00:00:00.000The government's climate policy revolves around burning every single fossil fuel on the face of the Earth.
00:00:07.200I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
00:00:09.880do you know what rcp 8.5 is if you're not a regular in climate science circles you might
00:00:33.980not know it, but it is... No, let me try that again. Do you know what RCP 8.5 is? Most people
00:00:42.240don't. And the climate activists and climate policymakers are hoping that you don't.
00:00:55.040So joining me now is good friend of the show and good friend of, I think, climate reality
00:01:01.120everywhere, Tom Harris from the International Climate Science Coalition Canada. And Tom,
00:01:06.920you are a regular author over at America Out Loud, and you have a recent article titled
00:01:15.160Scientists Knew, But Governments Refused to Listen. Why don't you break that down for us?
00:01:22.380Yeah, sure. The United Nations IPCC and the other groups that look at climate within the
00:01:27.020organization, they developed things called the representative concentration pathways, okay? They
00:01:33.560look at what could happen in the future with respect to greenhouse gas emissions. And one of
00:01:38.760them in particular, RCP 8.5, representative concentration pathway, was used in a lot of
00:01:45.340places. And I'll just give you some example. I'm quoting from Friends of Science because they've
00:01:49.900done a really good job on this. They say, the Office of the Superintendent for Financial
00:01:54.680institutions, that's OSFI, had instructed the financial institutions under its purview to
00:02:01.700use RCPA 8.5, as well as another one related to it, as part of the financial community's climate
00:02:09.520risk assessment. Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Prairie Climate Institute, Infrastructure
00:02:14.640Canada, they all relied on RCPA 8.5 as the business-as-usual case. We now know officially
00:02:21.040that the scenario was implausible and that many climate scientists and economists knew this over
00:02:27.360a decade ago. And, you know, the thing I wanted to bring up was one of the reports that actually
00:02:33.300showed this, Sheila. I'll just go back to my screen here so I can see you. There we go.
00:02:38.420And that is the reports behind me. It's the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate
00:02:43.760Change. And this was established in the early 2000s. And they put out a whole series of reports.
00:02:48.960And I have a whole lot of them right here. One of my favorite is this one here. It's the physical science. And you can see there's over a thousand pages, thousands of references. And they basically showed with many of the world's leading experts that there is no climate emergency.
00:03:05.860And people can check this out at climatechangereconsidered.org.
00:03:11.420Now, in one of the reports in 2019, which I have behind me also, by coincidence, it's called Climate Change Reconsidered II Fossil Fuels.
00:03:22.100And there's a section of that report that deals with RCP 8.5.
00:03:26.540And this came out in 2019, seven years ago.
00:03:31.540They're now saying and they're now admitting that it was implausible.
00:03:34.480But these folks, they actually said this, and again, it's hundreds and hundreds of references.
00:03:41.840They wrote, RSTP 8.5 is an extreme outlier in the climate science literature, assuming abnormally high estimates of world population.
00:03:50.920They were talking about something in the neighborhood of 12 billion, and we now know it's going to be more like nine and a half or 10 billion.
00:03:56.800they assume extraordinary energy use in absence of any technological improvements that would
00:04:03.700lower per capita growth and there's one quote in particular i got to read to you right from
00:04:08.600the 2019 report okay it's this they said doiran who's the reference 2016 now this is exactly what
00:04:16.620michelle told you and i'll just repeat it because it is so important and it shows how ludicrous 8.5
00:04:21.880is, and they never should have accepted it in the first place.
00:04:24.820Doiran 2016 observes RCP 8.5 assumes that by 2100, there will be 930 parts per million
00:07:07.660you know it feels like this stuff is made intentionally overly complicated you know
00:07:17.760they give it names like rcp 8.5 but what they're really talking about as you rightly point out and
00:07:24.340as our mutual friend michelle sterling from friends of science rightly points out rcp 8.5
00:07:29.960means burning everything we have with extra people on the planet to burn it and then crafting
00:07:41.000policy around that doomsday scenario which will never happen in fact the whole population thing
00:07:48.060doesn't even make sense because now people are saying that actually we're on the cusp of a
00:07:53.420population decline globally and that could cause some problems but governments and activists were
00:08:02.780scaring us using data built around digging everything up and then burning it yeah in other
00:08:11.960words they're saying now it was implausible the truth is that it was impossible ever since the
00:08:18.100start okay and they're saying oh it's because you know renewable energy is taken off and and various
00:08:24.020things but no it's not true it was not ever possible right from the beginning but you know
00:08:30.260and i'm sure you've seen this a lot when they have forecasts or you know scientific studies
00:08:35.140that support the climate scare they zoom right through the political process they zoom right
00:08:40.580through the peer review process and suddenly they're adopted and a good example is the pot
00:08:45.540stem study that in fact forecast economic harm in the future and in fact that's one of the things
00:08:51.620that the friends of science society brought up in their letter to the osfi and people who really
00:08:56.660should go to the website and do a search or osfi and you can see the letter they actually list that
00:09:02.900as one of the things they said the economic catastrophe projected by kotzenahl in 2024
00:09:08.900was invalidated when the paper was retracted by nature and yet by that time it had actually
00:09:14.740affected financial institution stress testing, as they call it, all over the free world and in
00:09:21.640particular in Canada. So the Friends of Science are going after OSFI and saying, look, there's
00:09:27.640all kinds of recent developments that are showing you that your forecast and your demand that the
00:09:33.760financial institutions follow these forecasts, that these are wrong and they always were wrong.
00:09:39.240And I don't know if they've received any answer yet. I don't think they have. But the financial
00:09:43.560institutions, you know, are actually the source of a lot of our problems. And probably the reason,
00:09:49.460the main reason, in my opinion, that Michelle Smith, you know, Premier Smith, she didn't really0.99
00:09:54.880have much choice. She really had, Danielle Smith, sorry, she really had to go along with this,
00:09:59.880because, you know, I asked Copilot last night, and I sent you a little discussion.
00:10:04.200It turns out that the different, within OSFI, Office of the Superintendent of Financial
00:10:10.960institutions, they have something called guideline B-15. And what it is, it's a mandatory climate
00:10:17.140risk management guideline for federally regulated financial institutions. And I'll just tell you who
00:10:22.860these are. This is banks, credit unions under federal jurisdiction, life insurance, property
00:10:28.720and casualty insurers, trust and loan companies. So they were telling them, and this is required,
00:10:34.500it's not an optional thing. Wait, let's stop here and put a pin in it, because this is
00:10:40.480mandatory with federally regulated institutions that they have to do this bizarre climate risk
00:10:47.520BS. Yeah. And they also have to assess different people they're loaning the money to, different
00:10:52.720companies, how much of a climate risk do they pose? I'm a big one. In case the banks are watching,
00:10:59.640I'm a huge one. Yeah. So the climate sort of infrastructure in the background, okay,
00:11:06.580the established rules, they're very much already rigged. And what it boils down to is if Danielle
00:11:13.720Smith had not signed the MOU with the federal government, the federal government would just
00:11:19.000step right in. They'd impose federal regulations. They'd become in charge of all the greenhouse gas
00:11:25.880reporting and everything else. Also, what would happen, and that, by the way, would have been much
00:11:31.220worse than the MOU. They would have had a hard cap on CO2 emissions from oil and gas, which they've
00:11:38.380removed because of the MOU. You know, I used to think when I first saw the MOU, oh, Daniel Smith,
00:11:43.560she's just sort of succumbing to the pressures of political correctness. But when I actually
00:11:49.080looked at the consequences of what would have happened if she did not establish the MOU,
00:11:54.720oh my goodness. One of the main things that would happen is you suddenly see banks saying,
00:11:59.980okay, Alberta, you're not having a sufficient climate change plan, so your different oil and
00:12:05.420gas industries are going to pay more interest. You'd have some foreign countries like Japan and
00:12:09.880South Korea who say that oil should have tracking to show all the greenhouse gas emissions. You
00:12:17.060should have a target to meet 2050, that sort of thing. And those people would then start
00:12:23.160prejudicing against Canadian oil. So it turns out the financial consequences of her not agreeing
00:12:29.300to the MOU would be huge. Now, one of the things that I was disappointed to see is that she had
00:12:35.460to give up a fair bit. One of the things she gave up is now Alberta's official target is net zero by0.64
00:12:41.6602050, which will have to eventually be removed because, I mean, that will eventually make our
00:12:48.100oil so expensive to produce that companies are going to simply leave Canada. You know, Bob Lyman,
00:12:53.620our economic advisor he points out this he says that although the price of oil wouldn't change
00:13:00.300because that's a world market the profit margin of oil companies would get less and less and less
00:13:06.120and less until eventually it's not even worth doing business here so so that's the big problem
00:13:11.540and the impact on canada would be massive think of all the oil revenue that they would lose or at
00:13:17.440least the oil tax revenue that the government would lose and one of two things would happen
00:13:21.600then. Either we get a lot less services or we would have to pay a lot more tax. Now, this MOU
00:13:28.740also talks about something called the Pathways Alliance Project. And I imagine you talked to
00:13:34.180Michelle about that. The original estimate was something like $16.5 billion. They're now talking
00:13:39.300about $20 to $30 billion to gather up CO2 from most of the oil sands and to stuff it underground.
00:13:46.180And they have a sort of a graduated process. By a certain year, you have to have a certain amount
00:13:51.340of your oil sands covered until eventually it's going to be about 95 percent. Now it's interesting
00:13:57.120Sheila where does that money come from? 20 to 30 billion to do this. It comes out of our pocket1.00
00:14:04.120because 50 percent of it is being provided by the federal government which of course is our money
00:14:08.680our tax money and 12 percent from Alberta and then the oil companies have to make up the rest
00:14:14.380and again this is going to make it harder and harder for them to make a profit in Canada
00:14:18.940especially since they'll be in competition with American refineries that don't have a national requirement that they do this.0.95
00:14:26.580So, you know, as I say, at first I thought that Danielle Smith just laid over and played dead.
00:14:31.320But when I looked at the consequences and discussed it with Copilot AI, it showed that it would ruin Alberta's oil and gas industry if she didn't sign the MOU,
00:14:41.380because the feds would just move in with a hard cap on oil and gas emissions, which was their original plan.
00:14:47.380that's been removed because of the MOU. They would come roaring in, take over all the measurements
00:14:53.320and regulations and inspections, and Alberta would lose a lot of sovereignty in addition
00:14:57.940to handicapping their industry with even harder targets than the MOU has. So I actually
00:15:04.420understand why she did it. It's a little bit like you're being accused of murder, okay? And you're
00:15:10.100offered a plea deal. If you plead guilty, we'll only give you life imprisonment instead of being
00:15:15.080executed and if the judge show if the court shows you that you're going to lose if you say well i
00:15:21.540didn't commit the murder it's not just it didn't happen your lawyer says to you look everybody
00:15:27.720thinks you commit the murder there is no chance that you're going to commit that you're going to
00:15:31.920convince people that you didn't so you darn well better take this deal because otherwise they're
00:15:36.680going to execute you and and sadly that you know we would love for daniel smith and others to say
00:15:42.400there's no climate emergency and and and to cite you know things like these massive volumes you
00:15:48.720know i gave this to katherine mckenna when she was environment and it was quite funny she was doing
00:15:54.240a town hall and she was going on and on about nonsense and i met her in the hall afterwards
00:15:58.880and i said you realize there are thousands of scientists who disagree with everything you said
00:16:03.520today and i said and i brought her one or two of these reports and her only comment she had no idea
00:16:09.360that there were people that disagreed. And her only comment was it was heavy to carry back to
00:16:14.300her car, which I guess it was. But that was her main interest. And then a week later, she was
00:16:19.020still calling us climate change deniers. But what people have got to know, and you can get this
00:16:23.600online, they have summaries. Okay, it's the summary for policymakers. For example, this is the one for
00:16:29.260fossil fuels. And you can read through this, you know, in about an hour, you can get the overview,
00:16:34.100you don't have to read 10,000 pages or 2,000, whatever it is. But yeah, so she was not interested
00:16:41.100in the least. So, you know, going back to the Danielle Smith thing, yeah, I sympathize with
00:16:46.180her. I mean, she might very well know that there is no climate emergency, and there's really no
00:16:50.960need physically to have a regulated CO2 scenario. But had she done that, the feds would have stepped
00:17:00.040in because their Greenhouse Gas Pricing Policy Act, you know, the whatever they call it,
00:17:04.540this GCCP or something, it says that if the provinces do not develop their own standards,
00:17:11.320the feds take over and their standards would be much tougher than what was in this MOU. So
00:17:17.020I understand why she did it. It's unfortunate, but, you know, if you have a choice between
00:17:22.200being hung or put in prison, I guess you're going to choose being put in prison.
00:17:26.200Or there's a third option, and this stuff fuels Western separatism, when you see that the only way to move forward and not have your large industrial projects completely debanked, thanks to the federal government, it forces people to reconsider their relationship within confederation.
00:17:48.880So there is a third option, and that is flee the crime to Mexico.
00:17:52.060Yeah, because, you know, the system is rigged against Alberta. I mean, they've built into the financial system on a direction from this government sort of founded body systems, which actually make it impossible for Danielle to stand up and say, this is all junk.0.88
00:18:10.620we're not going to have CCS. You know, we're not going to restrict CO2 emissions. It's a benefit
00:18:15.220to the environment and people, you know, so the system is rigged so that if she says that the
00:18:21.540punishment is so severe that she really doesn't have much choice. She pretty well has to go along
00:18:26.780and she's not just go along to get along. She's going, going along to keep the feds off her back.1.00
00:18:33.440So you're right. If they got out, they wouldn't have to worry about this at all. Now there would
00:18:37.840be some problems with Japan and South Korea and others who import our oil because they've
00:18:42.340established some ridiculous demands concerning we have to have a net zero by 2050 to be considered.
00:18:48.980But still, in comparison with being part of Canada, sadly, right now the system is rigged
00:18:54.700against them if they stay in Canada. You know, and this harkens back to Mark Carney's history
00:19:01.360with gfans that's the global financial alliance for net zero yeah that was largely what they were
00:19:08.420doing there was it remains or you know it's sort of collapsed in on itself like a dying star now
00:19:14.780but it was this global cabal of banks who if you were in a jurisdiction that didn't impose this
00:19:24.040climate risk nonsense then they expected the banks and financial institutions to impose it
00:19:29.800on their own. Totally. And it was a pressure group. Well, that's right. And so it makes you wonder,
00:19:36.080Carney has managed to get from Daniel Smith, some pretty significant concessions. And one of them,
00:19:42.120of course, was the agreement to net zero by 2050, which Alberta previously said, no, we're not going
00:19:47.620to do that. We won't get there. I'm not worried. Well, to a certain extent, they're going to have
00:19:51.920to withdraw it if the oil sands and others are going to continue operating, because you simply
00:19:56.260can't have a net zero by 2050 with $170 or $130 per ton, eventually it's not worthwhile
00:20:03.900making, you know, drilling for oil and producing it in Canada.
00:20:07.320And even Canadian, you know, people who use oil will be looking at foreign sources instead
00:20:13.300But, you know, we have to then ask, is Mark Carney really seriously going to help boost
00:20:19.980Alberta's oil and gas through enlarging, you know, in having an extra pipeline along
00:20:25.480to the Pacific coast. It's important to look at his background. And until he was just, just before
00:20:31.040he was prime minister, he was the United Nations special envoy for climate action and finance.
00:20:36.780Okay. He was a real climate alarmist. And of course, as you said, he established along with
00:20:42.120others, GFANS, which is the financial organization to force banks and other institutions to reduce
00:20:48.840their CO2 emissions and not loan, or at least not loan at preferential rates to oil and gas
00:20:54.380companies. And in his book, it's called Values, Building a Better World for All. He claimed that
00:21:02.160climate change is an existential crisis and that Canada must achieve net zero carbon dioxide
00:21:07.140emissions as quickly as possible. So the question is, has he changed his spots? Has the leopard
00:21:13.740changed his spots? I think Danielle didn't really have much choice in this case. But whether Carney
00:21:21.820is going to actually do what he said he's going to do is another question because excuse me the
00:21:27.660approval process is quite long and involved okay there's there's two major steps one is to see if
00:21:33.500it's in the canadian national interest you know they have a certain kind of evaluation process
00:21:38.380that's a two-year process okay and after that they then have to do an impact assessment
00:21:43.420on the pipelines that's another two years so we're talking about if everything goes smoothly
00:21:49.260If all the approvals come in in a reasonable time frame, we're still talking about four years before they can even break ground to build this extra pipeline.
00:21:59.740So Danielle has given away a certain number of things.
00:22:03.300And in return, she's getting some important things, too.
00:22:06.040You know, the cap is removed and the rate is reduced.
00:22:10.340It's not as severe as it was previously.
00:22:12.740And of course, then they can claim that they have to the banks, they can claim they have a good CO2 emission reduction policy.
00:22:20.200So she had to do that. But whether Carney actually does what he promised, who knows?
00:22:26.140I mean, who knows? It's a big gamble. But again, I emphasize, I don't think Daniel Smith had any choice.
00:22:33.360Tom, thanks for giving that different perspective on the MOU.
00:22:37.180I was in the room when the MOU was announced and I thought that I was taking crazy pills because I read the MOU and I understood the MOU and it didn't say what it was announced to be.
00:22:57.160So I'm pleased that you have given us some background, at least on the bargain that Daniel
00:23:05.220Smith was forced to make. It was splitting the baby in the worst of ways. But I am not hopeful
00:23:12.840given the amount of vetoes that Mark Carney has given to outside parties on that pipeline. It
00:23:18.700feels to me as though he's able to say, well, Alberta and the feds, we tried, but there's all
00:23:25.260these other people that get to say no. So what do you want us to do? There's a lot of that happening
00:23:29.000in this. Yeah, it makes you wonder how much of this is smoke and mirrors, because, you know,
00:23:39.900time as well to try, you know, because the environment minister or previous environment
00:23:44.020minister resigns, you know, because Canada is not doing what they're supposed to do. Now,
00:23:48.460that may have been an attempt to appease the oil and gas people, because Carney could then say,
00:23:53.560well, even my environment minister thinks it's, you know, we're giving you too much freedom.
00:23:57.400So it's possible that was actually arranged as well. But yeah, I don't think that there was
00:24:03.260really much choice. And you know, you were saying one thing, what was it about you were saying
00:24:08.920concerning the standards, the hurdles that have to be overcome for this to really happen? And you're
00:24:15.420right, I think that in the back of Carney's mind, what might be going on is he says, look, I have to
00:24:20.200appear to be supporting oil and gas. But of course, he also wants to appear to be supporting the
00:24:25.700climate change, you know, concerns. And so, but I know that in the background, there's enough
00:24:32.540vetoes, there's enough organizations, there's enough hurdles that have to be overcome, that
00:24:37.720this pipeline may never be built, no matter what I say. So I can appear really good. But at the
00:24:43.340same time, no, in the back of my mind, but it'll never really happen. And I think that's very
00:24:48.220likely what he's thinking is that sure you know my climate concerns are my top priority and they're
00:24:54.220still protected even though i've said well we're going ahead with pipelines because maybe we aren't
00:24:59.820because there's enough hurdles and vetoes that have to be overcome first and they're not all
00:25:04.440going to be overcome probably right it feels like there's a poison pill in the mix and you can see
00:25:10.000that by the lack of a private sector proponent for this thing yeah and synovus for example and
00:25:16.420And others, you know, they've actually said, no, these timelines for reduction of CO2 through CCS, they're completely unrealistic.
00:25:24.700Even the companies within that big group of oil sands companies that are in the Pathways Alliance, even the ones who admit that it's okay, are saying it's very extreme to be hitting these kinds of targets.
00:25:38.180of when you're going to have so much CO2 being removed from the oil sands and eventually up to
00:25:43.12095% of it, they're saying, yeah, that's very, very, you know, aggressive to say the least.
00:25:49.560But you got groups like Synovus, for example, who said for years, no, we can't meet that. That's
00:25:54.620crazy. So I don't know. Danielle must have spoken to them individually, you know, these different
00:25:59.840companies. Yeah. And maybe she's hoping there'll be a change of administration in Ottawa. The
00:26:06.320government will change his mind when they realize that they can't get this done in the time frame
00:26:10.620they want. Who knows? But I mean, right now it's a deal with the devil and the devil may not
00:26:16.220actually give you your due. Right. Tom, thanks so much for coming on the show. Before I let you go
00:26:22.960though, and let me apologize, it's been too long since you've been on the show, but before I let
00:26:28.240you go, let people know where they can find your work and support the very important analysis that
00:26:34.620you do. Yeah, for sure. And yeah, I wanted to actually tell you one other quick thing, if you
00:26:39.220don't mind, before I do that. And that is this book here, Canaries in a Climate World. And what
00:26:45.760it turns out is that 38 experts have challenged the climate change narrative. Patrick Moore,
00:26:51.520for example, he's in here. Bob Lyman's in here. Ian Clark, you know, all sorts of experts from
00:26:57.120around the world have written articles about why the net zero challenge is pointless, why it doesn't
00:27:03.780matter at all because co2 is plant food um the economic impact of doing it william van weingarten
00:27:10.820he actually did a a nice presentation we put out a news release on this in which he actually showed
00:27:16.640that the impact of having net zero is very severe okay there's no question that it would be really
00:27:22.640bad for society so yeah i just want to draw people you can get this on amazon uh canary in a climate
00:27:28.760world is essays individual bam bam bam you can read them really quickly but just to answer your
00:27:33.480question. Yeah. The way people can check us out is that climate change, sorry, I was back on,
00:27:39.100I'm back on these reports. These reports are so great. They're climatechangereconsider.org.
00:27:44.840I actually wrote part of one of them, a small part. So I have a bias, of course,
00:27:49.280but our website is icsc-canada.com, icsc-canada.com. And if you go to americaoutloudnews.news,
00:27:59.460americaoutloud.news you can listen to our podcasts and read the different articles that you were
00:28:04.520mentioning so you know that's it for us and we get no government support or industry sadly
00:28:10.860so yeah anyone who wants to donate we certainly welcome it that's for sure you do it for the love
00:28:16.620of the game tom thanks so much or what would happen if we didn't do it you know exactly that's
00:28:25.320I wake up every morning telling myself that.
00:28:30.280Yeah, I'm very impressed with Rebel News on a lot of fronts, especially the fact that you're the only media in Canada that went to that part of Spain that had the massive immigration.
00:28:40.520I've been watching, you know, those presentations.
00:28:43.680So, yeah, Rebel News, support Rebel News.
00:28:45.920Well, thanks, Tom, and support the International Climate Science Coalition Canada and their work to bring clarity and cut through the overly complicated nonsense of the climate change discussion.
00:28:59.180The climate scare, actually. Tom, thanks so much for coming on the show. We'll have you back on again very soon.
00:30:12.780We visited a protest against Facebook's $13 billion data center that is coming just north
00:30:24.260of me in sturgeon county i'm about 25 minutes from the data center now that data center will
00:30:33.340create approximately 3 000 construction jobs electricians um people who work in construction
00:30:42.400fabrication pipe fitters full disclosure my son is a pipe fitter these are well-paying good
00:30:48.520construction jobs and their jobs won't end there. There will be 300 full-time workers
00:30:55.040at the data center afterwards, as well as spinoff industries. And from there, those construction
00:31:02.080workers will move on to build other data centers because Alberta is trying to become a data hub
00:31:07.880and do it in ways that other jurisdictions have failed. For example, this data center in Sturgeon
00:31:16.300county has to bring its own power a 4.6 billion natural gas electricity plant so it won't raise
00:31:22.480the price of your electricity it has to come with its own it has to be a closed water system so as
00:31:30.340the field sits right now i think at one point it was in canola now this is just incidentally in
00:31:38.320canola this is industrial land that was set aside better part of two decades for the heaviest of
00:31:45.660heavy industry there's a nutrient plant a fertilizer plant up the road this was uh where
00:31:53.120upgrader builds were supposed to be before the bottom fell out of the oil and gas industry i
00:32:00.540think 2008 through 2012 so this isn't really near where anybody lives and it's in a place
00:32:08.400you know just north of fort saskatchewan where there are a lot of trades workers and
00:32:13.560Alberta is uniquely poised to build these things because of our cold climate, because they do need
00:32:20.120a lot of cooling for the data centers. And I, like many of you, share skepticism about AI in general.
00:32:30.160You know, I do worry about AI, especially post COVID. You know, when big tech silenced people
00:32:41.400online I get it I have my concerns with big tech but I believe we are in the modern space race
00:32:50.600and the commies are going to win or the free world is going to win so our options here are0.79
00:32:56.940China wins the data race or America wins the data race and because the data race is happening
00:33:04.760whether we like it or not and so i know who i'm cheering for as much as i have and i share your0.73
00:33:13.180skepticism about big tech if we don't build these centers china still will and these create well
00:33:22.400paying alberta jobs where alberta has learned from the mistakes of other jurisdictions putting them
00:33:28.580near people, not forcing them to bring, uh, power in and, you know, not mitigating water usage.
00:33:37.420So, um, that's where I land on this. Yes. Skeptical of big tech, completely understandable,
00:33:44.620but pro Alberta jobs pro doing this right. And pro beating China here, because if you're worried0.94
00:33:54.240about Western AI controlling your life, imagine if we let China win this. Imagine. So that's where0.58
00:34:02.100I land. And anyway, Ezra and I went to a protest in Morinville, Alberta, which is further away than
00:34:10.080me from the data center, although still within Sturgeon County. I think they're about 35, 40
00:34:15.860minutes away from this site. And what I saw was a lot of people like me scared of AI
00:34:23.000and communists and people who were regurgitating a lot of the same things that I have heard for
00:34:31.500decades about the oil sands just pivoted because I believe firmly that they have lost that
00:34:39.560uh, argument and they're pivoting all those same arguments onto AI. And again, those same
00:34:47.020environmental arguments are wrong in the Alberta context. They might be right in other places,
00:34:52.020but they are definitely wrong here. So, uh, Ezra and I went there and to everyone's credit,
00:34:59.620they spoke to us. You know, when you go as rebel news to a largely left-wing,
00:35:07.440frankly communist protest um usually you just sort of don't get spoken to or worse that wasn't
00:35:16.600the case there uh everybody was pretty willing to speak to us and you know people have legitimate
00:35:21.960concerns about ai and generative ai and ai stealing art or stealing literature again
00:35:29.940I completely agree. But on the technical issues of a data center, these people were out to lunch, frankly, because they're looking at a data center through the eyes of what's happened in other places.
00:35:53.860and in Alberta we looked at you know the concerns of the things that happened in other places as I
00:36:00.280just said and said we're not going to do that there's a way to build these things and do it
00:36:07.000right why wouldn't we want 13 billion dollars worth of investment 250 million dollars of
00:36:14.860revenue to Albertans on one facility every single year, plus the jobs, plus the income tax paid by
00:36:24.500those workers, plus, you know, the property values going up in the area because you need
00:36:32.600an influx of 3,000 workers. Anyway, but I heard a lot of arguments about eat the billionaires
00:36:41.000uh from self-described communists uh i heard a lot of weird concerns about the bees and
00:36:50.020greenhouse gas emissions and you know all the usual environmentalist nonsense
00:36:55.000and how these data centers are going to give us cancer look if you use a phone you're using a
00:37:02.580data center, making payments, taking payments, sending emails, you know, using a copilot or
00:37:15.360chat GPT or clode or whatever, uh, using X, using, using Facebook, using meta, you need a data center.
00:37:23.900And do you want China to have control of that? Or do you want the Americans?
00:37:26.800okay so that's where i land on this issue um we published ezra's
00:37:34.840video from the data center in full it was initially behind the paywall as an ezra levant
00:37:41.720show but we published it in full because i'm i'm quite curious what people are saying
00:37:48.140because i think ai does have a public relations problem and a lot of that is self-inflicted
00:37:55.780it. But on the technical issues, I think we've handled it properly. On the free speech issues,
00:38:01.940there's some work to do. So 200 people showed up to this protest in Morinville. It would be two
00:38:09.820weeks ago this Sunday, very rainy, as you can see in the video. But they were there. Now they were
00:38:19.160many of them were communists and unhinged, as you'll see. But there were some sincere people
00:38:26.220there. And we did our best to treat everybody fairly. So let's get into the comments from the
00:38:32.860people who watched the free version over on YouTube. Madero6370 says, a few hundred years
00:38:39.920ago, the Luddites smashed steam engines. Nowadays, it's data centers. Not much has changed except0.99
00:38:44.680that more people now have lots too much time thanks thanks ai probably and taxpayers money
00:38:51.300on their hands instead of working for a living practice professional protesting
00:38:54.760um dig in deep uh refers to a lady that's in the video who says i was not thinking it0.77
00:39:06.660that girl needs her head checked um mark l 1911 says is the ccp funding these losers well i don't0.66
00:39:17.400know if the ccp is funding them um however the ccp will benefit if we don't win this space race0.73
00:39:23.960imagine if the russians had won the space race think about that it was the free world versus0.85
00:39:29.700the communists on this new frontier. This is that frontier again. The free world has to win this
00:39:37.340because if China gets control of the AI industry, if they win this new space race,
00:39:47.400you think that the internet is bad now, just you wait. Just you wait.
00:39:53.520tlni3i says how many of those are actually canadians better yet albertans or is this
00:40:03.500just antifa anti-government billionaires paying for them well i would say that these people are
00:40:09.440kind of local many of them were local but um strong communist contingent
00:40:19.180i mean and strangely enough ezra if you watch the video there's this little funny moment where
00:40:28.220ezra's talking to the communists the communists are talking to him and he wants to buy a or he
00:40:36.220wants to take a pamphlet from the communists just to see what they're all about and the communists
00:40:40.700say that'll be five bucks so ezra engaged in a capitalist transaction with his new communist
00:40:48.420friends and then they use tap to pay well guess what tap to pay uses a data center on both ends
00:40:56.040of the transaction do you see what i'm getting at here do you see 454 thompson says they need
00:41:05.980to be sat down and spoken to by xi van fleet history lesson by someone that lived under mao0.77
00:41:11.380well that's the thing do we want to give communist china control over what we can see and say and0.85
00:41:17.660access and pay and buy on the internet? Or do we want American big tech to win this for all of its0.94
00:41:28.460flaws? It's the least bad of all of this because if we stop building data centers tomorrow in the
00:41:36.540Western world, you know who will continue to build them? China. And the demand for data centers is0.95
00:41:44.940growing so we can have them here or we can have them there i know what i choose
00:41:49.560sandra desmules e3r says why not have the conversation that's what we're trying to do
00:41:57.020you know that's what we're trying to do stephen shelton 4267 says i'm confident that we will
00:42:05.580look back at regret at protesting data centers the way we regret blocking housing developments
00:42:10.520and nuclear power plants. The simple fact is the matter is that we, the people demand data centers.
00:42:16.240Yeah. Every cloud-based backup service is heading to a data center. Every streaming service,
00:42:21.100every social media site is stored in them. And the data is stored multiple times to keep it safe.
00:42:25.720The data, we save compounds every year. We build upon what we saved before. The simple
00:42:32.400fact of the matter is that we will not stop using these data centers. Our devices will demand,
00:42:36.520produce more data and more data. A photo at a party in 2010 might be one megabyte while a photo
00:42:42.860at a party in 2026 might be six megabytes. Streaming HD was a big deal then it became 4x and
00:42:48.660eventually it will become 8x making those streamed episodes of the latest Dexter series bigger and
00:42:54.440bigger storage wise. Data centers are inevitable as power plants, landfills, sewage, treatment
00:43:00.080plants, power lines and anything else that makes modern life possible and I want it to be cheap0.99
00:43:04.680and local, not handled by India and China. I couldn't have said it better myself.0.98
00:43:13.380I tried, but Stephen did a better job and he's 100% right. I think people really need to think
00:43:21.400long and hard about what is involved in these data centers, what we use that connects to these
00:43:30.580data centers in the same way that I plead with environmentalists to look around them and see
00:43:35.620all the things that petrochemicals bring to them. This is the same. Now we can use
00:43:41.620Nigerian, Algerian, Saudi Arabian, Iranian oil to make all those plastics and gasoline and diesel
00:43:50.720and the wonderful petrochemical products and byproducts around us, or we can do it at home
00:43:57.520where we have human rights it's we need to take the same approach to data centers
00:44:04.400we have ethical oil let's have some ethical data centers
00:44:07.580and the last one busker 3000 oh the irony at least the leftists i know were against oil and
00:44:15.900gas so much the solution was albert this is so funny at least the leftists i know were against
00:44:23.700oil and gas so much the solution was alberta was supposed to become a tech capital i remember that
00:44:29.380i thought that was the leftist agenda now they're against it can't have it both ways
00:44:33.420yeah and it's so funny because one of the arguments made by the people involved in
00:44:42.960protesting the metadata center is you know it we need green energy and we so we point out okay well
00:44:50.060natural gas is a really green energy all things considered and then they make this argument about
00:44:57.140well it could be solar we should be making solar plants okay but you just also out of one side of
00:45:05.760your mouth told me that you're worried about the land use associated with these data centers but
00:45:10.540then you want us to build solar power do you know how much land that uses and solar plants can't just
00:45:17.500go anywhere. Like largely they have to be in places with lots of sun. Places with lots of sun
00:45:25.000are, those are arable farmland areas. This is not that. So, you know, they're concerned about
00:45:31.400energy. So you point out, oh, we use natural gas. Well, why can't you use solar? Well, we say we
00:45:35.800can't use solar because it's unreliable and it takes up lots of land. Well, they're complaining
00:45:39.940to me that the data center is going to take up a lot of land. So there's a lot of, as they say,
00:45:46.200cognitive dissonance happening on that other side um bat juice 69 says another psyop funded1.00
00:45:53.260by china so that they can win the ai race people are stupid i don't even think i think some of0.99
00:45:57.500these people are actually sincere but i think they are buying into some chinese psyop propaganda0.99
00:46:02.460reminiscent of the people collapsing in the streets of covid that we saw leaked out of china
00:46:09.740well everybody that's the show for today thank you so much for tuning in i'll see everybody back
00:46:13.960here in the same time in the same place next week. And as always, don't let the government
00:46:17.520tell you that you've had too much to think.