Speaker 1 (00:00):
This program was produced with a support of Storyhive creativity, connected by Telus. For more information, please visit storyhive.com. Well,
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me, trying to keep my footprint small was harder than I thought it could be. Tryin’ to save the planet. Oh, will someone please save me. Tryin’ to save the planet, oh will someone please save me?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Welcome to in over my head. I'm Michael Bartz. My guest today is Shannon Phillips through her roles as minister of environment and parks and the minister responsible for climate change office. Shannon demonstrated that taking action on climate change must go hand in hand with economy to ensure sustainable and prosperous future for Alberta.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
So I brought you in today because so for me, I built an off-grid tiny home and I wanted to save the planet, but I feel so in over my head, I feel so overwhelmed. So I thought I would bring in experts to give me advice on what I can do and other people can do to help save the planet. So today I want to talk about the government because you are a politician. So I think my first question is what role does the government as an institution play in saving the planet?
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Well look government is about doing together what you cannot do on your own. We cannot fund our own health care or education system. We can't pave our own individual road. So you can't really frankly do a whole lot on climate change by yourself in the same way that you can't build your own bridge. Right. and, and so climate change is a collective responsibility problem, and therefore it becomes a problem of government. And so that's our values determination right off the top, right? That there are certain things that we can do together that we can't do on our own. And so then when we have a collective action problem, then we have to kind of separate it into, okay, there's public policy solutions, by which, I mean, there are laws that need to be changed.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
There are regulatory solutions, so yes, you can put this into the atmosphere. No, you can't put that. There are government programs that is to say using state spending power in order to you know, make certain behaviors happen, as opposed to other behaviors that is to say it is both regulated that you send your children to school, but then there is government using its spending power to pay only certificated teachers, not just like buddy off the street. Right. So government is is, is regulating something for for public education, for example, but then they're also using their spending power to have certain outcomes. Right. and then you have a government procurement government industrial policy that is to say, how do tax firms, how do we attract firms? What kind of firms, what kind of behavior do we expect from them when they come here?
Speaker 1 (03:07):
All of that, again is regulatory, but it's also a broader what we call industrial policy. And so all of that is going to essentially govern what comes out of the stack. What comes out of the tailpipe, which ultimately is greenhouse gas emissions. That's, you know, where they come from. Essentially they come from either extraction, processes or combustion processes of various kinds. Government has a role to play particularly provincial governments in the way that our constitution is structured in Canada. They have a very important role in particular I resource producing jurisdictions like Alberta and Saskatchewan. In fact, you know, most Canadian provinces have extractive industries that are, have, have emissions profiles that are that outstrip emissions profiles in much of Western Europe, for example, most right. So then you have a problem of, of how you regulate those things, how you and provincial governments also have a really big role to play in education.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Healthcare. As I talked about infrastructure, as I talked about, that's all the purview of the provincial government, a lot of environmental policy and regulation is, is in the provincial jurisdiction, but it is shared with the federal government. So then you have an additional element of complexity in Canada, right? When you are sharing a jurisdiction with the feds under the constitution. So you got all kinds of stuff to, to, to work out with others, right. There, and and then ultimately you have larger international conversations as well on climate, right? Again, countries, if you can't do it by yourself then you look and you go, okay, like the provinces have to work together. And in fact, the Supreme court has ruled that the provinces must work together under the rubric of of, of like the federal policy, because provinces can't go it alone.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
And then what we also know is countries can't go it alone, which is why we have international action, right? Where Canada makes certain commitments at the federal level or at the the international level rather under various federal international treaties. So then small wonder my friend that you feel in over your head because I've just articulated to you a global problem and a global policy architecture and regulatory and trade, and all of that, that this entire problem is caught up in, right. And while education is important to us, for example, healthcare is important to us. For example, we've just seen how important is it to it, and even how international cooperation is important in healthcare that only bubbles up every once in a while, you don't see the who the world health organization in the headlines every day now, do you, but maybe during the pandemic but normally no, even those things pale in comparison to the scale and complexity of the problem of climate change, right. And the extent to which it is a collective action problem. So what I'm trying to tell. Great, great. Thanks for that answer.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
My second questions, when you were the minister of the environment, you released a climate change policy plan, and part of that included a strategy to phase out non-renewable energy and investing in more renewable energy programs. That was 2015, it's 2021. Now we have a different party in power. How are things looking with that regard?
Speaker 1 (06:45):
So what you're referencing there is the electricity policy. So the climate leadership plan had a number of different elements to it that were announced on that day in November November of 2015, after a very robust consultation process with many, many Albertans many Alberta companies and so on. And in fact, Alberta's largest oil company stood on that stage with, Rachel Notley, and I, that day when we made those announcements. So the elements of those announcements were as follows. There was the phase out of coal fired electricity, as you know, and then I'll just briefly touch on what the other ones were, but on then I'll return to what the electricity policy involved. So there was an economy-wide price on carbon, which has persisted. We, we went through about five months there when in 2019 when we didn't have one and because the UCP ran on repealing that piece that we brought forward a federal carbon price was imposed on Alberta as a result and upheld by the Supreme court quite recently in in 2021.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And so there's the economy-wide price on carbon then just to say, colloquially the carbon tax, right? That was one element of it that I'm certainly the most controversial. It didn't need to be there was a cap on oil sands emissions that, and so essentially the policy play there was that production may grow, but emissions may not out of the, out of the Canadian oil sands. The third piece was an energy efficiency program that is to say, are there robust reinvestment of carbon tax revenues back into energy efficiency at the at the residential commercial and industrial levels such that we are incenting and driving the adoption of clean technology and, and using an ensuring that we are using deployable technology now rather than chasing unicorns, right? I in order to reduce CO2 emissions and find the lowest cost, most market-friendly ways to, to reduce emissions with existing off the shelf, deployable technology, right?
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Something that climate skeptics or people that don't want you to take action on climate change often say is, oh, well, we need these other grand schemes rather than we just need better insulation, right? Deployable technology, as opposed to, we need a massive investment in carbon capture and storage or chasing some other unicorn. We know that we can, in particular, in commercial and industrial processes, there's lots of ways that we can reduce emissions right now today. Right? So that was what efficiency was about. And then there was a methane reduction strategy, which we know was very, very important in the oil and gas sector. And so we set the policy, which when the national government and Canada adopted, and then the Obama white house adopted those targets, and then the Mexican government adopted those targets. So Alberta led the way, I was very proud of that.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Particularly the day that the Obama white house announced that they were replicating a policy. I went but then Trump reversed it. We kept ours. And now it's moving forward again. So that's good. So it is moving forward. Okay. Because here's the thing, like, it's not, it's the horses have left all the barns on a lot of this stuff. Right. and then the final piece was Alberta burn more coal when we took over in 2015 and then the rest of the country combined because Ontario had brought in their coal fired phase out to make electricity through the early two thousands, essentially small days in Toronto were so bad that it was coming to a point where a number of us states were going to be bringing clean air actions and actual court actions against government of Ontario, unless they began their coal-fired phase.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
So they did theirs earlier, but we still had, so we had a lot of Coal burnin’ and, and, and we still have I'll be at right, but it's, it's moving now. So what had happened was the Harper government had put in regulations such that 12 of our 18 coal plants were going to be decommissioned by 2030 anyway, with absolutely no compensation or other transition program for workers, either in the mines or the plants, nothing. Right. So nothing for people in Hana, nothing for people in, well, the forest Berg ones were, the ones affected out in battle river was affected at just west of Edmonton and in Waldman and the, the key pills plants one or two of those was affected in one of the Geneses west of Edmonton as well. So we're talking to hundreds of workers, right. And and these pretty old school electricity plants, coal fired electricity plants.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
And so 12 of the 18 were being phased out anyway. I, I, you know, obviously I, I would've looked at that policy and thought, well, you know, at the time when Harper brought it in, well, maybe it's not quite as, as aggressive as it should be, et cetera, but at least he did it. Okay. So that was the situation we inherited. We had these six more plants that were slated to run one of them until 2064, because the previous PC government had very, in my mind, very silly allowed a company to move to two companies to move forward with building a coal fired electricity plant in 2011, right. Like this. So the, we are well into the world of knowing that electrical electrification is the way that we are reducing combustion, right. That we can electrify processes that other before we were, you know, burning stuff to make something, you know, drive down the road or otherwise.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Right. so that was the situation we inherited. And we, we campaigned on an early phase out of those six plants, because that is, that was the easiest, lowest cost greenhouse gas emission reduction for Alberta. You can reduce emissions in all kinds of ways, but what you want to do as government is choose the lowest cost ways, right? What is my lowest cost mitigation that let it, you know, can I take that ton out of the sky for $10 per ton or a hundred dollars per ton or a thousand dollars per ton. Right. there might be some crazy technology, but it's super expensive. Or I could just, I don't know, put in some different insulation, you know, again, to my point about deployable technologies. So that is what is up to government, has to look at this and go, okay, those are our best solutions.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
So that's why we propose that we did it. We compensated the companies properly. We brought in a co-workers transition plan. We made sure that all of those pieces happen cause like, you can't just be like, oh, I'm going to do climate change, but I don't care about the people. So we're called probably going to be free of coal-fired electricity because we also made it easier for them to convert a couple of these plants to natural gas, right. As again, sort of a bridge to phasing out if even even natural gas. Cause I think we'll be having that conversation in some way shape or form, like not now, but probably post 2030 for sure. You know, and not everywhere either, right? Like there'll be some places where you need it, especially the peaker plants. But so I, I think if there is one policy that I am most proud of in terms of the elements of the climate leadership plan, it is the coal, phase-out why the single largest reduction of pollution in Canadian history.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So that's a thing that we did. It was hard. If, if there was one thing that kept me up at night between, you know, Rachel phoning me up and saying, I'm going to give you like the hardest political job in the country. And then I, at making that big announcement in November of 2015, it was coal and how we were going to handle that. This is the sort of thing that had taken down governments. So I, but we did it, it was economically successful both in terms of the health of those firms, but also the adoption of renewables, right. We then put in place policies that brought on the lowest cost renewables in Canadian history where literally the government made $30 million off those contracts this year, right. Far from costing people money, or like some of the right-wing canards you hear about, you know, subsidies and renewables, not being like they are so low costs now.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
And so competitive the way that we structured it, you know, private companies building these big wind farms that made government money this year. So, you know, not only are you juicing the kind of market that you want and the kind of economic activity you want, the kind of investment that you want, the kind of, you know head office, attraction, engineering, labor, all of it, trade work trades work that you want, but you're also phasing out the type that you don't want in a way that hasn't hurt people and has put those companies in a place where they can play in that market too. So I'm very proud of that policy. It was a one of those ones where returning the big wheels of industrial policy to, and we did something, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Cool, cool. And is that policy carrying forward? Now? The other hilarious
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Part of this is like the, the UCP the, they stopped the one aspect of it and I won't get too down into the electricity weeds cause we will never emerge from that world. But so they put a stop to part of it, but we had put not the coal phase out, right. And Kenny in the early days of not to get too political, but of his leadership Ray's said that, oh, he was going to stop that work. But then he got in there and realized that like the companies didn't want that. And it would be a very stupid idea. And in fact it was a very good piece of policy that we did. And then he kept all of the the carbon tax that we made for all of those those coal companies and a lot of the other pieces of that carbon tax.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
You know, the idea that he put you know, that he flushed the carbon tax is a total lie. He didn't all of the industrial carbon tax with the exception of like one little thing that he watered down for oil sands. Other than that, it's all still there. And not only that, but we did that and we basically handed it to the federal government back in the day and like seven and it was early 17, mid 17 when I finished that process of all these different industrial carbon tax was for every, you know, industrial process under the sun, you know, whether it was refining or, you know, I don't know, like cement or why manufacturing or any of these things, we set their carbon tax levels and the federal government took all of that and put it in their regulations. And those are the regulations that were just upheld by the Supreme court.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So they're now the law of the land and we brought them into the world through our climate plan. Right. So it was very much like the national policies now what was made in Alberta, Kenny kept all that. And even that wasn't even part of their Supreme court challenge. Right? So the electricity policies and the renewables piece was also built on that foundation, like pretty complicated industrial policy. He kept all of it because it was just good. Right. And it was universally understood that that would then insent, it would drive emissions reductions for starters in electricity, which is your easiest reductions. It would incentivize the right kind of new investment and new companies to come. And it would take advantage of our natural advantages in Alberta. And, and frankly if Saskatchewan got their act together, it would for them to in terms of our actual assets, right. Which we are well known to anyone who, you know, walks outside in Southern Alberta. Right. Which is sunny windy
Speaker 3 (18:50):
For sure. Because I, as something else we could, we could touch on as well. Cause you mentioned renewable energies being a fairly, a cheaper thing. Right. I think, yeah. I think a lot of people think that the cost is so expensive and so prohibitive that that's why we're not doing it. That's why we're not all running solar panels on our roofs. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Well okay. The fact of the matter is, is when you look at levelized cost of energy, if we want to go there. So every year a company energy forecasting international firm called Lazard puts out the levelized cost of energy analysis. Every November, December usually comes out usually late November. And so it'll show you what the, like what the cost of energy is for building a new, natural gas plant for a building a a new coal plant for a building, or for even maintaining an old one, or what building new, smaller nuclear, or larger nuclear over the cost of it, right. It's operation and maintenance over the it's levelized cost over the course of its economic life or it will also, it also compares off all shore wind you know industrial scale. So PV, residential, solar geo various kinds, like they're all they're brave.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And you see in those graphs, that nuclear is still way up here. Coal is way up there with it because you can't get a bank to come and, and, and lend you money to refurbish your old coal plant anymore. It's just not happening. Not even your new coal plant, no coal right there like international financial capital will not lend you money to do your yearly shutdown for maintenance on your coal plant. Right. That's why its cost is so high now. And so nuclear and coal are way up here. And then down here, we have offshore wind onshore wind, and increasingly solar PV at the industrial scale. Also sort of up in the middle of our graph. We see residential solar. Why, again, to that very first question you asked me, which is I'm one person, you know, tying into the grid, right? And so I'm, I'm only offsetting this much but I have fairly large capital outlay to do that, right, because I'm not getting an economy of scale off of all my little PVS.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And so, you know that is what it is. Government can do things and certainly the private sector can respond to the right kind of market conditions to insent that sort of stuff. To my earlier point about deployability though, you are better off as government. I mean, sure we can, insent residential solar, because it's good for jobs and it's good for, you know, community associations to be able to do this stuff. And it's good for learning for schools to have this stuff, right? Cause you can have a whole unit with kids, like looking at the data and right. There's, there's associated benefits to it. There's social benefits. But if you're looking at straight economic analysis, your best bet is at the industrial scale to start really driving that deep electrification now through solar and storage, wind and storage and the complementarity there, that's the lowest cost.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And that's not like ideology talking that is straight capitalism talking, right. That is the market. So if the market is your God you know, like go and read what the market's up to and the market is not interested in any ridiculous nonsense arguments about about, you know, how you have to subsidize renewables or these kinds of things anymore. That's all tiny thinking. You might as well put it away with your eight tracks and your real real, and your giant record player that takes up half the room. We don't think like that anymore.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yeah. Cause I think from my perspective, being that, you know, where my head feeling overwhelmed, because I feel like the responsibility is on individuals and that's where I get more excited about the government being involved because that's where they can make the big change. So I'm happy to hear that when you're talking about on the industrial side, that's where the actual big changes are happening.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
So like it's really important for people who are interested in climate change to actually go and have a look at where are our mission sources. Right. And Alberta is a bit of a different animal because we are a producer, right. We're an extraction and production jurisdiction, right? Like, so we're pulling the stuff out of the ground. So that, and we are the largest exporter of we're the largest provider, sorry of oil and gas products to the United States. So the world's largest economy gets the majority of their combustibles oil and gas from here. Right. And so that it compounds the problem of the fact that, you know, that contributes to about 20% of the Canadian GDP and a good chunk of Alberta's. So when you're talking about this, you need to think through of how are people paying the bills, even if they're not the guy pulling it out of the ground, even if they're not a rough neck on a rig, if they might be an accountant in Calgary, it's a good likelihood that they've got, you know, that their job depends on that industry.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Now we can quarrel about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depending, you know, on how we see the world. And that's fun. The fact of the matter, it is a fact, right? It is a fact before us. And it is also a fact that you know, you need to choose public policy that that does not undermined people's sense of economic wellbeing and security, right. Or at least that's my approach. Those are my values. So that, that part's really, really important. But when you go and look at our emissions profile in Alberta, you see it's a good chunk of it is that oil sands. And then there's the, you know, associated activity rate of re upgrading and refining before it gets into a pipeline and go somewhere else. Right? So we take those emissions. If you drive down the road and, you know, central Minnesota the gas that you put in your car has come from here, right.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
But you're only taking the car emissions. You're not, you know, and counting it towards Minnesota's emissions, right. You're not the bulk of those emissions was in the, pulling it out of the ground. Those are in Alberta's pie chart, right? So our pie chart is a little different from other places for that reason, even still, even still so now, or you know, the pie chart is less and less from the coal fired electricity, which is why that was sort of the easy one and the lowest cost. K that piece is coming down. That little slice, we still have a good chunk of it is oil sands, but then you look and you see transportation, industrial processes and buildings are still a really decent chunk of our emissions profile. They're larger in other jurisdictions that aren't pulling the stuff out of the ground, right? Buildings, transportation, land use is another one.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
But there, those are also areas where Alberta could really drive innovation, attract investment and, and rethink a lot of our industrial processes and, and, you know, supply chain and transportation and all of that to you, you see here that a lot of that, even in the buildings category, is it coming from residential? No, no. It's coming from, you know, sort of what I call heavy commercial light, industrial that's where you see a lot of that, the, the opportunities in building, right? So between buildings and transportation, those are where you see your big emissions reduction opportunities, obviously in transportation, the big answer to that question is electrification, but also in, in the adoption for longer haul and hydrogen and those other kinds of, of solutions, but in buildings, you know, the solutions come from obviously like I've about installation a couple of times, like how boring, right?
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Like, you know, it's, it's not as fun as talking about a Tesla. It really isn't, you know, like what did you blow into your attic is like nowhere near as sexy as watching, you know, like a Tesla stock go up, but that, you know, th th that's real, but then there's also, you know, deployment of AI and stuff like that. Right. and, and new machine learning and adapting to when people are in the building or when people are using the building and what they need you know, in order to keep the building moving, right. Whatever it's happening inside of it. So that's where we have we have to think about climate in those ways. Like where where's the stuff actually, is it coming out of a tailpipe? Is it coming out of a stack? Is it coming? Is it leaking out of buildings?
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Where are those emissions coming from? And then, okay, if that's the case, how do we deploy both public, either regulation, policy, you know, using government spending, which is what Biden's doing right now to a great effect, you know, drive the economy into a certain area or how are we incenting other kinds of individual behavior, if that's what we want to do. But when you look at that pie, it's not coming from individual choices with the exception of potentially transportation. Right. Kind of make that, but, so that's where you need to think about, okay, what kinds of policy choices am I choosing here?
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Yeah, definitely. And so, as I still want to empower individuals as well, how might people get involved to make those policies happen on the individual level?
Speaker 1 (28:25):
First of all, if a politician comes to you and says, we don't need to do anything all the time on climate, that's the first thing where you can use your, you know, your, your thoughtful citizen muscles and start practicing them for, to, to demand better lake, if you are not fluent in the fact that we have a climate crisis, there are like very specific, obvious, and no-nonsense things that we can do about it right now that the decisions that the climate decisions we make are economic decisions. And it used to be that companies couldn't make money. If they cared about this stuff. Now it is that companies can't make money. If they don't, right. They're not going to attract investment. This is where the entire global economy is, is, is driving towards trillions of dollars in investment. Capital is driving towards, you know, decarbonisation so you can live in a track times if that's what you want to do, I wouldn't put you in charge of my investment portfolio.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I'll tell you that right now, you're, you know, like I wouldn't let those folks anywhere near your retirement people, but, you know, so as a citizen, that's the first thing, right? Like, do these people know what they're like, they don't need to know. They don't have, have to have a PhD in climate policy, but they need to have some understanding that, and it doesn't matter what role or level of government, right. Municipal, we don't have a climate plan in the city of Lethbridge. Right. I know I'm going to be asking my municipal counselors and even school board counselors. So what are you going to do? Right? Like, what are you spending on heating and so on, what kinds of investments are you making Mr. School Bart and Mrs. Schoolboard in, in how you're going to retrofit these schools, some of which are quite old you know, to save me ultimately, so that you have more money to put into the classroom instead of like, literally lighting it on fire from your furnace, right.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
From your boiler. So though, like, as citizens, we need to think about this stuff, cause it's all, it is part of the economy and it is jobs, right. So voters will always tell you, I care about the economy and I care about jobs. Well, they are other piece, right. They're not diametrically opposed anymore. Again, that's old timey thinking. So that's the first thing that individuals should be demanding better. Right. and and the second thing I think is to ensure that like, you can't do everything, right? Like not everyone even has the money to, you know, do the light bulbs or the time, right. Or the knowledge that's like kind of who cares right on, on some level lake, but, you know, make sure that you're open to, I think, a making those specific little changes in your life when the time comes.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Right. And when it's economically achievable for you to do so, you know, every light bulb is going to burn out at some point. But but you know, and, and start to like understand even what your outlay is, right? Like, because guaranteed, if you do a bit of a cost benefit analysis and, you know, everybody says, oh, I care about, you know, jobs and I care about the economy and they can't tell me what the price per kilowatt hour for electricity is. Do you care that much about your bill? Right. Like, so know what, eh, what yours is. I think even if you, if you're not in an economic place to be able to do a whole lot about it, once you are, you, then you'll kind of be able to drive towards particular outcomes right. Of, of making those choices as well. You'll all, it'll also be living in your head too, of like, where am I going to live?
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Is there a bus stop close by now that, you know electric vehicles are more achievable for many, many people they're getting there. Right. Okay. Is this going to be my last internal combustion engine? Okay. Then in three years time, I'm going to make a plan so that I can buy a secondhand Hyundai Kona or whatever. Right. Like, again, not everybody has to buy a Tesla, but it's but those are the kinds of things that we can start thinking about as well. Right. Even just making a plan and having some ability, some life skills to be able to do it.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
No, that's good. That's good to know for sure. Cause yeah, so it's not all about individual responsibility and it's about reaching out to your various levels of government to get them involved and get them getting the ball rolling too. Right.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
What about your neighborhood too? Right. Again, going to, like, it's not just about me, me, me all the time in my electricity bill and what do I drive and what I live in. And he knew but also what have I done lately with other people, right? Because that is the strongest we are in our community leagues. If we have some, depending on, on where we live, do we have a neighbors hood association? Does it have, you know, a Westminster or another facility? What can we do to reduce our energy costs and hire local electricians or other trades people to do that? In other words, what are we contributing to local economic development and jobs? In other words, what are we as a community doing to build a bridge right. Of a climate conversation that is not necessarily branded polarized or entrenched. That is about talking about the good things and the opportunities rather than the risks and the costs and the beliefs and the entrenched values, right? Those are things that you can only do together by normalizing some of this and by building those bridges and being intentional as a community. So we all live in those places where there are community associations, where there are neighborhood associations and gardens and what have you. Right. So we need to think about those connections as well.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Yeah, that's really good. I think that's very empowering as well, right. Because I feel like maybe even on the federal level, even the provincial level, you just have no impact, but I think individuals can at least even feel the impact on that community level. So I think that's really helpful. I think I
Speaker 1 (34:44):
Am going to push back though on, you know, at the municipal and provincial level voters absolutely can have an impact. Sure. Something that I used to say all the time when I was a minister to people who were like more of the green sort of like environmental activist sort of variety, I'd be like, great. I share your values and I'd love it. If we did, you know, insert thing X that you are asking me to do build me a bridge or build me a door and I'll walk through it. Right. And it better not collapse in on me while I'm walking through it. In other words, build me the space in civil society build me. Those bridges build me that common understanding of what needs to be done. And then I'm a politician. I'll go do it. I have an incentive structure.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Right. we all have incentive structures in life. And so that is also a really important thing for people, especially with burdens, we have this learned helplessness of like, oh, everything's always been conservative. And you know, my neighbors like are conservatives or whatever. Like we tell ourselves stories which are like fundamentally untrue, they're untrue stories, right? The progressive movement had its birth in Alberta. We are far more progressive than we give ourselves credit for. We are the majority, frankly. Even if we don't like, you know, take a roller and like paint ourselves orange from head to toe the values, when you pull people on values, we have progressive values. Right. So don't tell yourself any stories as well about your relative, you know, level of citizen power. It's actually better than you think.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Good. That's good. Yeah, because that's, that's my perspective. Definitely. That's part of the reason we're doing this show is because from, from what I was thinking that a lot of people have those conservative mindsets and that might be delaying climate change, you know, or, or those things. So to hear you say that, that people are more progressive for me, that gives me hope as well. Yeah. But
Speaker 1 (36:34):
You can't just walk up to people and be like, you don't believe in climate change, you're an evil, terrible person. You don't understand science, you're an idiot. And you know, everything you thought is stupid and I don't care about jobs and you know, like you, you need to find ways to build those bridges, right. And you need to meet people where they're at. So maybe saying, you know, we are in a climate crisis is, is not the helpful opening line. Maybe the helpful opening line is we need to attract new investment and also plan our cities better so that I'm not paying for snow removal halfway to Fort MacLeod in a sprawling city. I've just said the same thing. And you know, I'm going to do this because I don't really want your property taxes to go up too high, no matter where you live in Lethbridge, I've literally just said the same thing of, we need a better climate plan for the city of Lethbridge, but I didn't say it in a way that made people feel like they were talking to the second coming of AOC. Right. and, and there's no need to drive wedges when we there's enough of them out there, right there that we, we can find ways, especially now with climate that weren't available to us. Even like when I started this work in 15, the, the, the economic landscape has changed so much that, like I said, you know, we can't talk about a growing economy without dealing with de-carbonization.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Thank you so much for coming. First of all, it's been very enlightening and I've learned a lot. And so from what I'm getting from our conversation is that government has a role to play in climate change. We're, we're making those changes. And then the individuals can also make a change by getting involved and talking to their various representatives. And I'm feeling quite hopeful actually about, about the future. Sure.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It's not just about engaging the, the people that are already, you know, elected and doing a thing. It is also about understanding our collective power in our communities. Right. And like, there is no one else to do it. Sorry. You know, sorry about your luck, but you live in a democracy, so, and you're a citizen in a democracy, so it's on you. Right. It's not on it. Obviously I play a certain role. So part of it's on me and part of its own Rachel, and part of it's on originally, I mean you know, part of it's on your city councilors, but a lot of it is, you know, when people come to me and they go, Shannon, what are we going to do? You know? And like, like, oh, Jason, Kenny's done a thing that I don't like, or whatever, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And they're really scared. And I'm like okay. I understand, you know, we have a lot of fear and anxiety and you know, there's a lot about the agenda that people don't like. Okay. But the question isn't, you know, like worrying ourselves into a corner, it's understanding the, the, the tools we all ready have. They're there for you, you know, it is at, you can pick them up and use them. They're going to be, they're going to be necessarily on satisfactory is democracy. Yes.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Great. All right. Well, I think we will end on that. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you very much for having me. So that was my conversation with Shannon. The thing that really stood out for me was how, when it comes to climate change, she was all about the facts. It wasn't about what was looking good or feels good and warm and fuzzy. It was about what's actually going to make a difference and let's go after that. And to me, that was refreshing. What was your favorite part? Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Barts. Here's the feeling less in over our heads when it comes to saving the planet.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
We'll see you again soon.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
In over over my head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz. sound engineering by Rodrigo Henriquez. Original music by Gabriel Thaine special, thanks to Lisa Pruden and Jessica Gibson.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
This program was produced with the support of Telus.