Video - Elizabeth May discusses Oil Sands

Elizabeth May was at Calgary Petroleum Club discussing the future of oil sands development with Deborah Yedlin & Murray Smith. Creative Commons licensed copy available at Internet Archive, including original sounds board audio.

Video - Calgary's Low Carbon Future

On 2009-09-18, over 200 Calgarians gathered at SAIT to help advance Calgary's energy efficiency. In a future where the environmental costs of carbon are factored into economic decisions, how can an energy city like Calgary stay competitive?

Mayor of Calgary Dave Bronconnier points out our city is the largest consumer of renewable energy in Canada, and all city operations will be powered by renewable energy by 2012. Targeting the carbon footprint of City of Calgary's municipal operations will help keep our tax rates competitive as the cost of carbon starts to climb, but it does not guarantee our energy sector will continue to prosper.

Attendees brainstormed solutions in 5 categories:

• "Energy Efficiency and Conservation"
• "Energy Financing"
• "Energy Awareness, Research and Training"
• "Energy Sourcing / Renewable Energy Sources"
• "Energy Legislation"

...which were then voted on. Top-ranked ideas were re-articulated by attendees in a manner to make them implementable and measurable.

Was it successful? Well it seemed good ideas were shared, and other than allowing more time for the teams to brainstorm and articulate I thought the exercises were extremely practical. It will be up to Calgarians, Imagine Calgary and PlanIt Calgary to see quantifiable results come of this.

I created an editorialized video which uses Skid Crease's themeweaving as narrative structure. It has been shortened to 56 minutes and is the easiest way for non-attendees to understand the summit. The video is called "Calgary's Low Carbon Future" and is available at R4NT.com.

I've isolated the meatiest presentation (by Rob Macintosh), documenting the challenge to Calgary's economy and how we can rapidly more to address it...

And the whole thing is available in chronological order as a single YouTube video... ...which I've chapter indexed at my personal blog.

The Rob Macintosh keynote, and chronological coverage (with and without presentation slides) can all be found in downloadable recyclable formats at Internet Archive. Videos are Creative Commons licensed.

Video - CO2: We Call It Death

When I first saw "An Inconvenient Truth", I was touched deeply by Al Gore's naivete. To bring science and facts to the global warming debate, is a bit like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Nice try Al. But the only way to fight stupid, is with stupid. I'll take over now.

If you are not interested in downloading the video onto your hard drive, and simply want to watch it as quickly as possible, then head to one of the following links...
  R4NT.COM
  YouTube
  GoogleVideo

Downloadable copies are hosted on Internet Archive in:
  Windows Media Video,
  MPEG-4 (playable in QuickTime),
  720x480 MPEG-2 (for recycling, or constructing DVDs),
  1280x720 MPEG-2 (for recycling, or presenting in HD).

There is also a HD downloadable copy in QuickTime H264.

If you are interested in recycling any of the footage, I've uploaded the (Sorenson) chromakeyed videos of myself talking...
 GordRant-16x9-Part1
 GordRant-16x9-Part2
 GordRant-9x16-Part1
 GordRant-9x16-Part2

A nice summary of arguments for and against the possibility of humans causing climate change can be found at the BBC.