivers in Indonesia and

not so bad in Indian you know I think

they're doing better and they're all

doing better in fact it is improving all

around the world and it's really not the

environmental movement that is doing it

they're they're making all their noise

over here we've where we've already

pretty much cleaned to place up there's

actually I notice on the West Coast

beaches on the Pacific where I'm where I

live there's way less plastic garbage on

the beaches now than there used to be

way less all people like clean things

well fishermen have stopped throwing all

their yeah old nets and old floats and

stuff in the ocean and bring them back

to the dock and put them in a bin you

know and then there were ever they go

from there but they don't go into the

ocean at least but so not much of it is

really about environmentalism anymore I

saw as I was leaving Greenpeace in the

in the mid-80s a lot of people in the

Greenpeace office here in Toronto

wearing red berets and fatigues sort of

like je Guevara that whole Che Guevara

type thing and so I saw a Greenpeace

hijacked by the political left at that

time and it's because we had gained fame

and power yeah and some money ability

and they just came in and we were far

too innocent to deal with these people

they were politically much more astute

than we were and just a whole bunch of

reasons it basically got transformed

into a left-wing movement when obviously

ecology and environmentalism should be

right down the middle politically yeah

it should because everybody needs the

environment and there are good ideas on

both the right and left for solving

environmental problems

on the Left there's regulation and on

the right there's free markets to

distribute goods services and policies

in the most efficient possible way and

not to waste your money so there you can

think of all kinds of examples

conservatism is sometimes the right way

to go as a matter of fact the word

conservation comes from the word

conservative yeah so environmentalists

who are conservationists are often

conservative ducks Unlimited

for example who've done a huge amount of

good work and the Nature Conservancy

it's actually one of the very biggest of

the environmental groups in North

America and they they don't steal

people's land they buy it and turn it

into a preserve or a park for some

endangered species or just because it's

a beautiful part of the of the ecosystem

or of the geography of a place so

there's there's good environmentalism

being done on on that side and on the

left it's mostly politics and that's why

I was I was so sorry to see the

organization that I helped start drift

into that and nowadays I don't agree

with much of anything Greenpeace is

saying the I fought against them on gold

and rice for 20 years and because they

were they were they were the ones who

stopped Golden Rice from being approved

to feed people who were dying at the

rate of 2 million children a year and

going blind at the rate of hundreds of

thousands a year before they died if you

die before you go blind you're almost

lucky you know because they one can come

before the other with vitamin A

deficiency but golden rice is it is a

genetically modified rice it was

modified for humanitarian reasons by to

humanitarian scientists in Europe Peter

buyer and Ingo Potrykus who have watched

for 20 years while the world stops them

from introducing something that can cure

2 million children dying every year

overnight a cup or a cup of golden rice

instead of a cup of white rice which has

not only no beta-carotene which makes we

make vitamin A with that has no iron or

zinc or many other nutrients

it's the worst staple but it's also the

one that the most poor people uses a

staple because it's cheaper than the

other staples and also grows in the

tropics where most of those people live

now if if if Golden Rice had been a cure

for hiv/aids or for dengue or for

malaria or for Ebola

it would have been approved within six

months if it proved efficacious and

wasn't killing Piell right yet this is a

side effect of killing people would

probably rule it out but the side effect

if you're all your hair falling out

shouldn't rule it out if it saves your

life especially if your hair grows back

again like with chemo you know so most

medicines are meant to kill something

that is trying to kill you in other

words they're poisonous and chemotherapy

for example the whole idea is to give it

to you in a dose that will kill the

agent that's trying to kill you without

killing you right and and and these

people prevented this for twenty years

and finally in December eighteenth just

now the Philippines has approved Golden

Rice for food and fodder

so the dam has broken finally and and

Ingo Potrykus who's very getting on is

living to see the day when when when

it's not stopped anymore how do people

that again quite literally make a

profession of saying I have a better

conscience than most people how can they

possibly reconcile a scare campaign

against something that would have such

drastic remedy to so many who are at the

poorest level of existence I mean how do

you live with that campaign I'm sure

glad I didn't have to I was the first

person to start a campaign for Golden

Rice by the time I started in 2013 it

was in response to Greenpeace recruiting

activists in the Philippines to destroy

the International Rice Research

Institute's field rice rice field trials

in outside Manila and they were busting

all these kids and they and and told

them they have to tear that out leftist

kids and they did do that so I vowed

that morning at my breakfast table with

my family in winter harbor

I'm wife and Eileen and my brother my

brother Michael were there with me and

we vowed to start a campaign that with

the would be active and to go to Europe

and to go to Asian we did all those

things in a four year period we reached

a hundred million people through the

media with positive message about Golden

Rice and that helped to change the way

things eventually went for its final

approval but it's just ridiculous that

it took 20 years for this to happen you

know what Greenpeace said they said it

might cause unforeseen health problems

that was one of their objections the

only other objection was that it might

cause unforeseen environmental problems

that's all really yeah you know it all

it was was rice with beta carotene in it

every green plant is full of beta

carotene every plant needs beta carotene

and we need the beta carotene to make

vitamin A with so corn is yellow because

of beta carotene carrots are orange

because of beta carotene iSight go blind

don't eat you don't eat too many enough

carrots you go blind

you know that's yeah it's true it's

actually true and the the they said

there'd be unforeseen health effects by

curing 2 million killed children from

dying

why don't we I'm switching I don't know

how they came to that conclusion but

it's in the same analogous path of logic

what are we losing or what have we

displaced or what have we hurt by the

certainty in the West by the mass

embrace of this hysteria about global

warming and a diversion of funds in

certain scheme Germany I'm thinking

about right off the top the campaign in

Canada what are the things that have

been displaced and hurt because of the

obsessive and quite successful

politicization of environmental

catastrophe brought about by co2 as far

as I can see the whole thing should be

positive efforts to improve on on

forestry to improve on agriculture so

that we use less land to do those things

I mean the fact is that that

improvements in agriculture have

resulted in a 67 percent reduction in

the amount of land used to grow the same

amount of

which is great just in the last 30 years

or so and the co2 that we're putting in

the atmosphere has increased the

productivity of all food crops and all

trees and all wild plants by up to 30%

the the greening of the earth is a known

fact it's being caused by co2

fertilization and not only does high co2

increase the growth rate of all the

plants on earth but it also improves

their efficiency with water it is it

makes them more drought tolerant because

when co2 is so thin in the air at at 400

ppm and it was down to 280 and 180 when

it's so thin they have to open way more

of the little passages under their

leaves where the air goes in with the

co2 that allows water to get out so the

loss of water is much higher from plants

when there's low co2 we when that co2

goes up the plants automatically know

that they don't need to open their

stomata as they're called as widely or

to have as many stomata and in fact much

research done on on evolutionary stuff

is looking at how many stomata there are

on leaves of fossilized plants to see

what the co2 level would have been at

that time in history so the fact is

every plant out there is starving for

co2 if it's getting enough water and

nutrients from the dirt that should tell

us something every commercial greenhouse

grower in the world doubles or triples

the co2 not 400 but 800 or 1,200 ppm

they get 20 to 60% increase yield by

doing that and all the plants in the

world would get that increase yield and

there is actually no concrete evidence

that co2 is causing any harmful warming

whatsoever if it causes a little bit of

warming we will be very lucky now how

many people in Canada know that there

are approximately 195 countries

recognized by the United Nations Taiwan

being one that they don't so there be

196 if you recognize Taiwan Canada is

the coldest country in the world of all

those countries

at minus five point three five Celsius

average temperature Russia is only the

second coldest country in the world and

even though it has colder temperatures

in its interior than we have as records

they don't have all those Islands going

up to the North Pole like we do those

are cold in the winter really really

really cold colder than Russia but

nobody's there

hardly alert is there and a couple of

other little yeah outposts most of the

Inuit people live below that even that

area cuz it's so cold and inhospitable

well three million years ago all

Canada's Arctic Islands were covered in

subtropical forests with giant camels

roaming in them the onset of the

Pleistocene Ice Age was the culmination

of a 50 million year cooling period that

started fifteen millions after years

after the dinosaur extinction and since

fifty million years the temperature has

gone down on the earth to the point

where both poles are frozen blocks of

ice and that was not like that fifty

million years ago there was no ice on

the earth until about thirty million

years ago this is the first ice age in

280 million years the earth has never

been this cold as it is today in even

this is an interglacial period the poles

are still totally covered in ice this is

just a bit of respite from the major

glaciation times so it goes up and down

in hundred thousand year cycles we're in

one of the up cycles and beginning to go

down again it's very clear from the

graphs that the Greenland ice cores in

particular show that we have already

begun the gradual descent into the next

major glaciation we may need the warming

we could really use some warming and it

would be nice if doubling and doubling

again co2 would cause some but there is

no evidence in the historical record

that that will happen I want to go a

little bit particular this is from my

perspective is not as informed as yours

at all but I'm just looking at the

campaign to campaign against the Alberta

oil sands the campaign against can I'm

security Canadian Canadian oil Canadian

mr. Canadian forestry to a degree as

well I often wonder aid because Canada

is in terms of this particular problem

one point six I think it's the number we

are such a small contributor to whatever

they say

is apparel you have China India vastly

more significant in terms of what they

would be putting out what is the point a

of Canada even pretending that it has

leverage and this is the government

position we're going to our number one

priority is global warming I mean it's

insane if you only own one percent of it

they're not going to change that much

second but if you're the coldest country

in the level I've heard much the same

and at the same time whatever we bring

in with carbon taxes even if we reduce

by some minuscule fraction whatever

China does in a week wipes about what is

the Russian now behind us yes because

even if their story is right which it is

not it would make no difference that is

neat you signaling at a national level

and the point about the oil sands I mean

III have two main points to make tonight

when I'm speaking for I only have five

minutes but that's enough for me to say

first that point about Canada being the

coldest country in the world and people

in Brazil and India and China and

Nigeria are not as worried about global

warming as people in the coldest country

in the world are and Sweden actually

though I think the Swedes are catching

on to greta's capers too because they

just came out with about a 65 percent of

the population the highest of anything

about what the biggest waste of money

was last year in Sweden it was the

climate change stuff 65 percent in

Sweden in Sweden

yes and I wouldn't be surprised if you

get a similar thing here but I don't

know a central candidate seems to really

be worried about climate change and I

don't understand why and the but it

isn't the Canadian population or is it

the Clara CV academic the journalistic

the political the aides that that the

bunch it's the elites that go to

conferences to Davos yeah those people

yeah they're there so-called elites

actually they're ignorant as all get-out

as far as I'm concerned I think they're

just following the crowd and and and how

can it just like you say how can anybody

possibly believe that the world is going

to come to an end in ten years

it obviously isn't going to there's no

possible cause that could do that

they blame it on something invisible in

the air I brought talked to my brother

last night this is his third day in in

five days and right now I think he's got

four feet of snow and he was telling me

if there's any global item making a joke

but it's not a joke if there's any

global warming for God's sake hurry up

there's a lot of alarm that has no

grounding in the daily experience of

millions and millions of people and this

thing with Alberta and Saskatchewan - we

have to remember just on the National

Post this morning there's this poll that

shows that only 27% of Albertans are

happy about the future and 79% of

Quebecers are happy about the future the

central Canada is treating Alberta and

Saskatchewan like hostile foreign powers

that's what's happening in this country

in our own country what kind of

democracy is it or Confederation is it

mainly the point Confederation where you

have 13 political jurisdictions three

territories and 10 provinces and two of

those provinces have 100% of the federal

power 100% and we don't have a formula

for amending our Constitution because

they wanted to have the same power as

they had before they weren't going to

give any power out to anybody else to be

involved in even that and to go again to

contradictions how in the name of God do

you bring in carbon taxes during the

worst depression for that industry

during the biggest layoffs and at the

same time scotch every possible pipeline

and there's all coming across the oceans

that going into Montreal that is totally

do I don't understand it this is my

problem there is no understanding it

it's not understandable because it isn't

based on any kind of logic or reason or

enlightenment or sensibility or is it is

in fact the opposite it is stupid what

Canada is doing but it's based on

somewhat on the fact that Ontario and

Quebec have all the power they have all

they have all the vocab the leverage

they got the end and so they are saying

that they don't want that dirty oil from

Alberta like dirt action dirty in that

call

context is like dirty little scoundrel

it doesn't mean that it's made of dirt

like dirt is what we grow our food in

what's wrong with dirt late at night

you're not supposed to have your pants

dirty but that's pollution right whereas

when it's dirt in the ground it's not

pollution and now they call it filthy

the Alberta oil is filthy right and that

is the kind of propaganda that people

are listening to in the east

whereas oil from dictators and despots

in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and

Nigeria is apparently clean oil yeah

especially when it comes in super

tankers exactly to the Atlantic coast

where as we're being banned to have

there's a ban on tankers taking Alberta

oil off the north coast you know you see

just that's the only thing they're

banning is taking Alberta oil off there

now they're fighting the gas plants up

there too even though gas is not a

pollution issue and they won't let that

pipe be see won't let the pipeline come

to the Pacific out there on our left

coast so we've got a situation where two

landlocked provinces the only two

landlocked provinces are are being

demonized well and this is this is

unacceptable I'm really really glad I

was going to get to it but I'm glad that

you brought it out even without a

question this is another little axiom of

mine and if anybody thinks that the

global warming campaign in Canada has no

costs it has great political costs

because it's introduced the first

potentially quite serious fracture in

the relationships of the Confederation

it's costing a lot to virtue signal

that's my point it's really very sad

I've been a Western Lee alienated person

all my life because they grew up on the

very west coast it was rustic yeah I got

Western alienation big time and I've

known about this all my life that that

we're not don't have any say in anything

we we might as well be ruled by a despot

and now it's looking even like that

because this Prime Minister he he he

gets away with everything that he does

it's illegal and wrong he fires

ministers from First Nations he tries to

save SNC

but he doesn't try to save the order in

West well he doesn't know he actually

his dad apparently had a slogan screw

the West will win the rest

well I winded up with this I know a

little bit and I said a little okay I

know a little bit about occasionally

taking a slightly different view of the

global warming consensus but you'll

especially as an originator Greenpeace

you're one of the the fundamental people

a person who has walked away from the

Creed and who also has had and I

congratulate you on a minute

serious that takes a lot of courage

these days to on this particular topic

to consistently oppose the great mass is

coming in how are you treated these days

by either former allies and how are you

received outside of those who at least

have an open mind none of my former a

leagues will Allies would will dare come

near me and talk to me that they stopped

doing that a long time ago when they

realize they could not debate me and

that's basically their whole operand

Asst mode i operand us is they will not

talk to people like me and there's many

of us i am i am treated so well by the

people who really do have good knowledge

about this whether it's william hopper

or richard linson or christopher essex

here in canada these are real scientists

who've been studying all their lives too

and they're in their elder years some of

them and have got more wisdom than i do

because they're older than I am but I've

got some wisdom now myself I think after

at the ripe old age of 72 and I'm I'm

really enjoying my time now because I'm

with people who like me prefer truth and

logic and using the science approach and

when people call me a skeptic I wear it

as a badge of honor because the whole

purpose of science is to be skeptical

and that was such a ridiculous thing for

them to use the word skeptical about

scientists as if it meant there was

something wrong with

yes they do though and it is it it is my

duty to be a skeptic as a scientist

that's really good as Galileo was yeah

and I hope they don't put me under house

arrest for the rest of my life

Inquisition something on the side dr.

Moore I thank you very very much

Rex it's a pleasure and I apologize for

50 years ago so why oh it was fun both

times it was

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