Juno News - New documentary reveals side effects of green energy agenda

00:00:00.000 I wanted to turn to this event that's happening in Calgary today. It's the premiere of a new

00:00:15.520 documentary called Generation Green. Now, if you can make it to the documentary, it is at the

00:00:21.780 Plaza Theatre in Northwest Calgary tonight at six o'clock Mountain Time. But I think the

00:00:26.480 documentary itself is one that people across the country should be paying attention to as well,

00:00:31.420 because we hear all the time from the activists, the government, many people in the media, the

00:00:35.820 importance of having green energy initiatives. We need to subsidize this, subsidize that, and all the

00:00:42.180 like. But the one thing that people often forget to consider is that a lot of this is not at all

00:00:49.060 based on the science, just like with harm reduction, just like with COVID, what people present as

00:00:54.740 scientific solutions oftentimes are anything but. So as we delve into this, I was glad to see this

00:01:01.440 film come to the forefront here. It's called Generation Green. The filmmaker is Heidi McKillop,

00:01:08.180 who joins us on the line now. Heidi, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.

00:01:12.760 Hi, thank you for having me.

00:01:14.280 Now, I just saw you a couple of days ago at my book launch in Calgary. So thanks again very much for

00:01:18.940 for coming out to that. So what's the story you're telling here?

00:01:23.040 So basically what we wanted to dive into was this question of what are the pros and quons of

00:01:28.540 renewables? You know, I really was personally confused when I started to read articles online

00:01:34.140 and everything was like 100% renewables. They're performing at this. And I'm like, well,

00:01:39.640 if they're performing that high, then why are we still backing up everything with coal,

00:01:43.320 hydro, natural gas, oil, you name it. Every country is pivoting because the energy demand is so high.

00:01:50.740 So obviously there was a discrepancy there that we really wanted to dive into. So that was part of

00:01:56.560 our investigation. And what did you find? Not to give away too much, but what did you come away with?

00:02:02.700 So there's a couple of key points that we really wanted to address in the film. The first component

00:02:07.800 of the film is really speaking about, you know, solar panels on your roof. You have a direct

00:02:12.820 connection to that energy source. It doesn't have to go into transmission lines that lose energy.

00:02:19.920 So essentially those forms of solar panels are actually not too bad for an average household.

00:02:26.440 You can debate if you want to, you know, put the investment into it or not. But right now with our

00:02:31.440 current federal government, they're heavily subsidized. So we kind of left that into the pro.

00:02:35.940 The con really is though, is that the renewable energy movement has basically gone off of numbers

00:02:42.720 of their install capacity instead of their actual output of what they're performing at. So we address

00:02:48.080 this and we try to make it as simplistic as we can for audience that doesn't really have an energy

00:02:53.800 background or doesn't have an engineering background. Another component to this, which is

00:02:58.700 extremely important to me as a new mom, as, you know, a woman in the space is really the exploitation 1.00

00:03:05.620 of children in Africa for mining extractions that is used for the renewable energy movement,

00:03:12.320 specifically cobalt. We were investigating in the Congo and obviously there's a lot of problems that

00:03:18.760 have been affiliated with cobalt extraction, primarily because they are completely owned

00:03:24.480 in majority from Chinese owned companies. This is a huge conversation that we have to take into the

00:03:30.060 supply chain, is that if you are going to demand an energy source and displace those missions globally,

00:03:36.220 is that fair? Is that really the way that we want to conduct ourselves as Canadians?

00:03:40.860 Yeah, it's an interesting question. I remember when I was covering the World Economic Forum's

00:03:45.500 meeting in Davos, I can't remember if it was this year or it might have been last year, there was this

00:03:49.080 one mining executive that's getting up there and saying, oh yeah, we need to do battery everything,

00:03:53.760 battery powered everything, fossil fuels are, you know, a thing of the past. And then you look at his

00:03:57.980 mining operation and realize that, you know, his company is doing all the mining that we need if

00:04:02.120 we're converting to battery everything. So it's not this altruistic environmental message. And people

00:04:07.660 often forget that there's a cost to everything. And, you know, it's not the case that, you know,

00:04:14.220 you can get rid of this one energy source and have another one. We haven't yet, you know,

00:04:18.000 harnessed wind in a meaningful way, which is, you know, the only form of, you know, energy that I guess

00:04:23.640 doesn't really have a consequence apart from, you know, the construction of the windmills.

00:04:27.060 But you're right, all of these other ones do. And they're either ineffective or partially

00:04:31.300 effective or incredibly intensive to produce, as in the case of mining.

00:04:36.320 Yes, exactly. And even with the wind turbines, what is really interesting, we've gone off on,

00:04:41.500 we dove into this very intensively in the documentary as well, because we had the opportunity

00:04:47.060 to go down to southern Alberta and talk to landowners about the placement of the wind turbines,

00:04:51.920 specifically this one project that recently got cancelled. But it was due in part because of the

00:04:58.840 mobilization of community members in southern Alberta. And they were really trying to say, like,

00:05:04.380 this is a pristine area of Alberta, right by the adjacent to the Waterton Park. They don't want to

00:05:10.700 see that land industrialized by any kind of energy company. And they certainly have a right to start

00:05:17.260 asking these types of conversations. And this is a really complex issue, we can't just pick and choose

00:05:23.680 which conversation we want to say is the truth or not, it really needs to be foundationally built

00:05:29.440 around a larger conversation. And I'm not personally against wind or solar, I think any kind of technology

00:05:35.720 that we want to diversify in within beans is a great idea. But you're going to have to have the

00:05:40.920 same regulations that the oil and gas faces, which is proper decommissioning of the wind turbines,

00:05:45.100 proper disposal sites for solar panels, which we do not have in place right now. And under my

00:05:50.860 understanding is that that really does need to be improved long term.

00:05:54.900 Yeah, and you're right to point out, and I'm glad you shared your own perspective on this,

00:05:58.780 because I think there's a there's a knee jerk reactionary component that even some supporters

00:06:03.740 of the oil and gas sector have, whereas if they hear green energy, they assume it's bad because

00:06:07.640 it's coming from people that typically hate oil and gas. And I think there's probably a lot of truth to

00:06:11.820 that. But but ideally, we should be approaching any energy discussion with the same conversation,

00:06:16.680 which is, is this efficient? Is this affordable? What does it do for our stated goals, our needs

00:06:21.640 for energy production, our state and environmental goals, all of that. And you should be able to have

00:06:26.180 that discussion in a fairly dispassionate way that is focused on the facts. But but all of a sudden,

00:06:31.640 you have people that are just against oil and gas, and they don't actually care about hearing things

00:06:36.260 that the oil and gas industry is doing in Canada, and you know, the United States, to some extent,

00:06:41.220 to deal with the problems that they raise. And this is where we end up where there is a need for this

00:06:45.920 grown up conversation about it.

00:06:50.020 You know, when we started to put out documentaries like this, I get quite a bit of backlash on my on my

00:06:55.100 personal life. And you know, people will start saying you have a sociology background, a social work

00:06:59.780 background, or you know, who are you, you were receptionist at one point in a waitress, like, yeah, that's

00:07:05.760 exactly it. I'm really proud of the transition of being able to be a multi different faceted industries. And that

00:07:12.960 collectively, hopefully will be projected in my films, basically of having a balanced

00:07:18.440 conversation from a human perspective, we really focused a lot on the citizens, we focused on the people in the

00:07:24.160 regions of what their voices and concerns were. And that's what I care about is that we have to have that open

00:07:29.660 dialogue from the from the ground up, not from the top down. And I think that's something that I'm

00:07:34.200 really proud about with this film that we accomplished is really getting the citizens to

00:07:38.780 be at the forefront of the discussion.

00:07:41.800 So what what's I mean, you've been in this space for quite a while. And I know you've had an open

00:07:46.320 mind about this. Did anything surprise you? Did you learn much when you were making this?

00:07:50.560 A lot? Yeah, I think there's a couple things that really shocked me was definitely

00:07:54.680 the numbers. I feel very disheartened by the fact that certain groups are putting out random numbers

00:08:03.020 that are so contradictory to what their actual performance is at in terms of industrial wind and

00:08:08.300 solar plants. That really confuses me. And, you know, if I'm confused working in this energy space for

00:08:14.160 quite a few years, I can guarantee you my mom, my grandmother, my sister, they're all going to be

00:08:18.620 confused as well. So I think that's really something that I was shocked by and didn't appreciate.

00:08:27.140 What are you who's your target on this? Because the challenge when you have these sorts of

00:08:31.060 discussions a lot of the time is that the people that are going to come out and see it are the ones

00:08:35.160 that are already on your side are already open to it. There's a tremendous hostility in certain

00:08:40.580 subsets. I mean, even in Alberta, it's probably the most feisty, the opposition in Alberta. But so how do

00:08:45.540 you break through that? How do you get it to the people that genuinely need to see this message?

00:08:50.360 That's a great question, Andrew. And I think with each film that we start to do, it slowly progresses

00:08:55.760 into getting more viewership. And hopefully over time, you know, people will start taking me more

00:09:00.740 seriously as a director and producer of film. And I do get a lot of backlash because I don't have

00:09:06.860 primarily a film background. You know, I fell into it when I was at my waitressing job and just started

00:09:12.460 to hear people talk about their problems and about the narratives around oil and gas. And I thought,

00:09:17.980 gosh, like, what a great documentary this would make. And that was my first one, A Strana Nation.

00:09:23.020 So since then, you know, over the last five years, it's really progressed. And I try to challenge myself

00:09:27.780 and my own beliefs. Every time we tackle a subject, you know, I sit down, I play both pros and cons,

00:09:33.580 I weigh them very heavily in my head. And I do a ton of research. So I hope over time, people will

00:09:40.080 start to slowly start getting into the idea that even if you disagree with the topic, or even me as

00:09:45.080 a person, that you will take the time to actually watch something that maybe will challenge your point

00:09:49.740 of view. All right, well, where can people get details about the event tonight?

00:09:55.620 So it's on Eventbrite. And the film begins around six o'clock and doors open at five. It's at the Calgary

00:10:02.560 Plaza in Kensington. And we hope to see you folks there. And then tomorrow, we'll be launching it

00:10:08.040 digitally online on my YouTube channel. All right, the film is called Generation Green. Definitely

00:10:14.140 give it a look, Heidi McKillop. Good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today. Thank you so much,

00:10:18.440 Andrew. Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North

00:10:23.520 at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - June 09, 2024

New documentary reveals side effects of green energy agenda

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