00:10:30.280And Premier Smith has two big events this afternoon,
00:10:33.280one on defense spending so our legislature reporter Will Vassar will be following her around
00:10:39.500right on yeah that yeah Rob Anderson was dropping hints on that or something too I guess it sounds
00:10:44.620like some sort of well the minister David McGinty is gonna be here so should be should be a good
00:10:50.840one maybe they'll reopen CFB Calgary or they're you know the establishing Alberta army that would
00:10:57.160be interesting i i think phil the brown would volunteer yeah as the commandant oh boy i don't
00:11:03.620know if that'd be a good development or not but you know i i see these things and i see the federal
00:11:08.260attention and i know it infuriated some people when i posted that up on x but holding this
00:11:13.060referendum sure seems to have gotten a whole lot of ottawa love guys uh whether you like it or not
00:11:18.240and that the way to do it but yep let's not pretend they were like this five years ago around
00:11:22.900oh no absolutely not all right well i'll let you back out to cover all those breaking events and
00:11:27.940thanks for the update dave you bet back in yes we'll see you shortly that is our news editor
00:11:33.540dave naylor yes lots going on everything from gophers to military maybe we could arm the gophers
00:11:39.300that would be a big military so uh the reason we can do that guys is that reminder is because you
00:11:44.740guys subscribe and uh keeps us independent so check it out westernstandard.news subscription
00:11:50.100the paywall is down right now it will be for another i think 12 days or so 13 days so you can
00:11:56.180get in you can get past or you could see all of these columns all of these articles without having
00:12:00.660to shell out a pocket and then make your mind up to continue supporting us after that so check out
00:12:05.300the site and subscribe if you haven't already and if you've already subscribed thank you very much
00:12:10.340we do appreciate it so uh yeah as dave mentioned you know it is uh it's a third anniversary of
00:12:17.860october 7th we're seeing a lot of the the postings on what happened over uh over in israel three
00:12:23.860years ago now and uh man you know i i look at some of the discourse and things and uh
00:12:33.700on social media and it's the sort of thing that make me want to put off
00:12:36.500social media all together uh yeah i shared some pictures i took from from when i was over in
00:12:41.140israel a while back uh of the the site where 364 kids were slaughtered and raped for the crime of
00:12:52.020being at a music festival that was a little too close to the ghazan border at the wrong time
00:12:56.900and uh pictures of houses you know that i saw that had been destroyed while the the terrorists
00:13:03.060broke in to uh rape and murder people you know and then of course i get the conspiracy kooks coming0.73
00:13:09.780at me oh the military was told to stand down all the jews were behind it is the grossest victim0.99
00:13:15.620blaming crap you could ever imagine you know i i can understand and i get a lot of people saying0.99
00:13:19.940oh it's their problem it's over there we don't care what fine being different that's fine but0.99
00:13:24.980to come up with that hogwash and just some of the vile crap that people have come up with0.85
00:13:30.420it's just too much all i can suggest you know again when people do that false claim of genocide0.94
00:13:37.780in the case of uh gaza you know look at the numbers look at what genocide is you can certainly
00:13:42.420critique israel and their reaction and how they've done it to a degree but guys0.71
00:13:49.780there's been a tiny percentage of the gazan population wiped out and israel has the
00:13:53.780military capability they could have wiped out every living person in there within a day
00:13:57.620if they wanted to most of those who died and it's awful but most of them were combatants this is
00:14:04.420what's called a war not a genocide and it wasn't israel that started it and if a neighboring
00:14:10.260country had climbed over a wall and done what hamas did to those people on october 7th most of
00:14:17.140the countries in the world would have reacted a hell of a lot worse than israel did so i mean hey0.78
00:14:21.300we got the right to be critical and we can certainly uh you know look at different ways
00:14:27.140of doing things but steer clear of the conspiracy crap israel didn't invite it and they're not
00:14:32.260committing genocide now either way today is a sad remembrance and even though there's a bunch0.98
00:14:37.300of lunatics and idiots at mcgill and so on celebrating october 7th i really think a lot0.99
00:14:41.620of those kids should be sent over maybe to gaza really to get a close look at what they're1.00
00:14:47.060actually celebrating go on to meet them guys especially the queers for palestine have a look1.00
00:14:52.660and see what you're defending and by the way what are we going to do with all the refugees0.99
00:14:56.580from tel aviv which is the only place in the entire middle east that doesn't kill gay people0.92
00:15:00.900if you got your river to the sea wish and israel disappeared all right that's my bit of ranting
00:15:05.780there let's get on to something a little less dark but very very important and i really enjoyed this
00:15:10.980article uh that i read in sea to sea journal and uh it's from greg wilson an engineer and he's
00:15:17.780talking about it as i said it was entitled the ultimate greenwashing the false promise of lead
00:15:22.020certification so uh let's bring uh greg in and and talk about this a little bit hey thanks for uh
00:15:27.140coming on to talk to us today greg yeah nice to be with you again yeah so i mean i i've uh
00:15:33.540and it's funny i gotta admit the name sounded familiar it wasn't until i saw your picture that's
00:15:37.700you've been on before me again yeah cool welcome back i i've just uh you know with my muddled
00:15:44.020memory in busy time so i'm happy to have you back on to talk about this it's a great article
00:15:48.740um just to line it up explain what lead certification is and how it applies to
00:15:54.340to Canada, because that was initially an American sort of standard in development, right?
00:15:58.400Yeah, so it was developed in the late 1990s in the US by the US Green Building Council. And it's the
00:16:04.520Leadership and Energy and Environmental Design Standard. And so it came to Canada in 2003.
00:16:11.060And it really took over the industry completely. I entered the engineering and design industry
00:16:16.260in 2012. And it was like the thing that everyone was talking about still at that point. And it
00:16:21.900really gripped the industry for a few decades. And the resultant of it is a lot of ill-performing
00:16:28.800buildings. And that's basically what the article is about, is about how the industry in general
00:16:33.620and society gets really trapped in these kind of woke ideas that don't really have any resulting
00:16:40.460purpose or longevity to them. And it's really of a moment in time where buildings should be
00:16:48.000built to last for forever. And that's really my passion with the building and engineering industry
00:16:53.800is building things that can be fixed and last forever. Yeah. And we're seeing some of the
00:17:00.420things too. I mean, there's the whole nature of greenwashing. It's virtue signaling. You want to
00:17:04.880look like you're doing the environment some good and the actual outcome doesn't really seem to
00:17:08.720matter with some people. You referenced a study all the way back from 2008 that found nearly half
00:17:13.380of those certified buildings actually used more energy than their certification promised. Like
00:17:18.840it's gone the other direction. How's this happening? It's really funny that 2008 study
00:17:23.260that you mentioned was actually done by the US Green Building Council themselves. So they
00:17:27.640themselves admitted in the in the report is about 22% of the LEED certified buildings perform worse
00:17:34.300than non-LEED certified buildings. And I think it's hilarious that that's the study that they
00:17:39.500themselves released. So what are the real numbers if an independent study were to be done? In 2009,
00:17:45.940a study was sort of redone based on that U.S. Green Building Council study, and they reported
00:17:51.50028 to 35 percent of LEED-certified buildings perform worse than their non-certified peers.
00:17:58.920And I should mention, too, like LEED certification is extremely expensive to get.
00:18:02.900The studies show that it ranges from one to 20% more than a non-LEED built buildings, and they cost more to maintain and more in energy costs as well. So really, there's no win at the end of the day. And yet we spent millions and millions of dollars over decades doing this. To date, over 7,000 buildings, mostly government buildings have been LEED certified in Canada.
00:18:29.900that. So when we're at a time where a lot of the discussion these days, I mean, a big part of the
00:18:36.500political discussion is cost of living. It's accessible housing, it's productivity. And these
00:18:41.960LEED certifications actually pressure all three of those categories in the wrong direction. I mean,
00:18:46.880Canada's having a hard time. This would be something relatively easy to, I guess, take some
00:18:51.760of the pressure off so we could be more productive. 100%. And now LEED, it's interesting,
00:18:56.700it's sort of shifting to be even more than just greenwashing. It's moving more into ESG and DEI
00:19:03.460kind of realms, which I think is really interesting and hilarious, frankly. But there's a lot of
00:19:08.960discourse and conversation about net zero and this ubiquitous term of net zero. And I think that is
00:19:14.340the next really dangerous lead that's coming forward. And I think part of my motivation to
00:19:20.100research and write this article is things I'm seeing in the industry day to day and how much
00:19:25.320damage lead has really done to our buildings and to the industry. And now we're talking about net
00:19:30.800zero and everything. And I think that's a huge risk factor. And I think this goes back to in
00:19:36.360the article, I talk about this very sort of innocuous building in Winthrop, Washington,
00:19:40.280I saw it when I was on vacation there in May. And it's this little building and over its 120 plus
00:19:46.680year life, it's been a saloon, a school, a hospital, and now it's the city hall. And it
00:19:52.700wasn't fancy, it was built out of local wood, but it was built to last. And I think that's the piece
00:19:57.880that we have to really think about in the industry and in society. Like, what are we building and how
00:20:02.760are we building? Rather than trying to make it some sort of net zero green monolith, we need to
00:20:09.480think about longevity. Well, then some of the other problem when you get, I guess, almost omnibus type
00:20:14.460of regulations, and you can just keep packing more stuff in and packing more stuff in, you know,
00:20:19.140some of it starts going well beyond environmental concerns and into social justice concerns that
00:20:25.640really should have absolutely nothing to do with environmental design, yet here we are.
00:20:31.520Yeah, and in Alberta, actually, last year, the infrastructure minister cancelled all
00:20:36.780LEED requirements on Alberta infrastructure projects, and they said overnight it was a
00:20:41.0202% cost savings. And what they really highlighted is what you're saying, is we already have
00:20:46.640regulations and requirements and building codes, both at all levels, federal, provincial and
00:20:52.580municipal codes. And so this is just layering on top of that. And what the ministry's office in
00:20:59.960Alberta said was that we already addressed a lot of the energy concerns and energy consumption and
00:21:07.720warmth and lighting and all these sorts of considerations in the building code and in
00:21:13.360the energy code of the building code specifically. So LEED is really redundant. And an architect I
00:21:18.560interviewed that's based out of Washington said the same thing, that LEED costs about $250,000
00:21:23.940for a municipal building to attach the necessary paperwork and consultants that you need to get
00:21:30.340the LEED certification to get that illustrious plaque on the door of a building for really
00:21:35.840nothing. And so many of the concepts already are included in other regulations and code. So
00:21:43.260it really is completely redundant. And I really worry that this net zero conversation that's
00:21:48.380happening that I see in the industry and in our dear governments at the federal level is really
00:21:54.180concerning for what it means for the cost of construction, which is skyrocketing. It's the
00:21:58.460highest it's ever been. And we, the consumers and the homeowners and dream homeowners are all
00:22:04.860suffering because of that sort of top down pressure.
00:22:08.080Well, and another area that sort of ironically led to some bad
00:22:12.420outcomes, you put as an example, a roof collapse where they'd put a,
00:22:17.860you know, a living roof, a green roof on the place.
00:22:20.940Fortunately, it happened on a weekend, but that really could have
00:23:46.800and we seem to have forgotten it since.
00:23:50.040You know, getting almost again into the realm of the gross,
00:23:53.000but it's not that the massive architecture aspect but it's one of those little things that again
00:23:57.240becomes costly you mentioned you know that these waterless urinals and i've run across this those
00:24:02.120in a few places too and everything again the concept sounds sound i guess but when you get
00:24:07.080into them i just know from using them it tends to stink pretty bad in there those don't mask
00:24:12.040urinal use odors very effectively but you've also found that they actually are worse for0.70
00:24:17.160the environment quite often than than if you just run water through the darn things to begin with0.99
00:24:21.880yeah the the waterless urinals i think are like the key sort of stupidity of the lead gamification0.95
00:24:29.560system because what better way to get points than to use no water at all and so in a lot of cases
00:24:35.160they retrofitted these urinals um in place which is i guess fine and dandy because they still have
00:24:39.880the water hookups um for the urinals but it's really dangerous in buildings that were new
00:24:45.000that they didn't um put any of the plumbing attachments for actual use of urinals um where
00:24:50.520where you need water flow. And so those buildings are in a world of hurt. And it's funny, because
00:24:55.200again, this gamification and kind of greenwashing and making everything kind of work, even though
00:24:59.800it doesn't. In a lot of cases, in these waterless urinals, they have to pour hydrochloric acid
00:25:04.940into the urinals at night often, because they don't want to, you know, pretend that it's not
00:25:09.820working. So under the guise of everything green, they do it at night, and they are pouring hydrochloric
00:25:14.620acid to break up this Truvite that builds up in the traps and in the piping of these waterless
00:25:20.980urinals because there's no flushing action to get rid of the urine. So it is kind of a gross,
00:25:26.340kind of a hilarious example of how silly all of this LEED certification gets.
00:25:32.980Well, getting to the positive kind of, I mean, you noted from Alberta's infrastructure minister
00:25:39.440was talking about reducing some of these things and cutting it back and equated it, say that we
00:25:43.980could potentially even build a couple more schools if we just got rid of these ridiculous
00:25:47.640requirements. So do you think some governments are finally at least realizing this reality and
00:25:51.620backing off on some of this then? I think so. And I think there's, people are seeing the
00:25:56.080practicality. I guess I come from the industry that we as industry professionals need to be
00:26:01.840speaking out about it too. And we need to be focusing on practical solutions. And especially
00:26:07.000with the cost of construction, we need to really be thinking long-term and building things that
00:26:11.540make sense. Like I said, overnight, the Alberta government with their Alberta infrastructure
00:26:16.400projects will save 2% on all that. So the minister said that they were able to build additional
00:26:21.880schools, hopefully in the future, with just that savings alone. The research that I did and the
00:26:26.860research that's out there says that it's much, much more than a 2% cost savings. It's upwards
00:26:31.660of 20% cost savings in some instances. So I think when governments and institutions see that,
00:26:38.540it kind of is a no-brainer, especially with all of this research that's coming out from even the
00:26:43.540lead group itself, the U.S. Green Building Council, that the buildings don't work. They don't function
00:26:48.180the way they should. Yeah, and we don't have to return to, you know, Soviet-style brutalist
00:26:53.580architecture of just having purely functional concrete boxes that'll last forever. But I think
00:26:59.480if the private market and architects and builders were allowed to just go with things, they could
00:27:05.000probably build some aesthetically nice places that would last a long time if they didn't have
00:27:09.040to sweat all these weird lead requirements. And that's the sad part for me is that in often
00:27:14.120cases and the architect I spoke to, you know, and I see it's in my day to day life in the industry
00:27:20.380is we're using products because they're green, not because they are long lasting or productive.
00:27:26.900You know, we used to build buildings that are brick and masonry and steel and concrete that
00:27:30.820are amazing materials that last forever. And now we're using materials and coatings that are
00:27:36.460quote green or sustainable, but they don't have that same level of longevity. And we used to build
00:27:41.920buildings to be comfortable for the occupants. You know, we used to build buildings in different
00:27:46.580shapes so that everyone had a operable window and natural light. And now we build these square
00:27:52.040monoliths that we put super expensive HVAC systems in and claim that they're green and claim that
00:27:57.940they're sustainable. And we really need to go back to looking at how humans used to live and
00:28:03.400building buildings that last forever. The architect that I talked to, he said that public buildings
00:28:08.520should be designed to last at least 100 years. And I completely agree.
00:28:12.580Well, and going all the way back, we were taught this less than a long time ago with the story of0.75
00:28:16.560the three little pigs. I mean, the straw house just didn't last. And the brick one saved everybody's
00:28:21.580butts. I mean, there's nothing greener than having a building last for multiple generations. So you
00:28:26.800have to put all the energy and resources into tearing it down and rebuilding it. Well, I hope,
00:28:33.840as I said, you pointed out a couple of things where it's turning around and some authorities
00:28:37.920are realizing the foolishness of these policies. What else can people do to hopefully encourage
00:28:44.640decision makers to start making these things easier? And before I let you go, where else can
00:28:49.040people find your work and what you're up to? Yeah, I think this comes back to practicality.
00:28:53.600I think I want to write these articles and speak to people like you to just sort of preach the practicality gossip or gospel, sorry, and to inform people that we just need to think of things more practically and look to the past and see how we can maybe live more effective.
00:29:12.480And I think this is really front of mind because the cost of construction is very omnipresent in people's lives with cost of homeownership and renovations and everything like that.
00:29:22.600So I think people just looking at how we used to do things and and sort of pairing that with modern ideas.
00:29:29.820So I think that's that's really my goal here is to educate and to sort of open people's minds to a different perspective.
00:29:36.620I think that then we may be being forced ahead. As far as where people can find me, I'm at Libertas Talks on Substack and X and on YouTube.
00:30:15.800the false promise of LEED certification. It is a really good read. It's a C2C journal. It's spelled,
00:30:21.500you know, letter C, number two, letter C, if you're looking it up. And that's just a really
00:30:25.540good site to get some of these longer, more in-depth types of pieces and things to read,
00:30:31.460you know, not just those short rant style editorials like you get out of me what I'm
00:30:35.760writing on the Western Standard. So please, by all means, check it out and check out Greg on
00:30:40.500his other spots. We need more just rational, intelligent discussion. That's where, you know,
00:30:45.060So I just had to use that analogy at the end to compare it to the Three Little Pigs because, I mean, in a couple thousand words, he put it excellently on the bigger scale and what's more important.
00:30:54.340But that really is kind of what it comes down to.
00:30:56.720Just go to using common sense, build things solid, make them last.