Climate Change - Real or Fake? - Season 1 Episode 1

September 4, 2020

Climate Change - Real or Fake? John Les - Episode 1

‍

Kyle: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the Furies The Curious Show. I'm your host, Calvin Ruttenberg. This is a show that learns about people's worldviews, beliefs, and stories from people around the world. How I grew up and what I was taught shaped me and what I believe. Now, I wanna learn about other people's stories, beliefs, worldviews, and how they got there.

New episodes drop every other Friday.

Today on the show we have John Less. He's a husband, father, and grandfather, a Canadian politician and former member of the Legislative assembly for British Columbia. He served as Minister for Small Business and Economic Development, minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General for the provincial government of bc.

And John, welcome to the show. Great to be here. Thanks for the invite. No worries. Episode number one. So hopefully this goes well episode

John Les: number one. So if we get, uh, the chance to set a trend or something new ho, hopefully, hopefully. Yeah, no, I, I'm looking forward to this. I, uh, have seen a number of these things created by others, of [00:01:00] course.

And, uh, I always find them fairly interesting depending on the topic that's under discussion, but yeah. Um, technology today makes a lot of, uh, different avenues of communication possible. That's right. Yeah. So have you done quite a few podcasts or is this I've done a few, yeah. Done a few. Um, you know, the, uh, the old fashioned media, of course.

Much more of that. Uh, yeah. You know, at the beginning of my political career, which was in 1983, uh, local radio station, uh, let's talk program with Bill Coons. Yeah. That kind of thing. And, uh, then later on, of course, as we moved into, uh, provincial politics, uh, that was more television based, um. Dealing with all kinds of media though, uh, you know, print and, uh, TV and radio Yeah.

And that kind of thing. Yeah. So, um, media certainly is part of the, uh, of the political business around the world. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle: Are, are you happy, uh, that you're not in politics now anymore with like, the social media side of the things? [00:02:00] 'cause that, that's, that's massive nowadays, especially for politicians.

Make sure they get that right and having teams that put the right content. And

John Les: it's, uh, on the one hand it's an amazing tool. Uh, to reach out to a lot of people quickly. Yeah. Uh, on the other hand, it's a cesspool. Um, and it's probably only a small minority of people that make it, that. Yeah. Uh, but uh, that distance that's inherent in, in social media, uh, or at least that presumption of distance, uh, gives some people, I guess the latitude to just be, um.

You know, well, for lack of a better word, rude. Yeah. Totally unbecoming. Uh, and, uh, I've known politicians who have shut off all of their social media feeds simply because they couldn't take it anymore. Wow. Uh, so they don't have accounts anymore, or they, they just don't look at it themselves. Shut, shut it down altogether.

Wow. Yeah. It's, it can be quite brutal. Yeah. Uh, some people just don't care what they say. Yeah. And, um, and [00:03:00] when, when a pile on starts on social media, it's a fearsome thing to behold. Yeah. Uh, I've known somebody else in the professional realm, uh, who uh, who had caught up in one of these, uh, pylons in Twitter, and he shut his Twitter account down.

Crazy.

Kyle: Uh, it was just too crazy. It's amazing how quick a change though. 'cause you have, like Barack Obama for example, 2008, uh, just when Blackberries were around. Mm-hmm. And he wanted to bring that into office. Yep. I think that led him eventually. Yep. And now you have. Donald Trump, who is, I mean, initially people thought he was crazy for everything on Twitter, but now it's just the Norman,

John Les: well, Trump is president because he used Twitter so much.

That's right. Directly to the no question about it. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, he was never going to be able to rely on the media to, to get through to the American people. Yeah. Uh, and this isn't a commentary on whether he's right or wrong. No. This is just, you know. That's the way he was able to communicate with people.

Yeah. Yeah. And obviously it resonated Yeah. To enough of an extent that it got him elected. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, Donald Trump 10 [00:04:00] years previous wouldn't have had nearly the same extent. Can't,

Kyle: can't connect to the people directly like he did.

John Les: That's right. Exactly. So, and you know, the, the upcoming, uh, election in the US this November is going to be, you know, the same thing all over again.

He's gonna be reaching around the media, um. And, uh, so fascinating to watch. Not always edifying. Not always

Kyle: edifying. That's a good point. It's interesting though, 'cause they always say that the, the, the media has to keep politicians accountable, but it's almost happening the other way around as well now.

Yep. Because he has that same access to the people that That's right. Uh, the media always has.

John Les: Yeah. And, you know, and he's, uh, you know, pretty, uh, adept at offering his own opinion and what the media's all about. Yeah. You know, he invented, I think the term fake news. Yeah. Um, and, uh. You know, when you, when you watch some of the rallies that he does, he hasn't done 'em as frequently of late, but, uh, he's not afraid to call them out.

Kyle: No, I was, it was actually interesting. I was at the NRA show last year and I was right in the front [00:05:00] and he was doing his speech. And so you have all the big TVs, uh, TV camera guys in the back recording the whole thing, and he's, he's pointing directly at him and telling him exactly what was up and it was does it every time.

Yeah. It was pretty entertaining actually to see that. Yeah. Yeah. Like I

John Les: say, it's not all particularly edifying. No, that's right. But, uh, you know, they are real phenomenon and, uh, so. You know, I, I I despair sometimes. I mean, you, you said a few minutes ago, it's different now than it was back in 1983. Mm-hmm.

You bet it is. Yeah. And um, you know, I thoroughly enjoyed the time that I was in politics for those 28 years. Yeah. But when I look at what some of my, you know, who were previously my colleagues have to endure today, uh, I'm not so sure that, I'm sorry that I'm away from it now. No, I, that's one thing

Kyle: that, that scares me.

Yeah. Uh, yeah,

John Les: sure. Yeah. No, it, if, if someone today is thinking about getting into politics, uh, [00:06:00] they've gotta be very aware of, you know, those kinds of, uh, potentials, but also the team

Kyle: around them because Yep. They need to have someone else post for them. Yep. And that Absolutely. And that person, if they don't post correctly Yep.

They get roasted that person that they just get fired and, but you can replace 'em.

John Les: But everything, uh, you know, accountability or the buck always stops at the candidate's desk. Exactly. Yeah. Absolutely. No question about it. Yeah. You know, there's no point in trying to, uh, you know, clean up the damage afterwards 'cause it's done.

Kyle: It's done. Yeah. Even if you say sorry a thousand

John Les: times. Oh yeah. They just get you harder. Does matter actually. They're

Kyle: not saying sorry. Seems to work better for people, but

John Les: Yeah. Yeah. Well it's an interesting trend today that, uh, as people are, you know, outed so to speak. Yeah. You know, the blubbering and the, and the saying, sorry that goes on sometimes is itself not very edifying either.

Yeah. It's pathetic. Yeah. It really is. And sometimes, uh, you see people that I would consider have, well, maybe a slip of the tongue at worst, but, you know, in [00:07:00] today's context, for example, people aren't necessarily, uh, exposing themselves as being racist or anything like that. But if they just have stated something in a way that, uh, was maybe okay five years ago, today, not.

Yeah. Well all of a sudden they're being thrown off of boards and they're being excommunicated all around everything. Yeah. It's brutal to watch that. Yeah. That's crazy. Know, I mean, uh, just a recent example was Stockwell Day. Okay. Um, who, uh, basically made the point that he didn't think Canada was a racist society.

That's right. Yeah. I did see that. And well, I personally don't believe that. That's a remarkable statement. Yeah. Um, do we have racism in Canada? Yes, we do. But are we a racist society? No, I don't think so. I think that's, you know, just a few steps too far to say that. So Stockholm, they offers up that opinion.

Firestorm ensues and he's fired, left, right, and center. He's done. He's finished. Yeah. He's roadkill.

Kyle: That's [00:08:00] wild. So,

John Les: uh,

Kyle: I, I wasn't gonna talk about this, but now that we we're talking about it, let's, let's go there. So let's say you're an employer and you, uh, there's two types of people. You can hire, blue people and orange people.

And every time you hire a blue person, someone that's blue skin, they work really well, work hard, and, and you're super happy with them. And every time you hire someone with orange skin, uh, they cheat on you and they don't work hard and, and then they mess, mess things up.

John Les: Mm-hmm.

Kyle: You have a new drop opening, you put out an ad, you have two people apply.

One's blue, one's orange. You're gonna hire the blue guy. Yep. Is that racist?

John Les: No, I think that's, that's an appropriate use of discrimination, uh, to live is to discriminate every day. Yep. You know, I discriminate as to what I have for breakfast in the morning. Yep. And, and I discriminate in terms of who I, who I prefer to work with.

Yeah. But you would say the Mediac would view that as racism? Of course they would. Yes. Yes. I know that's the trend. Yeah. And I think they've gotten way, way, way [00:09:00] beyond, you know, what is Yeah. Uh, normal. Yeah. And, and, and. You know, they've gotten way outside of how people live their ordinary, everyday lives.

Yeah. Um, yeah. 'cause you, like for

Kyle: example, the Dutch, the Dutch community that we're a part of, uh, or that are immigrated from 30, 40 years ago, um, are known for being super cheap, you know, or, or, or some of 'em are in some

John Les: cases careful with the dollar. Yeah, yeah. You know, which is,

Kyle: can have good things and bad things associated with it, but Sure.

So if someone views me right away, 'cause I say I'm Dutch, I mean that just mm-hmm. I'm, I'm stuck with that. But that doesn't mean I don't think they view me less, they just have to go off of that. 'cause that's their past experience,

John Les: you know, every, uh, all peoples have their characteristics. Yeah. And it, I think it's folly to, to try to, uh.

You know, suggest that that isn't, so, um, that doesn't mean that you have to like someone more or less as a result. Mm-hmm. Um, and, [00:10:00] but you know, there's this, um, mob mentality nowadays. Yeah. You know, media defines often what is acceptable or what is not acceptable, or the progressive groups decide what's acceptable or not acceptable.

And then a major group thing kind of seems to take hold. And, uh, if you're not part of, uh, part of that, then you know, you're written off as being a knuckle dragger or something like that. You know, a, um, an area of public discussion debate that them. Quite interested in is the, the matter of climate change, for example.

Kyle: Yeah.

John Les: And, uh, well, you know, I happened to be in a camp that would, that's being referred to often as being skeptical. Yeah. Uh, I once thought that for one to be skeptical was a good thing. Yeah. In lots of areas of life. Yeah. Uh, but in the case of climate, if you're skeptical and if you want to discuss and debate and examine No, no, no, no.

You have to, uh, accept the [00:11:00] established curriculum that they've laid out for you. That's right. And believe accordingly. Otherwise you're a denier. Yeah. Or worse. Or worse. Yeah. Uh, and that's simply pathetic. Yeah. It's, it's awful that we've come to that point. Well, it turn, it turns off the conversation. Well, it turns off the conversation and, and, and it is an important conversation to have.

Yeah. Uh, because some of these areas of public policy, and there's many. Uh, have profound impact on our, you know, mutual welfare going forward. Yeah. Uh, on a, you know, social level, at a moral level, at an economic level. So, uh, and, and yet it's almost taboo to be allowed to have that

Kyle: discussion. Yes. So I wanna, I wanna dive into that 'cause it was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to have you on was talk about climate change.

Sure. Because I'm not very educated on it and I just hear. The left and the right side. And I'm kind of confused. So, but before we go there, what, what, what is, um, I guess your worldview based on like, what [00:12:00] is, what is your foundation, maybe how you grew up and, um, like what is, what is the basis of, uh, what you believe and that shaped kind of where you are today?

John Les: Yeah. Well, um, you know, I'm not even sure that in the early years when I was first in politics, I actually gave that a lot of thought. I, I got involved in municipal politics, right? So let's back up a little bit. Before that, I was born right here in Chillowak. Uh, my parents had arrived here from Holland just the year before.

Uh, they joined what was then a small group of people, uh, went to church on Sundays, the Dutch Reform Church, uh, which is a Calvinist, um, organization. And, uh, so. You know, I went to church with my parents all of those years. I still belong to that same church. Yeah. Uh, which is Calvinist, which is conservative in its worldview.

And, and yeah. And I, so, you know, that I think sort of informs my basic view of the world, uh, whether it's, uh, to do with [00:13:00] social issues or economic issues or ethical issues. Um, and, uh, so, you know, uh, first in the first number of years being involved in municipal politics, uh, you know, for first three years I was a counselor.

Uh, and, uh, you know, I was, I saw myself being there as, you know, helping to build up the community and, um, where there was growth to make it happen in a way that was acceptable to the people already here. Yeah. Making sure there was good economic development that would accompany that so people could find jobs in the community.

Yeah. Um, and, um. But you know, as you, as you go, you know, day to day, month to month, uh, and as you're making decisions, obviously, and this goes for anybody, your decisions are informed, uh, by, uh, who you are, uh, what you've come to believe in over the years, uh, you're not going to, uh, you're not gonna make, uh, [00:14:00] you know, a socialist out of a free enterpriser very easily.

Yeah. Um, and you, you're not going to make a social progressive out of, uh, a social conservative very easily. Um, some people do move around a little bit, but I do find that that's usually for reasons of, you know, getting ahead politically and that kind of thing. Yeah. Um, and so political parties themselves have shifted to over time.

Um, you know, a hundred years ago the liberal party of Canada was, uh, totally different. Uh. Creature than it is today. Yeah. Um, you know, it was small L liberal. Yeah. Uh, today it is tr

Kyle: Trudeau less liberal. Yeah. He, he definitely is. He, he wouldn't have been

John Les: in that party. He's, uh, Trudeau is, you know, autocratic, uh, in many ways, uh, in that, uh, you know, he will determine on how you will think, or at [00:15:00] least how you will vote on social issues.

Yeah. It's the most anti-democratic, uh, thing you could imagine. Uh, I can't imagine how somebody purports to say to someone else, and this is how you must vote on that thing that is, you know, near and dear to you, and you know, you've actually supported all of your life. Doesn't matter. Now for political expediency, this is the PO position you'll take.

That's corrupt. Yeah. That is just wrong. Yeah. And um, so, uh, anyway, so parties change over time and so, you know, we've seen, uh, I think some of these federal parties have, uh, changed considerably, uh, just in the last generation.

Kyle: Yeah, very much so. Uh,

John Les: and you see that, you see that in, uh, you know, over the longer time horizon in the United States.

For example, uh, you know, the Democratic Party were the party of slavery back until the 1860s. Yep. Uh, today they would have [00:16:00] you believe that they're anything, but That's right. Right. Um, so, you know, there's been a lot of changes like that too. Um, and, uh, it's, uh. It's difficult sometimes to, you know, keep your finger on exactly where, where it's moving, who's, who's where.

And I've of often made the the point that, uh, political ideology is not a straight line or a straight line continuum from left to right. You know, I think the thing is actually circular. Yeah. You know, where, uh, the extremes kind of, kind of meet and there's a bit of an overlap there. Yeah. Uh, so,

Kyle: um, so back, go back to yourself, uh, on the, so Judeo Judeo-Christian values.

Mm-hmm. Um, that, that's how you grew up. And did you, um, like as a young person going into politics later on in early late twenties, early thirties? I was 31 when I was first elected. Yeah. So was that on the forefront of your mind, like the, the, the Christianity side, or was that something more just like there was a basis you grew up with and that those are your kinda your building [00:17:00] blocks or?

Well, it defined who

John Les: I was. Um, and, um, you know, back then, I mean, I'd had a few other. Minor community involvements at the time, you know, the, uh, I came from the agricultural community as well, so I sat on a couple of boards so people knew who I was and yeah. And, um, so, you know, back then you didn't explicitly, particularly on municipal issues, you didn't run explicitly on, you know, a Christian platform or anything like that.

But, uh, you know, again, there was no confusion about that. Uh, nobody, uh, nobody confused me for being, uh, you know, a left wing atheist. You try. Yeah. Not, not at all. Yeah. Yeah. Um. And, uh, and inherently the, the issues, uh, that were um, on the table in municipally weren't necessarily those that engaged one's ideology to ideology too much anyway.

Yeah. Right. Particularly not then that's changed a bit too lately, where some of these issues [00:18:00] are filtering down, down to the, to the local level because, uh, the progressive movement has, uh, learned very well that, uh, if they can move their demands around and engage as many of these elected bodies as possible, they're gonna knock down a few totems.

Yeah. And as they keep doing that, there's a momentum that builds from that. It keeps going. Yeah.

Kyle: Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So, uh, climate change. Uh, so the, I'll give you a little rundown how I feel about it when I think about it, and then we can we start talking about it. So I'm, I'm always confused by a few things.

First of all, that it seems to be a partisan issue. So as a Christian myself, um, I think we should take care of the world around us. Recycle, just, just be good, good stewards of the, of the world that, that we live in, um, that God has put, God has put us in. Um, so, um, but it seems to be, from what I read in the media and stuff like that, which of course are skewed that, um, the liberals want, um, everything to be basically, um.[00:19:00]

Safe, everything to be safe, that the, the world's falling apart. That we can't do oil anymore. Everything has to be green, super extreme, other side. And that seems the conservatives are either saying nothing, um, because they're scared of the mob mentality or they're saying no anything can go, um, you know, like as much economic development as possible.

It doesn't matter how much we ruin the environment. That, that kind of thing, which doesn't seem like a very conservative, when I, when I think conservative, I often think Christian, which maybe is not. Always the case conservative more is more on economic things. And it seems like the conservative party anyways, and the Republican party is going more libertarian than it is.

Mm-hmm. Really conservative. But, um, why is that? Why does it seem to be such a partisan issue?

John Les: I. You know, I, I'm not even sure it is that partisan because in my moments of despair, I see far too many, you know, left or right, uh, chasing this, uh, this green utopia. Let me say, first of all, uh, you know, I agree with [00:20:00] you.

We, we have an obligation, all of us. Uh. To, uh, to be good stewards of the environment. Yeah. Uh, environmental irresponsibility. I don't think, uh, there's any need for it, first of all. And secondly, I think it's just not appropriate. Um, if you look at it from a, from a religious point of view, it's pretty clear, uh, that we have that obligation to look after the earth.

Well, yeah. Um. Do accidents and unfortunate things happen. Yes, they do. Uh, which then gives us obviously the, the, uh, the, the mandate to make sure we clean it up. And we have lots of examples of that through history as well where, uh, you know, the London fogs of the mid, uh, 20th century, for example, where people were literally dying in the street.

Well, they figured it out. And today, that's just not a phenomenon anymore. What, what, sorry,

Kyle: I'm not familiar with the London Fox. Well, they burned

John Les: so much coal. Okay. Uh, that, uh, makes, they would actually make today's Beijing look relatively clean. Uh, and their [00:21:00] air quality was horrible. Okay. Uh, so anyway, so I, I take that as a given.

We have an obligation to look after the environment. Well, and where we mess up is fix it, clean it up, and make sure it doesn't happen, uh, again. Yeah. Um, I. And, uh, but the, the, the environmental movement, uh, as we see it today, has moved well beyond that. Okay. You get, uh, you get this, uh, notion, for example, of a precautionary principle, uh, which I've often heard that invoked that we'd better not do this right now, you know, until we know absolutely everything there is to know about it.

And even then, maybe we shouldn't do it just in case something bad might happen. You know, I've often said irreverently, well then I better stay in bed in the morning for fear. Something bad might happen if I venture out outta bed. Yeah, yeah. You know, but that precautionary principle has, I'll tell you, snuffed an awful lot of opportunity that otherwise might have been able to [00:22:00] develop into something quite beneficial.

Yeah. Uh, so there, so there is that, um, the whole, um, notion of course of, of, uh, climate change used to be called global warming at one point. Yeah. Until, you know, that. Uh, sort of phrase didn't quite capture it very conveniently when we saw a plateauing of earth temperatures Yep. In the last 20 years. So then they made it climate change, but it got, its, uh, its genesis, I guess more or less starting in a, in and around 1980, thereabouts.

In the 1970s. Interestingly, there was a lot of concern about global cooling. Um, there was a period of that that was globally, or that

Kyle: was in Canada, globally.

John Les: Okay. Globally, there was, uh. Pictures on the front of Time Magazine, for example, about, uh, you know, lots of icicles and things like that. P polar bears

Kyle: with no water to swim in rather than Yeah, yeah.

No ice to have, no,

John Les: it was, it was, uh, you know, talked about in the seventies we're entering into perhaps a little ice age or, you know, that kind of thing. Then the eighties [00:23:00] came along and that period of cooling stopped and there was actually a little bit of warming that went on until the late nineties.

Um, and, uh, so then there was, uh, uh, one influential individual in particular was a Canadian by name of Morris Strong, uh, who was hired by the UN and uh, was the, the, uh, the main mover and shaker behind the Rio Conference in 1992. And it was at that point. As well, or just a few years before that, that the, uh, international Panel on Climate change was formed.

So now you had a, a real institutionalization of the climate change agenda and with more strong, very, uh, deliberately pushing it and pushing it hard, um, and involving people like Grow Harlem Brentland, uh, from the Scandinavian countries and, and others like that, who had some standing in, in diplomatic and political circles.

And, uh, at the same time as we moved further into the nineties, you had people like Al [00:24:00] Gore who was at that point, the Vice President of the United States, was a, a great champion for the global warming agenda. Yeah. Uh, and, uh, so it gained some traction. And, uh, you know, the IPCC, uh, put out some reports from time to time and they be, did become increasingly alarmist, although they were interestingly always kind of couched in wording that said, well, we're not really sure, but this is what we think is happening.

Yeah. And the probability is whatever. Yes. Yeah. Um,

Kyle: what, what do you think, was there like a political motivation to have this view, even in, in the beginning? Because generally it's like if you have a certain view, you get more votes that that's why Yeah. Politicians go that like, you know, why Al Gore went that route, was it, does he actually deeply care about the world?

Because I always. I'm not sure about someone that carries that much, that has that much power. Like, I don't think, well, if

John Les: I can put it in a, perhaps in a, in a, in a slightly larger context. So around the end of the eighties, the early nineties, it was pretty clear that communism was collapsing around [00:25:00] the world with perhaps a few exceptions like China, but certainly the Soviet Union was, uh, was clapped out.

It was gone. Yeah. Uh, a lot of the, uh, communist experiments in Africa and Central America were falling apart. And so the international left, if I can call it that, uh, found itself without any hobby horses to ride. They discovered pretty quickly that if they could embrace this, uh, concern about, uh, climate change Yeah.

That for them, this could be a pretty neat Trojan horse. Uh, and I still use that analogy very much today. It is so

Kyle: con, consciously a Trojan horse. Yeah,

John Les: absolutely. No question. And when you look at some of the objectives be, you know, some of the measures that would, they would have us adopt to deal with climate change, um, it is very much about, uh, you know, equalization of everything and, and, uh, you know, to a certain degree impoverishing, everyone limiting their economic [00:26:00] opportunities and, and being far more regulatory and prescriptive in natures, in other words, less individual freedom.

Yeah. Um, that's very much a hallmark of, uh, the usual recommendations that, that, uh, are promoted by these people. So, um, you know, the, and in the Canadian political context, uh, it didn't have, um. Um, too much, uh, traction, I don't think in political circles until to let the, the old Trudeau wasn't

Kyle: bringing this up when he was in power?

John Les: No.

Kyle: Okay.

John Les: No, no. It was just not an issue at all. I mean, tr uh, Trudeau Sr. Left office in 1984, um, or 1983. And, um, you know, we had just come out of that period of the, uh, potential global cooling. Yeah. Uh, so no, it didn't, it didn't feature as an issue. Then Mulroney became Prime Minister and he, his signature, signature thing was ozone hole.

Oh, yeah. Uh, and so, uh, [00:27:00] he, uh, was able to grab that and eventually they signed the Montreal protocols around that, and now everybody's taking credit for the ozone hole mill being closed. Um, I, I haven't studied that one deeply enough to know whether there actually was a hole, or if there is, was it unusual?

Yeah, don't know. Uh, all I know is that we're using, uh, different, uh, freons nowadays than, uh, than we did then, uh, because it was. Posited that the release of that Yeah. Free on type of material, which, which isn't

Kyle: necessarily a, a bad thing, right. You would even

John Les: No, no, that's right. And, and, uh, Mulroy in, in his day was also concerned about acid rain in certain parts of North America.

And there was, uh, some kind of a bilateral agreement between the states and Canada on that one as well. So, you know, those may have been good things, but in those, in those years, you did not hear about global warming Okay. Or climate change as being a particular preoccupation. So back

Kyle: then, it also wasn't the conservatives that thought [00:28:00] the ozone discussion is a bunch of hogwash and, and, uh, liberals really wanted to talk about it.

It, it was more just both sides. We agree that yeah,

John Les: there was a lot of agreement there, and of course it was moroney and the conservatives that were actually addressing those issues. Yeah. Um, it's a little bit different now. Uh, I find that, uh, those who are most interested in addressing, uh, climate change.

Or, let me put it this way, the, the more they are on the left of the political spectrum, the more likely they are to be, you know, ardently in favor of action to do with climate. The more to the right they are, the less likely they are to be as concerned. Yeah. That it's, that it's a problem and an issue that needs to be addressed.

And,

Kyle: and, and do you know the root of that? Why, why, why

John Les: that is. I, I don't know that, uh, you know, it's, it's hard to say why that is. I mean, on the, on the right you'll normally see, um, more skepticism around regulation, uh, and, and, uh, limitations of [00:29:00] people's freedoms and things like that. Yeah. Which, you know, on the left, they've obviously always been the opposite.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, uh. You, you know, I, I can recall so clearly that it was, well it was a cabinet meeting I was in, in 2006, where suddenly the premier announced, uh, before you go guys, uh, one more thing I'd like to discuss briefly. And, uh, and that was we were going to go, um, you know, uh, all in on a climate agenda and everybody kind of looked around and said, where'd that come from?

Yeah, I hadn't run on it in 2005. We certainly hadn't done that. Um, and uh, I put my hand up and I said, premier, where'd that come from? I said, you know, this is something I've actually kept an eye on for many years. And now I think we're being encouraged to join the other lemmings that are heading over the cliff.

Yeah. Um, that comment wasn't well received, but any event, [00:30:00] um, did you have a good relationship with the Premier, uh, with Premier Campbell? Yeah. Not too bad. You know, we got along. Okay. Uh, you know, I served with, uh, premier Christie Clark as well for a couple of years. Uh, she was a little bit more user friendly, I'd have to say.

Okay. Um. And, uh, with, uh, with Gordon Campbell, if, uh, if you weren't, uh, on the same wavelength as him on certain issues, then you know, pretty quickly, uh, you found yourself, uh, sort of on the outside looking in. Interesting. That was just the reality. But he, for whatever reason, and it still perplexes me to this day, why all of a sudden he became a, a climate change evangelist.

And I mean, and he dug in deep. He really did. He was way out there where almost no Canadian politician had gone.

Kyle: So when you, to that point, when you say climate evangelist, what do you mean? Like that they're, they're saying that the whole world's warming up and that we're gonna have no civilization in, in, in a couple years.

Or like, what's, what, what is, what is the message actually, that's. Being put [00:31:00] out that is that you disagree with so much?

John Les: Well, uh, it was just that, that, uh, you know, uh, carbon, the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was a problem. It was going to fry the earth and we were going to limit our children and our grandchildren's future as a result, make the planet, you know, practically uninhabitable and yeah.

So, and you would say that's completely hogwash? It's just not. I, I, I would be the first to say that climate has always changed. Okay. Nothing's new there. Uh, we have all kinds of historical evidence of, you know, major shifts in climate. So you believe in climate change? Yeah, exactly. But just not what they, how to descrip this.

There is no question that, for example, a thousand years ago there was what was called the medieval warm period. And the temperatures then were higher than they are today. Uh, what caused that? I don't know. Yeah. But I doubt that it was carbon dioxide. Yeah. Uh, and then, you know, we had a gradual cooling over time, and then you got [00:32:00] into the 16 hundreds, for example, and it was very cold.

If you read some of the, uh, accounts of the early Canadian history, even on the West Coast here, I wouldn't have wanted to live here then. Yeah. It was cold, clammy, and miserable. Yeah. Um, thankfully it's warmed up a little bit again. Yeah. You know, people forget, you know, and if you read the science, uh, a warmer, uh, environment is much more benign for people than a colder environment.

We lose many more people every year to freezing to death than, than it being too hot. Yeah. That's still the case today. Yeah. Uh, so

Kyle: when you, when you say the science. What, like where, where, where is that science? 'cause that, for example, I preparing for this interview, I did some, a little bit of research on, um, climate change, those kind of things.

Mm-hmm. So you Google this, but there's very little that speaks about the, um, I guess the side that doesn't believe in climate change so much that, that it's happening and it's basically all the other side. So, [00:33:00] um, for people listening, like where, where did you, when you say the science, where, where do you, where is that based on?

John Les: Well, the, the, the first thing, uh, to say is this, that, uh, because the public, uh, you know, the broad sweep of the so-called scientific community is very much pushing the climate change agenda. It is indeed difficult to find the dissenting voices and where they are. Um, and, and of course, you know, your average, uh, search engine today, uh, isn't gonna take you to the skeptical point of view.

Uh, that's just not it. I mean, it know. Google and all of the others, they're themselves very invested in this theory being, uh, uh, you know, the way it is. Yep. Uh, so you have to dig a little bit, you gotta read a little bit. Um, you know, over the years I've found, uh, a great many, uh, very good books and research materials.

Uh, I've been in touch with, uh, with a lot [00:34:00] of good scientists, uh, and, uh, you know, had some great discussions with them. Um, you get a guy like Dr. Roy Spencer, he's down in, uh, in Atlanta. Uh, and he basically runs all of the weather satellites, uh, in the United States. Uh, he's written a few books and, uh, you know, satellite observations are extremely accurate.

Yeah. Um, and, uh, they show, you know, very little trend whatsoever. I. You know, since 1979 when those satellites first went into service. Yes. Um, and there's, uh, there, there's, there's many, many other good people out there. Um, and, uh, so, you know, I've been reading these many authors for a great deal of time.

There's also, um, you know, there, there was a Dr. Bill Robinson, I believe his name was, he, he was concerned about, you know, the slant of. Uh, debate around, uh, climate change. So he started [00:35:00] up a petition of, uh, a bunch of scientists who basically said, uh, yes, the climate changes, but we don't believe that, uh, CO2 has any measurable effect on that climate change.

It was signed by over 30,000 American scientists, uh, a third of which have a PhD. Yeah. Um, now I've brought that up numerous times of course. And immediately that gets poo-pooed, and if you Google it, uh, you'll find, uh, somebody like the no fracking consensus type of group. Mm-hmm. Uh, that will, uh, you know.

Crap all over, uh, the Oregon petition as it's called. Uh, but I've talked to some of these guys that, uh, that signed this thing and they're genuine. They're, they're real people. They're good scientists. Yeah. Um, and they've simply said, yeah, the climate changes. And I believe that as well, you know, from time to time and, you know, century to century.

But the whole premise [00:36:00] today. Is it's caused by carbon dioxide a little bit more or a little bit less.

Kyle: Yeah. Yeah. Is there, is there, is there money in believing that climate change is really happening? And the reason I ask that because, um, for example, if you take, uh, sugar in, in, in the states, um, I think Michelle Obama, when she came in, or when her husband came into office, she started this health mm-hmm.

Uh, um, thing. And so she wanted to raise awareness in schools that people to eat more healthy. Um, and so she was looking for sponsors. Mm-hmm. So Coca-Cola became this huge sponsor. Yep. Um, which is interesting 'cause they pump out a lot of sugar there. They sure do. But then they have some say in in what, how this, how this happens.

Right? Yep. So why isn't that the oil companies and all these companies that are really focused on energy that might, some people view as not as clean. Mm-hmm. How come. They weren't pushing the politicians left or right to favor their view More. Why? How come? It still seems to be so incredibly [00:37:00] forceful on the one side.

97% of scientists they say, I know you disagree with that, but Yeah, of course. Yeah.

John Les: Yeah. Like, yeah, well just let me deal for, for a minute. With that 97% figure, that's the most contrived piece of information ever. Uh, it was, I believe it was the IPCC that wanted to do a, uh, a survey of the scientific community.

And as is often the case, uh, if you send out a hundred questionnaires, you might get 20 back. Yeah. And in that particular case, they got back actually a fairly small percentage. Yeah. And of that small percentage, um, some said, I have no opinion. Uh, so those were put, put aside and others said, oh, yes, we're we're on board.

Yeah. And it was so. Of, of a group of many, many thousands of scientists who were, uh, who were initially involved, only a few responded. And of that very small response, 97% said, yes, we believe that there is global warming. Even then they didn't say it's, [00:38:00] you know, caused by, uh, carbon dioxide or anything like that.

They didn't, uh,

Kyle: they, they just admitted it was changing. But they didn't give the cause though.

John Les: Exactly, exactly. So their responses were manipulated. Yeah. And so they, the 97% thing is a very much, uh, contrived figure, but it's been bandied around all over the place. Uh, Barack Obama used it a lot. Yeah. And, uh, so, uh, it actually is a, a piece of nonsense.

Um, so, um, you say, you know why I. Why the momentum behind it? Yeah. Well, there's money to be made. Um, when you look at all of these wind farms, all of these solar farms, um, the political class has found it, you know, pretty sexy to give out some pretty significant grants. Um, and, uh, you know, more and more the, uh, the, um.

University, uh, and the research [00:39:00] community are co-opted as well, um, because they, and another, another major, uh, impact are the various foundations in the United States. The Rockefeller Foundation, the Moer Foundation, the Packard Foundation. Yeah. Uh, they're huge. They have a lot of money to give away. Yeah.

And, and the boards of these foundations have, you know, set them off in a totally different direction from their first conception. Uh, so there's a lot of money available. Yeah. If you're, if you're a scientific climate researcher at a university, if you want your career to go somewhere, you'd better sign on with the current theories to do with climate change.

Otherwise, I guarantee you, you're not gonna go anywhere. You're going nowhere. And, and you'll find some of these professors, they're only starting to speak out after they've retired from their university. Judith Curry would be probably one of the more recent examples. Judith Curry's always been very good, but now that she's freed of her [00:40:00] university connection, a lot more open, she's much more open.

And uh, so those people can be very, uh, informative. So. It's, uh, you know, so, so many people are captured that way. Um, and, uh, and then, and then of course, uh, you know, if there's going to be a major switch, um, a re-engineering of our economies and our society, which is what these people op openly talk about, uh, well, you know, you get, you get in front of that, uh, a little bit.

Yeah. And you know, Al Gore's really good at that. If we're gonna have carbon trading, for example, well, pretty soon, uh, folks have this idea. It's gonna be kind of a stock exchange in carbon credits. Uh, there's been numerous scams already in Europe and even here in BC to do with that. Um, but money is made.

Kyle: Big. Money is made. So money is, money is a driver.

John Les: It is, it is a driver for, I won't say in, in all [00:41:00] cases, but certainly it is the motivator for many of them to, to stay on track. Yeah.

Kyle: So. We all need energy. Why, why not switch to, um, solar energy, uh, hydro, uh, wind farms? You know, we, we both have ancestors in Holland.

Wind farms were long for around, for a super long time there. That's, that's how the energy was created and stuff like that. We said earlier that we wanted to take care of the environment around us. Why not leave coal, uh, leave oil and, and go to those cleaner, uh, um, ways of, of producing energy?

John Les: Yeah, the first thing you have to establish is that no matter the source of energy, uh, they all have some kind of external impact.

Um. If it's nuclear, we're talking about, um, you know, there's the disposal of the waste. Yep. Uh, if it's, uh, wind power we're talking about, um, you know, those big windmills don't just happen. They're not made outta pixie dust. That's a major [00:42:00] industrial enterprise to make those huge blades. Um, and then each one of the bases for those, each of those windmills takes 800 cubic yards of concrete, you know, often in very inaccessible places.

So, you know, the ground disturbance and everything else it needs to happen to put up one of those towers is very significant. Yep. Um, and then there's also the question of reliability, and that's huge. You know, when, uh, you want the light on in a room, you flick the switch and you expect that light to come on.

Yeah. Not, maybe not a flickering light. Yeah, no. You want that light on, and that's just for a light. If you're running an electric motor of some kind, it absolutely has to have stable power. Yeah. Or you'll blow it up. Yeah. Uh, so our entire society, our entire economy is based on steady and reliable and also basically affordable energy as well.

Um. And [00:43:00] the, the track record so far has been that wind power and solar power to the extent that it's out there and it's only a minuscule amount at this point, uh, generally doesn't happen without subsidization by government. Uh, so, you know, it's hard to sometimes to compare apples and apples with the cost of, uh, you know, fossil fuel derived power versus, uh, solar derived power.

Yeah. Um, but, you know, they're, they are both sources of energy, solar and wind that are not reliable enough. Now there are countries like Germany that's really put its, you know, pedal to the metal and try the very best to, uh, put as much of their economy on renewable energy as possible. But interestingly, at the very same time they're doing that, they're building new coal-fired plants.

'cause they have to have that backup in case the wind goes down. They need an almost instant source of. Power to steady the grid. Yeah. Um. [00:44:00] And that's an additional cost. Yeah. That if, if, you know, you weren't building, you know, what you're doing is you're building redundancy that isn't necessary. Uh, in many of the other systems that we've, that we've grown up with, um, natural gas is, uh, is another great fuel that, that can be used to generate electricity.

We burn natural gas today in a way that almost produces no emissions whatsoever. Yeah. Other than a little carbon dioxide. Yeah. I'll grant you that. Um. Nuclear power. I think we're going to see some evolution in, in nuclear power. Uh, the, the huge, uh, plants that we've seen in the past are maybe you think of the past and we're gonna see more modular scale down versions of nuclear plants that are created in a factory somewhere and then transported, uh, to, uh, close to the location where that electricity is needed.

Yep. There's a lot of, uh, a lot of talk about that nowadays. And I, I think that's something that, uh, may well [00:45:00] be very much a part of the future. Uh, other than that, once the, uh, once the uranium has been mined and the plant put together those things, run and run and run and run with no emissions, no pollution at all.

There's been a couple of bad accidents. Fukushima was one, and, um, they're still dealing with that, I think. Yeah, yeah, sure. Absolutely. And you, the moral of that story was don't build one of those right. At the, uh, seaside in a earthquake zone. You know, you're gonna, might have trouble that way. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and, and of course the, the, the Russian plant, uh, plant that blew up in, uh, in the eighties, uh.

They, uh, you know, the shoddy construction is, is what got them. Yeah. But other than that, those are the only two, you know, significant examples. Um, a few minor glitches here and there, but those are the only two significant examples. And I would argue that in both cases, uh, you know, they've more or less overcome them, uh, the challenges that those presented, uh, without a long-term [00:46:00] detrimental effect on the, on the environment, you know.

Increasingly, you know, when you go back to the start of the industrial age, people simply get better and better and better at what they do, find out new things and use materials in different ways. Uh, much less intrusive on the environment. Yeah, that's been the story of our economic and environmental progress over the last several hundred years.

So let's keep that going and let's not, uh, you know, be so focused on these so-called renewables, which economically are probably not very productive and environmentally may well be easily as destructive of as what we're trying to replace. The other thing about, uh, the wind farms is of course the toll that they take on, uh, on avian life, on, uh, eagles and owls and bats and, you know, birds of all kinds.

Yeah. It's a bit of a slaughterhouse out there in a big wind farm. Yeah.

Kyle: So explain that. 'cause I, I see your posts on Facebook about that, and I had no idea until you posted about it because I, I definitely [00:47:00] didn't read it in the, uh, CNN or Fox News even so.

John Les: Oh. No, it's, it's seldom commented on, uh, but in these large wind farms, uh, what they do is they, they have a, a crew that's on steadily, uh, to go out first thing in the morning and clean up any dead birds.

Wow. Um, and uh, you know, when you have these large wind farms in, you know, some places in California and whatnot, you know, where they have, uh, you know, the eagles soaring and all that kind of thing. The golden eagle is one that gets victimized quite a bit. Yeah. Uh, that's really too bad as far as I'm concerned.

Bats seem to have a particular predisposition to just get sucked into these, uh, into these things. So would you say

Kyle: there's no room for wind energy or do you just say like, we just need to control it more?

John Les: I think it's a waste of time.

Kyle: Okay.

John Les: I, I really do. So even,

Kyle: even in Holland where they, they've had it used it for a hundred years and Well,

John Les: they used it in a different way.

They basically, the windmills that they had back in the 15, 16, 17 hundreds and were using at that time, that was to grind their grain [00:48:00] Yeah. Wasn't to produce electricity. Yeah. Uh, so, um, you know, it was, uh, to, to run the mill. Mm-hmm. Um, and that's quite something different. Uh, you know, it was a, a quiet afternoon.

There was no wind blowing. Well, he just didn't grind any flour that day. Yeah. Um, whereas, uh, you know, with these, uh. Modern windmills, uh, you know, they've, they've got a turn or you don't have electricity. And if when you don't have electricity, our society doesn't work very well. Um, so, and the other, the other thing that always has to be kept in mind, and sometimes we do a very poor job of this, you have to look at the life cycle, environmental cost of some of these things.

Um, some of the rare, uh, metals and things like that that go into even electric batteries, uh, and certainly into the, uh, into the guts of a, of a wind farm. You know, these things are rare to, uh, to start with, involve a lot of manufacturing, um, a lot of transportation. Like I, [00:49:00] every one of those windmills, 800 cubic meters of, of concrete, it's a hundred idea how much that is.

Yeah. I don't know. You know? And, and the manufacturer of cement is widely held as being something that's quite polluting. Yeah. Uh, so, you know, I think it's important to bring all of those costs into the equation so that we can have a real apples to apples comparison. Yeah. Then you, you know, you establish a win from you come along 20 years later, probably the thing is at the end of its life.

Yeah. And needs to be either completely retooled, uh, or even taken down. Yeah. In some cases. So, um, whereas, uh, you know, a country like France has been on, uh, nuclear power. 70% of their power comes from nuclear. Been running away since I think the 1950s when most of that was built. No problems still going hard.

Yeah. Uh, just as reliable as it was on day one.

Kyle: What about electric vehicles? How do you feel about that?

John Les: Electric vehicles fine. Uh, I [00:50:00] would argue for no subsidization.

Kyle: Okay.

John Les: Um, you know, and I also would argue for no subsidization of the oil industry either, you know, let each stand on their own economic merits.

Full capitalization, absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, so, uh, you know, when you look at, uh, electric vehicles, they've come a long ways. Uh, you know, Elon Musk is a remarkable fellow. Yeah. Uh, he's got the, the guts and the get up and go that few people have. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, they're producing these Teslas, you see more of them on the road every day.

Yep. Um, I don't think that they might be the answer in all cases. Um, I, I still think that there's, uh, an application of, uh, uh, fuel cell technology, uh, that might be more beneficial in the case of transport, for example. Yep. Um, because these batteries weigh a ton. Yeah. More in the case of a transport truck.

Yeah. Um, so, you know, I'm [00:51:00] wide open to all of these technologies because there are cleaner and better ways of doing things. You know, as a, as a kid growing up here in the Fraser Valley, in the, in the fifties and sixties, I remember some of the horrible air pollution we used to have. Uh, and that was comprised of a number of things.

It was, you know. Dirty exhaust, uh, coming out of everybody's car. Yeah. You know, when I, when I drive behind a, a, a a vintage car today, I can smell it. Yeah. You know, they, they smell different or well, they, they smell. So you'd say that

Kyle: innovation is good then you like for how exactly China has it where you can't see your 20th story of a high rise and you can't see the That's right.

John Les: But, uh, China has two problems. First of all, it's all the emissions. And, I mean, I've been in Beijing and you see these power plants and they have a. Very tall chimney. Yeah. Maybe a, you know, 250 feet up there and the, the soot just barely falls out of the top and then falls back down again, you know, so that everybody can breathe it.

So they have an old infrastructure like that. They don't have, by [00:52:00] any stretch of the imagination, the, the best technology for running these old electrical generating plants. So that's one problem. The other problem they have is a lot of particulate matter and, you know, you hear those dust storms once in a while mm-hmm.

Uh, in China that are really problematic. And of course that's a natural phenomenon they're not gonna do anything about. But when you combine, you know, the particulate that comes from, you know, IM property burning, coal and oil and those other things, and you, you marry that up with, uh, with particulate matter in the case of that fine sand, then you've really got a pea soup.

We used to have that in the Fraser Valley here when there, uh, back in the day. There were a lot of those, um. Beehive burners related to, uh, sawmills along the north shore of the Fraser River all the way up to Vancouver. Yeah. There was a bunch of them. And they were, you know, the, uh, the catalyst for a lot of the air pollution that we had here at the time.

And as those things disappeared and as we got rid of the lead and gasoline and as we got rid of the [00:53:00] pollutants in car exhausts, uh, uh, generally one of the things that we noticed right away is that we had far fewer foggy days. We used to have some real pea soup fog, uh, that was, you know, directly related to all that pollution.

Kyle: So that's, isn't, that, is that not driven though, by government regulation saying, Hey, if you have this plant, it needs to be so clean, like so a few particles coming out, and if you are car manufacturer, you need to have emissions, need to be so low, which, which is government driven. Yep. So. Uh, uh, would you be in favor?

Are you in favor of those kind of things? Then

John Les: there is, there is a place for government to regulate.

Kyle: Okay.

John Les: But that it is to set standards and then to back off and then allow the private sector to achieve those standards, each in their own best competitive way, you know, made the best idea when I always say, yeah.

Uh, so it's not for government to ordain, it must be a Tesla, or it must be, you know, a fuel cell. Yeah. Uh, [00:54:00] 'cause at the end of the day, they might both have an application. Yeah. Um, and, uh. Today, uh, we see too much of that tendency for government to manipulate the results. They shouldn't do that. They should come, they should address themselves to what is an acceptable standard that we should achieve.

Yeah. That isn't extremists like California has been a little bit guilty of that. Trying to get to a point where, you know, it's almost impossible to build an internal combustion engine of any kind with the standards that they have set. Uh, and Germany might be on the cusp of driving the automobile industry out of its country, uh, which would be interesting.

That's what they're a big part of their absolutely. History. Absolutely. But I, but I think, uh, car makers in Germany are being faced with, uh, you know, performance demands, uh, that would have them move out and try to Yeah.

Kyle: Or, or, or, or cheat like they did with Volkswagen.

John Les: Well, yeah. That was a direct result of that.

Kyle: Yeah.

John Les: You know, and, and you know, just to change gears here a little bit, you know, the Boeing Max [00:55:00] eight. The genesis of that issue was, you know, to become more fuel efficient, to reach the targets that had been established by, you know, international agencies. Yeah. And so they designed a plane that wouldn't fly very well, and two of them fell out of the sky.

Yeah. Um, so, so,

Kyle: so, so I guess the regulation that you are for, I guess there's differences on how tight, I mean, you don't believe in the California standard, but you also don't believe in the Beijing standard. Exactly. So there's an in-between there. So I guess that's just a discussion that we need to have on where that standard is.

That's right.

John Les: Absolutely. And then, you know, I'm a pretty optimistic guy. I, I know that the brain power is out there to do a lot of very, very good things, you know, when it becomes a competitive value, you know, to be the best in the industry. Um, well, I tell you that, you know, the financial incentives are.

Very significant. Yeah. Um, so, uh, it's, you know, government's approach though is extremely important. And [00:56:00] if it wants to start manipulating and, and too often what governments do is they'll set a standard one day and they'll back off another day and set another standard another day, which is extremely bewildering for those who are trying to respond, uh, to those standards.

Uh, societies generally, and certainly business in particular, needs certainty. Uh, when that certainty is provided, you know, you can even be pushing the envelope a little bit, but so long as you know it's concrete and it's clear,

Kyle: you know what to expect, people will get there. Yeah. And you see then the oil industry too, with everyone leaving outta Canada when Turo got in.

Not because anything changed right away, but because of the uncertainty.

John Les: Well, that's right. Exactly. I mean, uh, are you seriously going to, uh, advance an application for a pipeline in Canada today? Not a chance. Yeah. Not a chance. But the Americans will build them and they'll, you know, exploit their oil industry.

They got lots and lots of oil. Yeah. And Canada will be left behind. Um, and what [00:57:00] the other thing, of course, that we will leave behind is all of the, the economic benefit

Kyle: for that.

John Les: Yeah. That flows, uh, from the thing. There's no, you know, I mean the world uses a hundred million barrels of oil per day. You can wish this, that, and the next thing tomorrow we're gonna use a hundred million barrels of oil.

Okay. That's just the reality. And 10 years from now, we will still be using at least a hundred million barrels of oil. You know, so I. Uh, let's get used to it already, but let's do it in a way that is most environmentally responsible. Yeah, it's possible to do that. Um, you know, uh, when, when governments try to manipulate too much, what happens?

No pipeline. Okay, let's put it on a train. And then the trail drains. That's, that's no better. Yeah. That derails and makes a big mess. So, you know, uh, people who are familiar with how you move things around, see no problem with putting oil in a pipeline.

Kyle: One of the safest ways.

John Les: It's one of the [00:58:00] safest ways to do that.

Yeah. It really is.

Kyle: Um, you, you have these, uh, this young person, uh, that's traveling the world now. Greta th Thornberg. Thunberg. Yeah. Th thunberg is, yep. So she's advocating for things like, uh, um, don't run your AC at home. Uh, those kind of things about losing less energy to, um, things saving the world that way.

Thoughts on that? Like, is is, that's fine. You know,

John Les: if, if Greta, you know, wants to turn her air conditioning off most days of the year, I have no problem with that. It's her own personal choice. But let me make my personal choices as well. Uh, and by the way, demand that I pay the appropriate price for that.

Yeah. Um, for sure. But, uh, you know, Greta Thunberg, uh, unfortunately I think she's been badly mani manipulated, uh, by a few people. If there isn't some George Soros money in there, I'd be awfully surprised. Yeah. Um, and, uh, so she's a, you know, fetching young girl and the next thing you know, she's [00:59:00] at the United Nations, uh, scolding people.

How dare you. I mean, those are galvanizing moments for sure, but based on what exactly. Um, it's just based on a fad. Yeah. And, um, you know, I, uh, I wish her no Ill, um, but I wish, uh, that, you know, people like her would, you know, stop trying to drive the world in a, in a direction that's destructive for everybody.

But

Kyle: it's also, I guess, not her so much, but it's the media capturing onto that and Oh, sure. And pushing the media, pushing it out there,

John Les: the media love, those kinds of things. And the other, almost the puppet. And the other thing that's interesting is how quickly somebody like that gets dropped. You know, I mean, the next best thing comes along that, uh, captivates people.

And this case it was probably the Coronavirus and Greta who, uh, the world's, the world's a cruel place that way. Yeah. You know, you're in the limelight one day and you're yesterday's kid the next. Yeah. That's also a reality. Yeah. Uh, and of [01:00:00] course, you know, she was engaged when she was very young. And one thing I've seen with quite a few of these young superstars over time is that they're, they're an item in their, you know, very youth, but afterwards are never heard from, again.

Some, in some cases they've had their lives, you know, quite destroyed. Yeah. By, you know, the fame and fortune and all that kind of thing, which is, you know, pretty sad as well. Uh, but it can be a very fleeting thing. Uh, but you know, from society's perspective, uh, you know, she was pushing hard at this, uh, at this, uh, agenda of global warming and globalization too, by the way, is part of that because what is often seen as being the appropriate reg regulatory response to climate change.

Is global regulation by global regulatory bodies. Um, very, so it's in their best

Kyle: interest to

John Les: very much a feature of what goes on. Yeah, of course Europe tends to lead the way a little bit on that because they've seen their own, [01:01:00] um, I would say, uh, small scale version of globalization, which is the European Union where the member countries have essentially given up, uh, their any claim to sovereignty, um, in favor of the larger construct called the European Union.

And of course, there's an awful lot of regulation of the lives of Europeans today that is courtesy of the European Union, not. Particularly of the country of which they are resident.

Kyle: Yeah. It's interesting. I, I heard a interview by NI Nigel Farage. Yes. And, uh, when he got into European Union in that parliament there, he had a bunch of colleagues that were very against making it one big body.

Right. But then when they started getting these fancy lunches every single day and these nice cocktail, uh, dinners and parties and stuff like that, then all of a sudden they slowly started changing because the power and the fame came along with it. Yeah. Which I guess is pretty

John Les: And money. Yeah. Um, and, and again, you [01:02:00] know, there's a fellow in the European Parliament.

He's a Belgian by the name of IV Verhofstadt, uh, center left. Yeah. Uh, but a huge champion of this concept of a European Union being seen as, you know, the equivalent of the United States of America. It's, it's interesting to me that they would tend to want to emulate the United States of America by creating the United States of Europe.

They would, they would, uh, uh. Resist any, uh, allegation like that. Yeah. But yet that's what they're trying to do. Yeah. You know, 27, I guess now 27 countries, uh, minus, uh, great Britain. Um, and, uh, so I, I think Europeans are in the process of losing a lot of their rights, uh, to, um, to a body that is largely appointed and not elected.

I know they have a European parliament, but the, uh, percentages of the various populations [01:03:00] that get involved in those elections is very small. Uh, and the real power brokers in the European Union are, uh, people who are appointed. Yeah. And, uh, so, uh, it's, yeah. We're, we're, uh, far afield here, but, uh, the, uh, the folks living in Europe, I think are, uh, facing a future that they maybe hadn't expected, expected or bargained for.

Yeah.

Kyle: So interesting. I wanna sort of shift gears here a little bit and, and, uh, spend a little bit of time talking about the, what's going on in the states. Mm-hmm. Uh, especially the, the, the Trump world. Um. I remember talking to you back in 2016 before he was elected, before you thought he was gonna get elected.

Um, and now viewing as we get reached November, the new elections and stuff like that, how, how have you viewed his presidency? How do you view him as a, as a leader? Um, are you all in, uh, is it just a few good things you think he's doing? Mm-hmm. What were your thoughts on

John Les: Yeah. Well, in, uh, [01:04:00] in 2016, what I actually said was, and I, and I posted on social media, uh, if I was an American, I wouldn't vote for either.

Uh, I would. Take advantage of the provision they have where you can write in a candidate. Yeah. And I would probably would've written in Mike Pence. Yeah. Um, so, but I also predicted that Trump would win. Uh, and I remember having lunch the day before the American election with a lawyer in Vancouver, and obviously we got discussing the election the next day and I said, you know, I think Trump's gonna win this thing.

And he says, you're off your, off your meds or something, you know? I says, well, look at this. I said, you know, when you watch this whole campaign that it played out between him and Hillary. Um, what I started to sense was that a lot of people who were going to vote for Trump weren't saying so. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, when a pollster called, uh, they would say undecided or they would say, I'm voting for Hillary.

And they went in the phone, in the voting booth and they voted for Trump. [01:05:00] And, uh. In retrospect, that's exactly what happened. Yeah. Um, so, uh, so Trump got elected. Uh, I, I think, uh, Trump, uh, and I've used this phrase before, he's a, he's an i inelegant exemplar, uh, in terms of being president of the, of the United States.

Uh, he's somewhat rude, sometimes crude, um, but does enough good things that on balance, uh, he's having some success. Um, I, uh, you know, I give him great marks for guts and for following through on certain key commitments out of the Paris Climate Accords. Done? Yep. Uh, draining the swamp. He's working on it.

Yep. Uh. He presented a list of 25 potential judges. That's what he, uh, appointed from. Um, [01:06:00] and, uh, so it's been a chaotic presidency. Not all his fault though, uh, because the other reality is that the Democrats. Never quit campaigning against him the night of the election. They just kept going and uh, you know, uh, the deep state got involved.

Yeah. Through, through the FBI and other agencies. That's now really clear. Yeah. Um, and you know, Americans in particular, and even residents who other countries need to pay attention to this, when state agencies start to become weaponized for political reasons, you're on a very bad track. Yeah. Um. And, and that happened and it resulted in, um, you know, a lot of intimidation of, uh, Trump government officials.

Uh, it resulted in the, uh, the Mueller investigation. Yeah. Uh, it, it resulted in, you know, so many really negative things. I mean, in spite of all of [01:07:00] that, you gotta give Trump some credit for, you know, keeping his eye more or less on the ball and getting a whole bunch of things done.

Kyle: So what about like, people like David Mathis, John Bolton, you know, high profile, uh, well-respected Republicans.

Yeah. Um, that, that have now said, Hey, he's not a legitimate leader. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's five by night.

John Les: Yeah.

Kyle: That kind of stuff.

John Les: Money is a great motivator, ain't it? Uh, Bolton, guess what? He's got a book to sell. Yeah. Uh, and Bolton, you know, had been in government service before. Yeah. And, and was seen then as a very, very diff difficult and prickly individual to work with.

Trump has just found out the very same thing. Mattis, uh, I don't know enough about, you know, his. Uh, service in the military. Yeah. Previous to that, Colin Powell is often held up as an example of somebody who has now twice said he won't vote for Trump. Yeah. But in my recollection, Colin Powell never voted for the Republicans.

He didn't vote for Mitt Romney. He didn't vote for George W. [01:08:00] Bush. Uh, he didn't vote for, uh, who else ran for the, uh, for the Republicans. I mean, he, and he announced in 2008, for example, he was voting for Obama. For Obama. Yeah. Uh, he didn't vote for John McCain. And Yeah. You know, that, that, that's not that surprising.

It's not that surprising. It's deja vu all over again. Yeah. So, and that's fine. You know, Colin Powell can vote for whoever he wishes to vote for, but don't try to sell it to me as if it's some kind of a major, you know, signal on the road. Yeah. It's not, yeah. He's just being consistently voting Democrat.

Yeah. Um, so, you know, there, there, there is no question that, um. And the Trump presidency has been chaotic. Yeah. Uh, but, you know, come with me. I'll show you some other presidencies that were chaotic. Fair enough. John Kennedy, you know, in the early sixties, he was held up as being, you know, the new wave. The, everybody was gaga about John Kennedy.

Before too long, the Bay of Pigs comes along, you know, a major fe [01:09:00] uh, foreign policy fiasco. Yeah. I remember as a little boy, I, I would've been about maybe nine, 10 years old at the time. We were all living in fear that we were on the brink of a nuclear war. Yeah. Um, now it got. Diffused. Uh, and, uh, so, you know, that never transpired, but, uh,

Kyle: interesting how, what happens when you get shot and, uh, and a few years pass by how a presidency gets viewed because something like that is almost completely forgotten.

Yeah. When, when, when we think of Kennedy now.

John Les: Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't think it can be said that Kennedy in any way, a lawyer. He was only president for three years, that it was in any way a successful term. Yeah. Um, so I, nevermind, you know, all the, the lack of morality that existed back then as well. It's also a little known.

Yeah. Um, and, uh, so Lyndon Johnson, you know, he was the major, uh, well, he ramped up the Vietnam War. Uh. More, [01:10:00] more so than anybody else. Yeah. Uh, that can hardly be, you know, written up as a success. Uh, the, um, the new deal, uh, that, uh, that he promoted, uh, you know, which really expanded welfare programs, uh, more than anything else, have had a very pernicious effect on, uh, on American life.

Um, and, uh, you know, it rewarded people from stay for staying home, not having to work and that kind of thing. And abdication of personal responsibility, all of the, those things, uh, flowed out of Lyndon Johnson, uh, legislative program. Um, and there were others. Uh, you know, that crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, yes.

Trump is, uh, is, is unique. Uh, he's chaotic. Uh,

Kyle: where are the people that voted for him in a country like Canada? [01:11:00] They're around.

John Les: They're around, but they haven't, they haven't had that rallying, uh, opportunity Yeah. Uh, that Trump presented. Do you think it's also a cultural thing like

Kyle: that?

John Les: A little bit. A little bit.

Uh, a Canadian isn't an American and vice versa. They have totally different histories. Yeah. Um, as, as countries and, um, you know, I, as a Canadian, you know, I, I say this to our shame, I think, but when the Americans, uh, uh, sing the Sar Spand banner, they do that with more gusto than we sing. Oh, Canada. Yep. It's just a fact, right?

So that nationalist spirit in the States is stronger than it is in Canada. And we now have a prime minister in Canada who believes very much in this concept of post nationalism. We're all citizens of the world now. You know, we happen to live in this thing that's called Canada, but that's less important.

That's, uh, very interesting thing to know about Justin Trudeau. Uh, so, um, [01:12:00] yeah, I, I, uh, I, I think, uh, you know what Trump, you know, he was able to tap into something. Yeah. You know, a hundred percent. He, he, he came, he came from nowhere, had never been elected to anything whatsoever. And, you know, he's a billionaire and people would say, how does somebody like that connect with Middle America?

And yet he did. Um, yeah, because they accused Matt Romney of not winning because, because he, for that very reason. Yeah, that's right. Uh, but, you know, Trump was, you know, I remember, uh, you know, I try to toot into the American campaign four years ago from time to time. And I, I, uh, I was watching, uh, Trump at a campaign stop.

I think it was in Detroit. It was certainly in Michigan. Uh, a largely black audience. Yeah. And, you know, in his unabashed way, you know, Trump said, well, I understand you folks all vote Democrat very reliably. How's that going for you so far? Yeah. [01:13:00] You know, and I thought, wow, you know, and you're going to see in this coming election that a larger percentage of black people in America will be voting for Donald Trump.

So you think he's gonna win again? Uh, that, that, that alone almost would guarantee it. Yep. Um, you know, that,

Kyle: that's the big thing for Biden know, that's what they say. That's what kind of saved him in the primary was the black vote.

John Les: What? Yeah. The black vote in one state, uh, that, uh, you know, got re-energized his campaign.

Mm-hmm. And, uh, you know, the Democratic Party really wasn't that interested in their non-member Bernie Sanders anyway. That's right. Um, so, uh, you know, when he, when Biden seemed to get some oxygen in South Carolina, they said, okay, now we're all on board, all in, and, uh, and away they went. Uh, but. Biden again.

He, he exhibited some of that same arrogance that Hillary Clinton did. Another turning point in, in the 2016 election was the day that Hillary Clinton referred [01:14:00] to Trump's supporters as deplorables. That's right. You have no idea how huge that was. It was an unforced error. You know, it came out of nowhere, but it betrayed a mindset.

I know. It sure got me right in the gut. Yeah. Um, and uh, so what does Biden say just recently? Uh, if you're voting for Trump, you ain't black. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, that's of the same genre. Yeah, it is really, it is, uh, it's a, uh, it's a, uh, a denigrating sort of view of those people that. You know, you'd like to have their vote, but really you don't think much of them.

There was some of the other partisan people that were working for Hillary Clinton who used to, and that were also involved in some of the shenanigans at the FBI, Peter Struck and Lisa Page. They had a little nice little chat going on between them about they were in Walmart and they could smell the Donald Trump supporters, you know?

Yeah. That's pretty rough. Pretty rough [01:15:00] stuff. Pretty rough stuff. But that is the, the sort of the thing that animated those people. Yeah. Uh, completely despised Trump and anybody who would support him. And yet the people that were supporting him, um, you know, found in him something that was relevant to them.

He spoke to their issues and he, and he

Kyle: didn't lie either. 'cause you see this in marketing nowadays too, it seems like the more the, the common trend is now in marketing is to be as real as possible. Yep. And to. Back off on the polishing. Yep. Because people just know it's fake. 'cause they're so used to that now.

Mm-hmm. But also in politics, when Donald Trump says something like, people say how he is in public and private, it's the same guy, same thing. If anything, he's nicer in private when, but mo most politicians that's, it's the opposite.

John Les: That's right. That's exactly right. He's, uh, you know, as much as a lot of people would be startled, uh, he's the pretty genuine article when you see him out in public.

Um, and I've heard too that in private, he actually is genuinely actually a pretty nice guy. Yeah. [01:16:00] Um, and, but you know, I've been in circles where even to say that, that in private, Donald Trump is a nice guy. Well, you just about to have worn out. You're welcome right there. Uh, you know, we've, we gotta, we all together, we gotta grow up.

That's right. Yeah. You know, we, you gotta

Kyle: be able to have an opinion and, and not be looked at

John Les: as a Exactly. Right. You know, I mean, I. I, I served in a, uh, you know, right of center government here in British Columbia. Uh, do you think it's fun for me to watch a left wing group now running the province? No, it's difficult.

It's really hard some days. Yep. But, you know, you keep it civil, uh, you know, I can have a good conversation with Adrian Dix or John Horgan and Yep. Whatnot, you know. That's the only way

Kyle: with someone's, that's the only

John Les: way

Kyle: you're gonna get accomplish anything and change their mind.

John Les: Well, you know, they and I, you know, we all know that we don't agree on certain things.

Yeah. But we can keep it civil. The civility never really goes away. Uh, we're in the US that has been completely thrown aside. And, and [01:17:00] I, I really think, but don't

Kyle: you think it's a little bit, Donald Trump's fault is a little bit as well, when, when he at, at these rallies, when he is yelling, lock her up and, and those kind of things.

As, as much as it rallies his own base.

John Les: Well, he's fed into it. There's no, there's no question about it. And he probably thought at the time that it was to his advantage to do so. So, you know, when you're running as a first time candidate and you know, you're not really that experienced at these things, you're gonna do what you think's gonna work.

Yeah. Uh, it was crude, offensive. Yeah, sure. Uh, not pretty to watch, but it worked.

Kyle: Yeah.

John Les: Entertaining to watch though. Hey. Entertaining to watch. Yeah. To a degree. To a degree. Uh, it, uh, it, it is. Um, so. This, this campaign coming up the next four months is, uh, gonna be even less pretty to watch. I'm afraid. I'm, I'm excited

Kyle: about the debates, especially with Biden.

Maybe having dementia, maybe not like, well,

John Les: I think in the case of Biden, the fact that he's being allowed to run by his family and others is cruel. Uh. [01:18:00] You know, I don't know whether it's dementia or what it is, but he clearly is not as sharp as he once was. That's right. Uh, he's often confused and, and, and what have you.

He's, you know, uh, about 78. I mean, yeah. It's, uh, you know, that said though, Trump is now 74, so he's not a whole lot younger, but he's, uh, his faculties are still much more together than those of, uh, Joe Biden. So it, you know, in, in many ways it's really too bad that, you know, here we're kind of anticipating, uh, a debate between those two guys and a difference maker may well be the advancing dementia of Joe Biden in this case.

Um, do you know what happens? Like, that's no credit to democracy.

Kyle: No. Do you know what happens if, uh, if for example, he drops out now, who, who takes his spot, you know, how that system works?

John Les: Well, dropping out now is not gonna happen. Um, because it would just be his VP automatically that takes his spot or, um.

He's, he's, he's not gonna be allowed to drop out frankly, between now and November the third. [01:19:00] Not going to happen because the question is, who do you replace him with then? Well, you know, who's gonna come charging up right now? Bernie. Bernie Sanders. Yeah. He's gonna demand that in the absence of Biden. It's his, yeah.

And he has, I think, some credible reason for suggesting that. Yeah. Um, the establishment in the Democratic Party would never put up with that. Yeah. They don't want Bernie Sanders because he's, you know, he's almost a communist really, in the things that he believes in. Yeah. Um. And, uh, so, uh, they're gonna, they're gonna keep Biden there until after the election.

What's going to be extremely critical for Joe Biden is who his VP running mate is going to be. Uh, because there's an extremely good chance that were he to be elected on November the third, uh, before that four year term was out, that VP would then be the president.

Kyle: Yeah. Especially again, it is scary, especially if someone like Kamala Harris or Yeah.

Or, or in my opinion, that doesn't seem like a, a good person to be [01:20:00] President

John Les: Kamala Harris. No, no. There's, there's, you know, the, the, and Elizabeth Warren, you know, those kinds of people. Yeah. Uh, I mean, I'm, I'm sure that Donald Trump would love to see Elizabeth Warren being his running mate. Yeah. Um, but, uh, uh, it's, there's gonna be a lot of attention paid to that appointment because, um, everybody, whether they're prepared to admit it or not, most people are prepared to admit that Joe Biden is.

Beyond his best before date. Yeah. And so that VP appointment is gonna be so critical Yeah. Uh, for him. Yeah.

Kyle: One, one last question for you. Um, so we, we talked about climate change quite a bit. Uh, resources for people to go read up on it, um, depends, I dunno the audience, what side they're on, if they believe it's a hoax or, uh, as some people say, or, or if they're very on board with it.

Mm-hmm. Um, it's, it's good to read both sides. Yep, you bet. And stuff like that. So That's right. For, for the, the side that you believe in more, uh, like [01:21:00] some articles or, uh, writers or books you recommend

John Les: people read. Um, there's, there's a, um, a, uh, a think tank in the United States called the Cornwall Alliance.

Okay. Uh, uh, Calvin Boisner. Uh. Is the head of that. And they've done some really good work. The, uh, the Heartland Institute in the United States, uh, they've done some really good work as well. And it's through those kinds of organizations that I, you know, kind of happen upon, you know, good reading material.

Uh, and, you know, one thing leads to another. The Cato Institute sometimes has some good material on that as well. The Manhattan Institute. Okay. Uh, some good recommendations for, uh, for books, but, um, there's, uh, there's a lot of good reading material all over the place. Uh, he, uh,

Kyle: and so, so, and, and those organizations, you wouldn't say are, uh, like the hardcore Right wingers that would, are just saying it's completely fake.

There's no such thing, we shouldn't change anything. Or is it just more [01:22:00] like actual scientists that are. It part of these organizations that are giving this information out or

John Les: there, there's, uh, a great variety amongst those who don't believe that the current track that we're on dealing with climate change is correct.

Uh, but there's great variety amongst them. Okay. So like Democrat, republican,

Kyle: liberal conserv. There's that,

John Les: there's that too. Uh, but, uh, also, uh, in terms of the extent to which they feel there is a problem, many of them fall into the category of, yes, there's been some warming, carbon dioxide might have had a little to do with it, but it is far and away not the biggest problem that we face today.

Um, and that if we do want to do something about it, the policy, uh, selections that we make are very important. I, I think of somebody like Bjorn Loberg, uh, Danish fellow, uh, statistician by trade, who is very, uh, environmentally minded. Uh, but because [01:23:00] he's, uh, very interested in his professional life in data and statistics, he has figured out that, you know, this, uh, sort of mindless process of, you know, let's get rid of CO2 is actually not at all.

Beneficial in terms of improving the economic and the environmental condition of the world. And its people. Uh, so, uh, and there's other guys like Paul Dreesen and, uh, there's so many others. Um, and, and, and so, you know, there's others that are very libertarian. Uh, there are those as well. Yeah. And, uh, so everybody has something to contribute, but when you go to those who are so wedded to this current ideological construct, you're not actually allowed to have that debate.

You're not allowed to have the discussion, and you don't, I don't care what anyone believes, but I sure demand that they stand up and debate the issue. Yeah. You know, and talk about it. And too often, you know, let me throw out another con or [01:24:00] con uh, controversial one. Uh, for many, many, many years now, DDT has been banned.

I. Right. So DDDT being, uh, it's a, it's a pesticide. Okay. And it is a, uh, it is fatal to mosquitoes in a big way. And, uh, that's good. I,

Kyle: I always say no. It should have swatted through mosquitoes.

John Les: Uh, in those, in those areas of the world where DDT has been used to get rid of mosquitoes, one big disease that's gone is malaria.

Uh, so in our neo-colonial instinct today, we tell Africa, you may not use DDT. Yeah. 300 million kids a year die as a result of malaria being infected with malaria. You know. Is that, is that appropriate? You know, what's needed is the responsible use of D-D-T-D-D-T came into use in, uh, in Europe and in other places, uh, near the end of the second World War.

And it was widely used. People had, [01:25:00] uh, you know, fleas and lice and all these things that happened at the end of a major world war like that. And they would take a handful and, you know, rub it into their hair all over their bodies. And I mean, it was being used indiscriminately. Uh, and the same thing on, on crops as well.

That's never good. Regardless of what substance it is you're using. But then, uh, a uh, lady, uh, came forward. Uh, her name is Rachel Carson in the United States. She wrote a book in 1962 called The Silent Spring, and she made the case that, uh, DDT was about to cause the extinction of all bird life. Um, hence the name of the Silent Spring.

And, uh, she caught people's imagination. Uh, maybe it was, she was a Greta Thunberg of her day. Yeah. And, uh, by 1972, Richard Nixon, Nixon had established the Environmental Protection Act, uh, agency. And, uh, DDT was banned and, uh, it became banned pretty much all [01:26:00] over the world. Yeah. And millions and millions and millions of particularly children have died of malaria since.

That wasn't necessary.

Kyle: Interesting.

John Les: You know,

Kyle: you, you'd think that like in this age of information and everyone sharing their own ideas with social media and the internet and stuff like that, there'd be less mob mentality. Now when, when these people, these, these ideas catch on and it's like wildfire and everyone jumps on, you'd think there'd be more, there's engaging, but it seems to be less and less and

John Les: there's more mob mentality today than there ever was.

And people, people don't live their lives. Um, in the same way people live in concrete towers and things like, where they're actually very out of touch with nature. Uh, even people that live in suburban communities, there, there lots have become smaller and smaller. Uh, they, uh, they don't scratch around the dirt anymore.

Most people don't grow a garden anymore. And so they, they have lost touch [01:27:00] with nature. Yeah. And they, so they have, they, they've replaced. You know, what they have had previously with an idealized version, uh, which is often not realistic. And, and then they're very susceptible to the David Suzukis of the world.

Yeah. Who, you know, uh, are really good at scaremongering and, and using, you know, pictures of this or that to, uh, to promote their agenda.

Kyle: And, and people don't talk to their neighbors anymore who might have a different idea than them. They all stay in their own albums.

John Les: No, no, no. That's right. I mean, you, you know, and, and when it comes to issues of the environment, they're almost religious.

In, in terms of Yeah. How people glom onto them and, and hold them dear and hold them sacred.

Kyle: I actually, I actually really believe this, that with religion dying in Western society mm-hmm. It's being replaced. Yes. It is. By, um, things like that. Environmental groups. Yep. And animal rights groups. And not saying like, we, like, we both agree on, you shouldn't take care of the environment or [01:28:00] animals, but people need, uh.

Something to latch onto something with purpose, identity. Well,

John Les: I, I'm trying to just recreate it in my mind. There was a saying I ran across some years ago, and it was something like this, that as society, uh, becomes, uh, less and less religious, um, environmentalism takes its place. That's right. And, and the, the, and the, you know, paganism takes its place and the environment is its main religious expression.

Yeah. Um, and I, I, I do believe that there's a lot of truth in that, in that statement. Um, so, um, you know, it's going to be, uh, it's going to be an, an interesting future now, what you've seen in the last few months with COVID-19. And there was, you know, pretty massive, you know, reigning in of economies everywhere.

Yeah. And that got some of these, uh, folks who, um, are very ardent environmentalists, quite enthused because they have seen how [01:29:00] quickly society can change. And, uh, they're now looking at that and saying, whoa, you know, maybe, maybe we can use stronger levers to change things

Kyle: in. I I remember that actually, like with, with, uh, in China, with Wuhan in January.

Yeah. They get, those cities got locked down

John Les: big time.

Kyle: And I remember, um, saying to some colleagues, that'll never fly in America. Mm-hmm. They'll never fly in western culture. But it happened

John Les: really quickly. Yeah, it did. It did. And you know, we're still, you know, living with some of those aspects today and I'm not saying that's all bad.

Yeah. Uh, but you know, what I have noticed is that there's quite a variety in terms of people's willingness to go along with the government edict of the day. Uh, there are some who tend to be, uh, maybe, well, let's use the term libertarian and you know, government's not gonna push me around, but there's a lot of people.

Who, uh, you know, take the government direction extremely seriously to a fault, [01:30:00] I would argue. Yeah. You know, uh, most responsible governments today are saying, well, do the right and responsible thing. Here's what we suggest you do. Um, you know, there haven't been too many examples of, you know, brutal enforcement of those, uh, guidelines.

Yeah. Uh, but you know, there has been a very strong imp uh, impulse in lots of areas. People say, oh, no, no, no. We've been told, you know, we're, we're, we're not going to work. I, I know, I know of cases where people are saying, we're gonna keep our business shut down until there's a vaccine. Pretty extreme

Kyle: stuff.

Gotta have a lot of money in the bank to say that.

John Les: Yeah. Or, or not, you know, they might be risking, you know, losing their, their business entirely. Yeah. But it, it gave me a bit of insight as to, you know, if somebody is, is sufficiently alarmed and concerned about climate. What kind of decisions would they prepare, be prepared to make, you know Yeah.

To mitigate climate change. Yeah. Um, and, uh, you know what, and the climate, you know, we can do [01:31:00] whatever we like, but the climate will continue to do what? It's always done change. Yeah. Um, and, uh, so

Kyle: I, I, I'd actually be curious to see if like the, over the next 10 years we had another seventies experience, 1970s experience of the world getting cooler and stuff like that.

I wonder what that would, uh. I wonder what they would say next. Well, because

John Les: they're not going away. No, they're not. They're not going away. And, and, and you know, it's funny you say that because there is some chance that that is exactly what will happen. The reason for that is, is that, uh, sunspot activity has almost completely shut down on the face of the sun, which is the same thing that went on in the 16 hundreds when we had the little ice age.

There is a definite correlation between Earth's climate and the amount of sunspot activity that's scientifically, uh, well proven. Uh, and it is, it's a rare thing when there is almost no sunspot activity. And that is what we find today. There's almost no sun spot activity west. The sun spot

Kyle: activity, that's the flares come [01:32:00] off.

John Les: That's right. That's right. And, uh, and so we will see, uh, the, um, the climatic, uh, results of that now. It remains to be seen how long that sun spot activity will be absent. It might be for a short period of time. It might be for decades. Yeah. Don't know at this point, but it is a great influence. And right now that influence would tell us that, you know, there's a good possibility that temperatures will moderate to the downside.

Yeah. Interesting. Very cool.

Kyle: John, thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. It's very interesting.

John Les: It's been a lot of fun. Yeah. I, uh, uh, as you can tell, I, I have opinions on a few things. Yeah. Um, I'm sure I'll be asking you

Kyle: back on again on a few more opinions, so, oh, I,

John Les: I'd love to do it. It's, uh, but the, you know what I always tell people.

These things are important. Yeah. They, they really are. Um, you know, when it comes to climate, there's huge amounts of money being invested, uh, as a result of particular policy [01:33:00] directions. Well, that's money that's not available to do other things. Uh, that limits opportunities in other areas limits personal opportunities and Yeah.

And futures and that kind of thing. So it's really important. It's all about, at the end of the day, a great motivator for me has always been, you know, leaving, uh, a good, um, uh, society for our children and grandchildren to, uh, to, which is

Kyle: interesting that the environment to say that's, that's their same motivation.

Yeah, I know. We actually have the same, we have the same end goal.

John Les: We have the same end goal, but, uh, always to get there we can see it quite differently. Yeah. But that is an important thing. I want them to grow and to thrive and to be able to have those opportunities that we all had. Um, and in a responsible environmental.

Uh, you know, regulatory construct for sure. Uh, but some of these things I think are limiting that, uh, future potential. Yeah.

Kyle: I think it's really key though, to talk about that you have the same end goal because as people listen to the, this show and stuff like that, and you talk about different worldviews and stuff like that, [01:34:00] you find a common ground on something.

Mm-hmm. And start there in your discussion because yelling at each other, um, oh. Or, or going at each other on online, on social media and stuff like that and, and saying mean things that, that does. Doesn't help, doesn't, doesn't fix anything.

John Les: No, no. It, it, it doesn't, it might be, uh, you know, good theater for five minutes.

Yeah. But it doesn't solve anything. So you're right. There's that end goal that, you know, I mean, our, our definition within that might be a little bit different as to, you know, what we see as a positive future. Yeah. But just the fact that, you know, that would motivate myself just as much as David Suzuki, for example.

Yeah. He has many grandchildren as well. Yeah. Um, then perhaps that's a good starting place and work backwards from there.

Kyle: Yeah. Good. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, and if you wanna help spread the word, please leave us a five star review and tell your friends and family about this show.

We have new episodes every other Friday. We are available on YouTube, Spotify, apple Podcasts, [01:35:00] and wherever we get your podcasts. And you can follow this show on Instagram and Facebook at the handle at Furiously Curious Show.

‍

keep reading

Uncut Spanking, ADHD, & Raising Strong Kids – Dr. Edward Les – The Briefcase and The Barn – Ep 57

August 20, 2025

Romans 9, Raw Milk, & The Cost of Avoiding Conflict | The Briefcase & The Barn - Ep 56

August 13, 2025

Freedom Convoy VS Jewish Hate in Canada's Justice System | The Briefcase & The Barn - Ep 55

August 6, 2025

Stop Work From Controlling Your Life

Together, we’ll forge your path through the hard stuff to get to the good stuff.

book a call

A scenic view of a golf course with tall trees and mountains in the background.

Climate Change - Real or Fake? - Season 1 Episode 1

September 4, 2020

keep reading

Uncut Spanking, ADHD, & Raising Strong Kids – Dr. Edward Les – The Briefcase and The Barn – Ep 57

Romans 9, Raw Milk, & The Cost of Avoiding Conflict | The Briefcase & The Barn - Ep 56

Freedom Convoy VS Jewish Hate in Canada's Justice System | The Briefcase & The Barn - Ep 55

Stop Work From Controlling Your Life

Company

Resources

Opening Hours

Office

Contact us

Podcast Question

Climate Change - Real or Fake? - Season 1 Episode 1

September 4, 2020

Stay Updated With Our Latest Releases

keep reading

Uncut Spanking, ADHD, & Raising Strong Kids – Dr. Edward Les – The Briefcase and The Barn – Ep 57

Romans 9, Raw Milk, & The Cost of Avoiding Conflict | The Briefcase & The Barn - Ep 56

Freedom Convoy VS Jewish Hate in Canada's Justice System | The Briefcase & The Barn - Ep 55

Stop Work From Controlling Your Life

Company

Resources

Opening Hours

Office

Contact us

Podcast Question