Watch the 12 minute video here: here

DY-NA-MITE! Those three syllables best describe Rex Weyler’s recent speech to a crowd of 300 in Vancouver – who filled Heritage Hall to hear about private river power and its threat to BC’s spectacular Bute Inlet. In just over 10 min Rex tears to shreds the whole Campbell private power program, undermining the assumptions of endless growth that serve as the foundation to this house of cards. Peak oil, consumerism, limits to growth: these are tough topics – taboos even – but Rex boils them down into simple, compelling logic that anyone can immediately grasp.

Do yourself a favour and watch this video – then forward it to everyone you know. It’s as good an explanation as you will ever find of the challenges we face as a species, and the only real solutions to them.

Excerpt: “We keep thinking if we just consume a little bit more of the planet, if we just industrialize a little bit more of our wilderness that somehow that’s going to solve our problem….We keep hoping that somehow these technological innovations are going to save us. It’s not going to work that way. The only thing that’s going to make us more sustainable and solve problems such as global warming is for us to get smart and start consuming less stuff. That means consuming less of our rivers, consuming less of our wilderness, consuming less of everything. We’re going to have to teach ourselves, our children, and help them teach their children that we can live richer lives with less consumption.”

“There’s no future in which you keep growing forever…These big corporations – General Electric, Shell Oil – they understand this. They know what’s happening and they’re making a grab for every last resource on the planet. Why are they in BC, eyeballing 600 rivers? Because it’s here. And because no one’s got it yet… This movement to occupy and industrialize 600 rivers in BC is nothing more than a resource grab by one of the largest and most predatory corporations on the planet, General Electric and their local buddies – for huge profits. And when we see all our politicians running into lucrative jobs with these power companies, this is just scandalous corruption.”

Rex Weyler is a co-founder of Greenpeace and has recently joined both BC Citizens for Public Power – as a spokesperson and advisor – and this publication as a contributor.