Latest / Go News To Go: More Good News / Ross Beaty has been a leader in the international mining and renewable energy industries, making a significant and lasting impact in BC and

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Ross Beaty has been a leader in the international mining and renewable energy industries, making a significant and lasting impact in BC and · Go News To Go: More Good News

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  All right, Hi, it's a big honor for me and and our good
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  news. We're talking to Ross baby. Hi Ross, how are you?
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  And well? Thank you? You know Ross, you're your name came up
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  when we were talking about Earth Day event that we did on April twenty second
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  through one of the people who was a good friend of yours, Scott Higgs,
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  and he said, the man you should be speaking with his use about
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  environmental issues because you're very successful and renewable energy industries and you've made a big
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  impact and it's at bcit of British Columbia and around the world. In addition
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  to you know, silver mining and really working with we like to provoke this
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  little photo here Mother Earth from the moon, um no borders, no boundaries,
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  we're all in it together kind of thing. And then in addition to
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  doing doing that, you took a little movement, it seems to me,
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  to maybe taking another level to an environmental outreach in what you're already doing and
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  passionately joined created some organizations, some nonprofit groups, and we thank you for
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  that because you could just be working out silver and not dealing with the other
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  things. Am I making any sense? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I
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  keep going well you wanted you to tell us about. First of all,
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  how did you get started somewhere? You know about the earth, right,
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  you study something about it? Right? How did this happen for you?
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  Well? You know, ever, since I was little, I always liked
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  being outside. I just loved fresh air. I don't know what it was,
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  but I always played outside and like to hike, and then to ski
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  and kayak and canoe and everything. And so I wanted a job that took
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  me outside, and I became a geologist, and that that was a job
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  that I gravitated to because it meant that I would get paid to climb mountains
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  and fly, running helicopters and camp and be dirty all the time, and
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  it was great. And I then gravitated towards the sort of commercial side of
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  that business, looking for mines. Mineral exploration didn't really matter if we found
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  something or not. It was a great deal of fun looking. But eventually
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  I kind of got into a company and then another one, and I found
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  I was an entrepreneur and I had a certain amount of gift for the gab
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  I could sell. I could sell shares and get money, and then I
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  could put money into drilling holes and we actually found a couple of minds and
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  then one thing led to another, and it's been a pretty satisfying career in
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  the world global, literally global. I've worked in for forty or fifty countries
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  in the world. And then in two thousand and eight, I wanted to
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  do something green. I've always had an environmental bent right from the gap go.
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  I've always loved nature and wanted to protect it more. In spite of
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  the fact that I was in a mining industry, which is somewhat extractive and
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  destructive, It's not as bad as it sounds. Typically mine can be claimed
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  pretty well. It's a short term impact on earth and is then reclaimed,
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  unlike cities and roads and things that are tend to be very permanent. But
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  in two thousand and eight, I wanted to do just something different, and
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  I wanted to build a something green that was also in the business world of
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  resource development, and so I started a geothermal power company that movement that went
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  from geothermal power into wind power, solar power, and hydro power, which
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  are the four classic clean energy forms or renewable energy forms that are that are
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  green. And built a pretty big company out of that, and I was
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  very happy to do that. That that that took about twelve years to really
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  work out well. But it's now a very very large company called Interjects Renewable
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  Energy based in Montreal. And then I guess after oh, I don't know
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  if five or ten years ago, I had made a lot of money and
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  I decided I'd do more more concrete with the money, and I'd create an
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  environmental philanthropy called the Sitka Foundation and set it up to basically support people doing
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  environmental good things in Canada, mainly some across the world, some in the
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  US, but mostly in Canada. And so that's growing to be a very
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  large, one hundred percent environmental philanthropy called the Sitka Foundation, and not something
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  that I'm active on as well as being on the board of a number of
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  environmental nonprofits. I'm the chair of the BC Parks Foundation, remember, the
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  member of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the Worldwide wild Cat Conservation Society called Panthera,
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  which is based in New York, and so on a bunch of other
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  things. So I'm doing a whole bunch of stuff more environmental than not.
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  I'm giving more money away now than making it. And it's just that end
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  of my life. But it's all to me. It's all centered about a
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  love of nature, of the outdoors, and the realization that if we look
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  for lookout for nature, there's no point to look out for humans, because
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  we have really a big problem with continuing existence in the world unless we look
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  out for environment a little bit better. You know, we start our and
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  thank you, we applaud you for for this uh endeavors and this hard work
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  that you do, because it once again, not everybody wants doing it too.
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  Not everybody sees the vision and the need. Uh. And maybe didn't
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  hear that the last couple of days were the hottest ever in the history of
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  the world, and so um, maybe those kinds of big numbers an island
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  somewhere going down um and everybody maybe having to learn how to swim uh uh
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  is maybe a little bit more in our face than it possibly has ever been,
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  wouldn't you say? I mean, yeah, I mean I totally agree
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  with that. I mean, this is two big problems that we're facing in
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  the world are both kind of invisible. One is global warming caused by carbon
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  pollution. It's well established now, it's not a theory, it's a fact,
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  and it's going to get worse unless we do something about it. And
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  the other is the loss of biodiversity. We're losing species at a great rate.
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  Some we can see, like the passenger pigeon, but some we cannot
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  see, like insects and birds and things like that that are making our world
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  a more difficult one for humans to live in because it's all of other aspects
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  of nature that creates healthy water and healthy air and good soil and good food
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  and all that sort of stuff. And if we don't have a healthy ecosystem,
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  you know, humans have a big problem. So we've got these two
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  big issues. Fortunately, a lot of people understand that we have these issues,
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  and they're doing a lot of things about them. Creating more parks is
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  one way to do it. Trying to stop carbon pollution is another way.
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  But there's a lot of things people can do individually, and if we all
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  kind of row the boat and in the right direction, we're going to make
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  big change and we're not going to we're not going to have these these difficult
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  times like we're seeing in many places of the world today where we have these
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  crazy heat spills, crazy hurricanes, crazy crazy weird weather. High insurance premiums
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  um rise in sea levels that I see because I live on the water here
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  in Vancouver, UM, and I see the sea level rising all the time
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  and having more extreme events. Um. We've just got to do something.
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  We have every single person has it in their in their capacity to do something
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  about it. And if we all do our own little thing, the problem
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  is going to be solved. Well, you know that's our been our mission
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  for a long time. In fact, we've started off our it's actually called
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  Cause the World for Peace and Cause the World for Peace and ecology exactly the
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  same. Uh, you know, and then you end did declare a day
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  for the International Day of Peace and asked at twelve noon that the whole world
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  takes a moment. You know, I think you know, with this little
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  cell phone kind of thing here, a lot of people seem to have it,
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  and you know, it's always it's all about I think you had that
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  guy called Marshall McLuhan, he's a local boy, did good, you know,
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  talking about the message and you know it's being in communications all these years.
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  It's the united message. We're all in it together. It's not a
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  country deal. Because if you're polluting one spot you're pleading in the world.
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  So we start off with doctor Jane Good, all of them, I'm sure
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  you know, and she says, you know, if we don't if we
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  don't take care of Mother Earth, basically, you know, we can't have
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  peace. Yeah, that's actually where I come from as well. You know,
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  a lot of people say, well, you know, we've got a
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  lot of social inequality around, and we do, and that's a big problem
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  we have to deal with that. But quite frankly, if we don't look
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  after environment, all the social equality in the world isn't going to help us.
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  When there's climate refugees, people trying to get away from extreme situations where
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  they have no food, and you know, talking about peaceful the best way
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  to have wars and have transnational boundary conflicts is to have one nation in a
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  healthier kind of climinological area than another. And so we've just got to do
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  with the environment as one of the key things we work on, as well
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  as other things like social justice and like like like peace. I mean,
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  those are all big picture things that humans can do a lot to solve.
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  With some of the organizations you're involved in UM and we'll talk again, this
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  is a Hello, we're just meeting each other. What are some of the
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  things that you're say, your nonprofits are actually doing that you're feeling good about.
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  Yeah, well there's one. There's one thing that I'm working on quite
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  quite actively, which is trying to protect thirty percent of British Columbia by twenty
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  thirty. This means more parks, just to make it simple, places where
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  species can be by themselves, they can be healthy and if they're healthy,
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  and that big of an area, and if we can go global on this
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  thirty percent of the world by twenty thirty, if we can go global on
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  this, we're going to have a lot better chance of protecting or biodiversity.
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  And then we can do it with a seventy percent. The humans can can
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  can do their thing on within certain rules, but but knowing that we still
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  have this big, big area that that's going to be left more or less
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  to nature to do its thing. And so you know, I could do
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  this in Botswana or Borneo or or Bolivia, but but I choose to do
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  it in British Columbia because it's my home and and BC has the largest biodiversity
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  in actually in North America, we have the most big mammals in Canada,
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  the most varied ecosystems. It's all about mountains and valleys and bcs just follow
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  those. It's the huge provinces. It's the size of California, Oregon and
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  Washington put together and then some. So it's a huge, huge province.
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  And so I'm going to say, well, if I can work on protecting
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  thirty percent of BC by twenty thirty, that's the thing worth doing. And
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  I'm doing that right now, very actively, in conjunction with the provincial government,
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  the federal government and a lot of these uh these first nations. We
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  have the indigenous people's in British Columbia who all want this as well. So
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  it's it's an achievable thing. And it's my little box right now that I'm
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  working hard on, and I feel it's going to be quite frankly, my
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  greatest legacy. Legacy. There you go, Well, it's a big box.
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  At the little box, it's a big box. I learned in Trivial
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  Pursuit, this game that was created by a couple of Canadians, and Canada
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  has the most amount of land on water in the world. That's one of
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  these trivial pursuit quit Canada. We like Canada. Okay, don't listen to
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  Seth McFarland and The South Park and all those shows, you know, causing
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  your country troubles. You know you have a we don't care. We're comfortable.
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  Hey, you know we don't care. You've got a great attitude.
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  Well, let me ask a couple just what is it for you? Then
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  ross and congratulation once again, and we'll talk again. If that's okay,
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  I could get more specific? What's peace for you? Since? Where we
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  do these peace day events? Actually it's in an in Times Square. There's
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  a park and it's called Father Duffy Square and it's a city run park.
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  I live next to the parks. I love the parks scenario. I'm a
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  boy scout. And then when you're a boy scout and you grow up in
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  the thinking of the train, you learn something about them a park. What
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  is peace for yours? Well? Pieces is an ability for humans to coexist
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  in harmony. That's what pieces. It doesn't matter whether you're green or black
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  or purple, or one religion or another, or one ethnic creed or another.
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  It's it's the ability to live and tolerate your neighbor. It's pretty simple,
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  Okay, all right, it's a it's a simple statement and a big,
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  a big act in certain times. But the good news, I'll just
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  say, you just say much after someone says something, is that most of
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  the world lives in peace, Thank the Lord and thank God because and that's
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  the story that we should focus on. There's some mentally old people out there.
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  I don't want to get the heavy here, and we need to help
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  them. But most of the world's at peace. Yeah, it's a hard
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  story to almost people to believe. I don't know why. Well, it's
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  it is a it's a crazy thing. If you look at human history,
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  you know, you do have every so often the the the male. It's
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  always a male is aggressive and assertive and and uh and is trying to conquer
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  his neighbors. And it's just like that. It's it's that sort of brain
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  comes out now and then, and unfortunately, those kind of people tend to
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  be leaders, and they tend to gather around them people who can be swayed
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  into that way of thinking for reasons of greed or or suspicion or envy or
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  whatever, and they rally around them. And if they're strong enough, they
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  go on the attack. And we've seen that recently in Ukraine with a you
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  could say mentally ill man in Saint Petersburg or Moscow and doing these things,
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  and he's dragging a lot of terribly unfortunate people along with him, and he's
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  causing mayhem and chaos without any logical reason. And that's the world we live,
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  and that's why we actually need defense spending unfortunately, because there are people
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  like that around. And thank heavens, by the way, thank heavens for
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  the USA and it's focused on defense and military spending because you know, it's
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  it's a deterrent to people like that, and it's being actively used right now.
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  Thank heavens. There you go. Thanks so much for taking some time
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  to talk about it. Appreciate le Okay fifty