Oil Pipelines, Fracking, Water Issues, Top Soil, and Censorship: Conversation with Steven Gute

Keri Norley  00:00

Hello and welcome to the wealth Alchemist podcast. My name is Keri Norley and today I am super duper excited to have the privilege of having a conversation with Steven Gute. He is a film maker who has worn many hats in is now 20 year career. He works as a director, producer, writer, cinematographer, journalist, editor and already has a long list of credits stretching across a multitude of formats. While his origins lay in narrative films. He was eventually sucked into documentary spiral beginning with Leonardo DiCaprio his 11th hour radicalised a portrait of millennial resistance during the occupy movement with Sam Slovic frontline documentation of pro protests at Standing Rock and Black Lives Matter. And ultimately, he's leading he led a team to the Arctic to film glaciers in decline for hbos is on fire. Stevens episodic documentary series Confluence, which uses water as a reflective lens to investigate a myriad of environmental concerns is a life long endeavour that he is working on. Steve, it is so amazing to have you on this show. I'm really excited for this conversation. For me. This podcast is all about wealth, but when I heard you so I met Steve at the Hollywood Film Festival and he won an award For his or his video, water his life and when I heard your story I just knew you had to be on here because as much as I talked about Well to me water is like it is life it is wealth and wealth is the ultimate wealth. And and I'm really excited to bring some more of these environmental concerns into this conversation because without this without us protecting our environment, what is the point of anything that we quote unquote acquire and actually literally even before we got on here, I literally said to Steve, like, what's like, it's such a fine line to walk the difference in the in the line between environmental concerns and fighting for the environment, and really having this preservation mindset, also to the fact that we're human. And that we do want to have an A, and a life full of all the things that we as humans, also desire at some level. So I'm super excited, and I really wanted to start talking the conversation with the waterpark, so talk, tell everybody about the video that you've created and Standing Rock and I, you know, I'd love to also hear because Standing Rock was so big in the news for a while, obviously, well, everything was happening, but then it kind of like disappeared. So I'd love to hear like, kinda love to hear some updates and things like what around that as well.

Steve Gute  06:18

Alright, well, I guess I got to give you a little context to understand what happened with the landscape of media during Standing Rock and the ability to release information because it was five years ago now. And that was a different world, honestly, in a lot of ways, especially for people in independent media, because it was really before, a lot of the censorship legislation kicked in, which was really as a result of Standing Rock more than anything. And so I had been working on Confluence since 2014. And the project initially started as a feature film, to investigate pollution in America using the Missouri River as the central artery for investigating the story, because the Missouri River, you know, ultimately is just it covers more ground than the Mississippi River. And ultimately, the water from the Missouri ends up joining the Mississippi. So it's a way to investigate both of those rivers and term Confluence came from in the initial journey that we were following. We had three people that were paddling the Missouri River in a canoe and taking water samples along the way. So they would take a water sample once every 10 miles going down the river to see how you trophic materials, heavy metals and other contaminants built up over time. And so they started up at the source of the river, near the border of Canada, and Three Forks, Montana, and then made their way down the river. And as they made their way down the river very quickly after leaving, like the Wild and Scenic Area in Montana, the river began to change and became more of an industrial shipping bar channel, rather than, you know, a traditional River and the way that we've castrated our rivers, here in America, I mean, we've dammed up everything. And realistically, our water doesn't flow like it used to before. And so as a result of that initial part of the documentary, we realised that the contaminants built up very quickly, especially after getting to North Dakota. And so a big part of this documentary was investigating oil and gas concerns and how that affected our water supply. And so ultimately, we, after that first trip, went down to the Gulf of Mexico, and was covering eutrophic zones in the Gulf and kind of the byproduct, the conclusion of that story of the water that started, you know, up in, you know, Montana and then made its way down the Gulf. And so it kind of morphed into two movies at that time, because it was just so much information to cover. And then as a result of going and covering the flooding that occurred in Louisiana in 2016, in Devon springs and the quote, unquote, 1000 year flood that occurred. I was in the Gulf, and I heard there was a protest happening at Energy Transfer Partners corporate headquarters in Dallas. And so I riled up some other water protector, independent media people and convince them to make a trip to Dallas with me. And so we went to Dallas to go and protest in front of Energy Transfer Partners and take the fight to them. And when I got there, it was just one of the most amazing protests I've ever been to and I've been to a lot of amazing protests. And so there are

Steve Gute  09:54

people from the Lakota tribe, Sioux Tribe. And so I got to meet a lot of people. From Standing Rock, they're at the corporate headquarters. And so I told them about the project I've been working on and how I've been fighting for the Missouri River already for a couple years. And so they thought I was a natural person to come and join them and help try and get the word out. And at the time, there was a media blackout that had occurred. And so you couldn't find a peep from any mainstream outlet about what was happening at the camp. I mean, if you were gonna tune in and find out what was going on, the only way to do it was watching Facebook Live. And so, you know, there, there was just no coverage whatsoever, and the election was around the corner. And Hillary Clinton was heavily invested in the pipeline, Trump was invested in the pipeline, you know, everybody wanted this thing to get built in a bipartisan fashion. And the way that it was rerouted north of Bismarck to go through indigenous land in violation of the 1861 treaties was just unacceptable. And so yeah, I basically just said, I need to go up there. And I felt a real call to be involved. And even though I'm not an indigenous person, you know, I wanted to show solidarity. And so I went up in August of 2016, right when it started getting intense. And so I got there almost at the same time that the dog attacks occurred, and Amy Goodman was there. And that kind of started to get the national conversation going a little bit. But it was still only really in like more kind of independent Democracy Now, front line, you know, kind of more progressive journalism type circles, the regular mainstream media didn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. And so that continued for months. And so I was living in a tent in chatti at the time, and it was just a beautiful time to be there. Because that was really when the influx of all the different tribes were coming into Standing Rock. And so you had 500 plus tribes that were all there. And it was really before like, kind of the the normal people started coming to Standing Rock, it was more like the really committed devoted people who like knew the issues and were there for the right reasons. And then after kind of became popular, it became somewhat of a Burning Man type situation for certain people. And then you also had the issue of having a lot of provocateurs, and people from the oil and gas industry that were trying to infiltrate and intentionally sabotage the camp. So as time went on, the mood started to get it was less, you know, festive and joyful, and was more blank, just based on stress. And, you know, the imminent threat of being rated at any moment. And, yeah, it was, it got really intense towards the end of October. And so right before Halloween, there was an incident at the backwater bridge, where there was, you know, people got shot with non lethal or less than lethal tools. You know, tear gas was used, there is the famous footage of people being sprayed with water cannons, for instance, on November 8. And then on November 2, I think was the confrontation that occurred that I was at where we were shot at by the military and mandanna County Sheriff's private security. And this was just for water protectors, building a bridge trying cross the other side of the river to get closer to the construction site. And so they built the bridge, were able to get over to the other side, the minute that they got the other side of the cannonball river, it just turned into a disaster. And so you had indigenous leaders that were in the river praying and they were getting, you know, spray, pepper sprayed and just, you know, shot out like point blank, and these are less than lethal, they are not non lethal. So a lot of times they refer to these things as non lethal rounds. They are fatal if you are shot at a close distance shine. Yeah, I can tell you I have been shot at with these things many times. And somehow I haven't been hit with one quite yet. Many of my friends have. But you know, I guess I've got some kind of divine protection on my side at this point. But I've been hit with plenty of buttons and whatnot. But I've never gotten a rubber bullet yet. But so that day was I think, really the turning point in terms of the national coverage in the media. And so it just became something that couldn't be ignored anymore. And so I remember November 2, the camp was, you know, still, it felt like the old camp and then on November 3, everyone woke up and I'll never forget outside Have the we had media hill where all the journalists had to check in. And originally it was like me and six other people. And then that day alone on November 3, after the violence, you saw a line, just going, you know, well on the camp, and so you have like, literally like hundreds, if not 1000s of people show up in solidarity that week, the first second week of November, which was great, because it brought more numbers, and it like really added to the national conversation. But it made the camp a more unstable place. And it meant that there were more egos to manage. And, you know, realistically, it was right before the election was happening. This was like the week before the election, because I think the election was on the eighth. If I recall, Mr. Moran then yeah, yeah. And so this was the time when the democrats were kind of like, Oh, no, like, you know, people have outed us as being very supportive. This pipeline, especially the position that Hillary Clinton took, was very much like, Alright, you guys, you know, we can talk about this later, but we're gonna have to build it first, like the paperwork is already done. And you people were being, you know, like, basically terrorists. And so, you know, then Trump was literally personally invested in the pipeline. So we knew in a bipartisan fashion that this was probably going to be built. But because so many people kept coming, and the, you know, the media kept covering it after the election,

Steve Gute  16:34

we knew that something was going to have to give, especially when the vets decided to go to Standing Rock and, and put their bodies on the line in front of the water protectors, the state of North Dakota, I think, just realise that was the worst PR in the world, to see us veterans being assaulted by private security members. And by local, you know, sheriffs. I mean, those people served in Iraq, and they got the shaft when they got back home. And then, you know, just to that image alone, I think was just scary enough for them to basically put a moratorium on the drilling process. And when Obama announced the moratorium, and the Army Corps ruling, everyone celebrated and if you watch the video that I produced, that's where the video ends. And everyone thought that the pipeline was stopped. And I remember even being reticent to put that ending in the video. Because, you know, when all the celebrations were going on at camp, I just said, you know, this isn't the time to celebrate, like this is just a moratorium, this is a distraction. This is a tool that they use to make people forget, you know, and think that the situation is over. And then people are going to stop wanting to go to Standing Rock, and then the minute that the numbers are down, then they're going to build the pipeline. And that's exactly what happened. Yeah. And unfortunately, people didn't even know about it, everyone, a lot of times now, people will say, Oh, yeah, whatever did happen with Standing Rock, like, you know, it's really quite, I'm really glad that everyone went to the camp and stopped the pipeline. I say, No, the pipeline is built. Literally the the, I think two weeks after Trump got inaugurated, he signed an executive order to build the dapple and the Keystone XL pipeline. And luckily, the Keystone XL pipeline, such a, you know, permitting clusterfuck I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on this. But yeah, because the Keystone XL pipeline was just such a, you know, a web of, you know, permitting issues that had to be untangled. I think at a certain point, the powers that be in the industry realised that that was just going to be too big of a problem, which is basically the institution that handles interstate oil and gas infrastructure projects. And if you need to do anything in an interchangeable state, it's Yeah, it's much more difficult. But if you want to do something localised, it's much easier and Energy Transfer Partners, was able to somehow I don't know how they were able to, like get this through the legal system, but they were basically able to treat each state as a local, like domestic project and the dapple wasn't looked at as an interstate project. That's why they're able to get their permits so easily. So you know, a lot of people have been looking at how the permitting process happened, and realising this pipeline was built in an illegal way. And basically tribal elders were probably paid off in the process. Like, if you look at how arsham bald, the head of the Sioux Nation handled himself. He kind of changed his tone in December of 2016, unfortunately, and he obviously made a deal with oil and gas. Industry untold all the water protectors, it was time to leave. But those people who came to the camp decided to dedicate their lives to it and said, you know what you asked us to come, we're not leaving. And so the youth council from Standing Rock, who realistically were the people that put out the call to action, decided to defy the elders and the tribal leadership, which is not something that's like traditional in native culture at all. It's usually the young people, you got to shut up, listen to the elders. The elders were clearly wrong. And then, lo and behold, the raid happened. And it was pretty nasty. But a lot of my friends got arrested and ended up getting thrown into the legal system for years as a result, but luckily, I think just about all of them have their charges dropped after challenging them. The only really infamous case of like a political prisoner from Standing Rock was red font, who, luckily it was just finally released, I think, about six months ago, and we're happy that red font was finally released. But it was all basically because she had a gun landed on her by her FBI and former boyfriend. So crazy.

Keri Norley  21:13

Holy moly, Holy moly.

Steve Gute  21:16

But just to conclude that story really quick, the. So once the word got out, and the the genie was out of the bottle, we were going live. And we would have like 30,000 people watching us while we were live streaming. And so this was a direct threat to the economic model of the United States, which really the US dollar based on the value of oil. And, you know, that's kind of what keeps it artificially high, just to throw in the monetary policy aspect. But because of the success with us live streamers and independent media, they knew that they needed to find a way to manipulate algorithms, and pass legislation to you know, try and take the internet away from us. And so Standing Rock really was the, the domino that fell that led to us, ultimately, not being able to reach reach an audience anymore. And so we used to have 3 million people come on through our Facebook page, week during Standing Rock. And now we're lucky if we get 3000. So Wow, being a quote unquote, fake news site. And this is all democrats doing this mind you like the fake news bill was signed by Obama before he left office. And so you know, there's a bipartisan push to try and limit the access that independent media has. And so I've had, like, one of my best friends had his account disabled yesterday. And just because he's covered Black Lives Matter, and specifically the LAPD and so if you speak out against the status quo, and you know, environmental way and social justice way, and, you know, monetary way, they're probably going to shut you down. So

Keri Norley  22:59

yeah, I mean, I'm here. I'm only a little I'm only a little media person right? Now, yes, like we all count, right. But as compared to and I've had my business page shut down. I was like, I don't even say that much that's like that, you know, hugely controversial. And so I think about it all the time. Like, it's, it's really well, it's a big problem. And I do want to talk to you about censorship, actually. But I want to stick to water for now. Yeah. Um, with that, so with all these pipelines, you know, being built, because they are being built. How does it I want to talk about how it actually affects our water.

Steve Gute  23:34

Okay. So, I mean, if you really look at a lot of the industry likes to Gaslight us and say, all right, well, pipelines are the safest method to move petroleum. And if they built these things correctly, maybe they wouldn't be the best way to move petroleum. But the truth is, is, you know, even building these things, we're doubling down on an infrastructure of outdated technology that we know we need to move away from. And so, realistically, the, the exposure and the discussion about pipelines becomes localised mainly into two arenas, the Keystone XL pipeline, and the Dakota Access Pipeline. Dakota access pipeline is, since it was built has already had multiple incidents where it's leaked the Missouri River, and I guess people don't realise this. The first one happened, I think, six months after it was built. So from what I have seen, you know, not only does the industry not maintain the infrastructure they already have, but they build all of their new infrastructure in just a poor quality fashion that's prone to failure. And they basically pay include all of the fines and other costs that they have and they anticipate for polluting it. into their yearly operating budget. So they've realised that it's cheaper for them to just prepare to buy off the regulator's than it is to do things in a responsible fashion, because that would affect their business model.

Keri Norley  25:13

So I could still go to the pharmaceutical industry from that spot too, but go

Steve Gute  25:18

but that's a conversation. Realistically, they're kind of hand in hand if you really look at like bear and some of these other companies like the link between the petroleum industry and the pharmaceutical industry is very tangible and real. But just to talk a little bit more about pipelines and how they affect our water supply. There are so many pipelines that are being built right now besides the obvious ones, they get all the attention. Like if you go out into the Pecos area in Texas, for instance, that area is just big, it looks like Mordor basically, there's just fire everywhere from all the flares from, you know, all the frack sites, and they literally are building so many pipelines. Like, if you look at a map, like it looks like a giant spiderweb of all these different intersecting lines. And, you know, it's funny, because if you look at like a map of the rivers of America, and then you juxtapose that with a map of all the pipelines of America on top of it, I mean, it looks very similar. Wow. Yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty insane that we're moving as much petroleum as we do. And in such a haphazard fashion without having proper security, because there's no way you can guard 1000s and 1000s of miles pipeline. So just from like a security point of view, I mean, the area that basically there's two areas in America that calculate the the amount of petroleum that are moving through these pipelines that ultimately dictate the global price of oil. And so there's the Henry hub in Louisiana. And then there's Cushing in Oklahoma. And so those are both quote, unquote, the pipeline, crossroads of the world. And both of those areas are pretty Podunk. And I don't think a lot of people even know about it, but you know, if you're like me, and you want to track these places down, it's like, basically going and, you know, filming on like a zombie film set or something. It's just it looks like, you know, some kind of dystopian, you know, hellhole death. Yeah, but so they're building all these new pipelines everywhere. But the the one that I think, is the most disastrous in the making is there's two, line three and line five, which are Enbridge projects, a Canadian company to build pipelines that will cross the Great Lakes region, and bring tar sands dilbit, which dope, it's basically the concoction of the slurry of the tar mixed with other chemicals to be able to make it move through the pipeline. But the issue is, with dilbit. It, it's very viscous. And when you run the drill bit through the inside of a pipeline, it basically has the effect of sandpaper. And so it erodes the interior line very quickly. And so these tar sands pipelines have the highest degree of failure of any kind of pipeline. It's not like moving crude oil, which is, you know, obviously, it's a lubricant. And so it's going to be able to move for decades through a pipeline, ideally, safely. But dilbit is you just can't really transport it in especially to move it across the Great Lakes is a disaster in the making. And so line five in particular is right at the Mac in Australia. And that area, is just it's basically a funnel, and so all of the water from Lake Superior meets right there, and then flows into Lake Huron, and then all goes down in the Mississippi River. And if that goes, there'll be no way to stop it. Like the the art I think it was the Army Corps did an assessment and they said, if there was a spill that happened in the winter, and that area was covered nice. There wouldn't be anything they could do about it would take weeks to even mobilise the boats just to get out there and to be able to confront the problem. And so Enbridge Canadian company, they're only

Keri Norley  29:20

really quickly though, like if it does that, just because I mean, because it's frozen, it doesn't mean that the oil then stops moving, because it's happening under the water.

Steve Gute  29:26

Exactly. Just the top of the lake will be frozen, but the bottom, all of that oil underneath that,

Keri Norley  29:31

 So than it contaminates all the way through the river.

Steve Gute  29:34

Exactly. And so that pollution will make it all the way down to the Gulf and Enbridge has, I mean it's kind of like every year the top polluters kind of changed slightly but they're usually in the top five in terms of pipeline safety. So usually the worst violator you know, pipeline wise every year is either Sunoco or Enbridge. Enbridge was originally one of the people that we're having involved with financing the Dakota Access Pipeline, but moved out of the project and just supported in secret just because they knew ultimately it was a PR nightmare, you know, in the making, and it could affect their plans with line three in line five, which should have been kind of swept under the carpet. And right now, that battle is really amping up. So I've been covering Enbridge for several years and have been up in Minnesota and Michigan, Michigan, in particular, has a special place in my heart because my mom's from the Detroit area. And I just feel like Michigan has gotten the shaft in so many ways. And that whole state should just be like designated a wildlife preserve. And just there should be an initiative to try and clean it up rather than keep polluting it. So Enbridge is trying to build line five, they've had some resistance Now finally, from Dana Nestle, the Attorney General of Michigan, and from Gretchen Whitmer, who's the governor. And, you know, I'm happy that she's actually stepped up to the plate Finally, after several years to confront this, but it really wasn't until Trump took office that you know, this was even at conversation because whenever the democrats are trying to build pipelines, everyone wants to turn a blind eye to it, like right now, Joe Biden. But so line five is in the process of being stopped, hopefully. And I think the state of Michigan is, you know, finally realised like this doesn't help us whatsoever. And it's really just to the benefit of a Canadian oil company at the expense of all the people in Michigan. But yeah, three is being built in Minnesota, and I covered it in 2018. And since then, the construction is actually actively begun. And so I told the additional Bay and the Ojibwe and some other tribal members up there that the minute that the construction starts, let me know. And I'll probably come and pay you a visit. So I'm probably going to leave to go up to Minnesota and join the camp in the next week or two. But they've also issued an eviction notice they've closed the easement to the camp. So even getting there's a challenge. And it's kind of this situation of like you could go to jail for decades for being on that property. And the law is obviously collaborating with the Canadian oil company, and violating treaty rights of all the tribal members who have stood up to their land being contaminated. And so the best thing you can do right now, if you want to stand up to pipelines is to support the line three camp. I think they're a little reticent to just put out an open call, just because of the provocateurs and everything that happened during Standing Rock with infiltrators. And, you know, the camping kind of torn apart by interior dynamics, and, you know, but if you want to donate to lion three, you can go to resist line three.com, I think it is just search, you know, stop line three, and you'll be able to get a link to all the water protectors that are doing good work. But a lot of the same people who are involved heavily in Standing Rock are there. And this is something big in the works. And, you know, everyone likes to give Joe Biden a lot of credit for stopping the Keystone XL pipeline, that was just the obvious thing to do. And it makes him look like an environmentalist. And you can get away with murder with everything else, and not confront any of the elephants in the room. So I have a lot of difficulty now having conversations about the environment with a lot of my kind of more establishment democrat minded friends, unfortunately. So you know, if we're going to, like claim to care about the environment and climate change, we need to actually do something about it, not just, you know, front a bunch of rhetoric, it's time for serious action,

Keri Norley  33:51

that I have two questions. First one I want to hear after you answer this question, though, is that where we can take actions like what we can really do? But before that, I really want to be super clear with people. So like, when we start to get like, these leaks start to happen, because they do and they will, and they will continue right every day. How does it like, literally down to you and me affect us? Because that's happening in our water? And what is happening to us and for us or against us because of these leaks?

Steve Gute  34:21

Well, I mean, if you really look at like across the country, they don't maintain these pipelines whatsoever. And in certain states, they have more regulations about maintaining their infrastructure. And then you get to other states like Louisiana and Texas, and you know, there's just no protocol for them to do anything. And they just basically leave all their, you know, old waste and in a lot of cases, they'll just throw it underground. Like I was just recently on the Navajo reservation, and they have basically just turned Chaco Canyon into a dump site. So they're injecting all of their produce water from fracking operations and all this other You know, activity into the water table in arguably one of the most sacred sites in the whole country. I mean, wow, shared by several different tribes, not just the Navajo. Yeah, so their cancer rates are going through the roof. And you know, so recently with the COVID pandemic, these people, their immune systems were so affected by all the pollution that they've been inundated with over the past 100 years. And the fact we forced bad diets on them, that they're not capable of, you know, combating the virus like other people. And so they have something like I think it was twice the mortality rate of other people off the rez. And so it's not just one obvious manifestation of it. But as these pipelines leak and these petrochemicals get into our water supply, it's just the Asterix in terms of people's health and all side another Enbridge pipeline, the largest, the two largest inland oil spills that ever occurred in human history have been from two Enbridge projects. Number one was the original line three that they're now replacing. And that was in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, that was the largest amount of petroleum ever leaked in an inland capacity. And then there was also the line six Beam pipeline that burst in 2012 2011, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Kalamazoo is that areas are covered with Superfund sites everywhere, and the river was just destroyed. And so they tried to clean it up. But you can't clean up tar sands. And so if you go to the Kalamazoo river, and hang out on the banks, and you look at the side of the river, and you look at the rocks, you can actually see the tar sands, on the rocks. And there's signs everywhere that say it's not safe to fish, it's not safe to swim, that whole river is just, it's destroyed. And it would take like, I mean, I don't even know what kind of dredging work would be required for that to, you know, to be remitted. But realistically, I don't think you can remit a lot of this different pollution because it's just sunk so far into our ecosystem of there's not much you can do about it. But Enbridge, since they own the local government, they got to basically get paid to clean up their own mess with taxpayer dollars. There was no oversight from the EPA or any other officials to my knowledge, and they just swept everything under the carpet and acted like it was okay. And now to this day, you know, some 10 years later, Kalamazoo has a massive cancer cluster and people are just getting insanely sick out there but because there's so many different things that are affecting people's health in Kalamazoo it's kind of impossible to just pinpoint the pipeline as being the result of all these cancer clusters because it could come from the former weapons producer in the area and you know, the lands completely contaminated with PFS p FOS and other chemicals as well so but you really look at it if you're close to an oil and gas infrastructure project, there's probably going to be 20 years taken off your life just by living in a proximal capacity to set infrastructure. And realistically I think it's time that we we start you know, re analysing how we're going about our entire energy system. And you know, we had a lot of time to deal with this already but for some reason the baby boomers have decided to kick the can further and further down the road. And pretty soon it's going to be the responsibility of Gen X millennials Gen Z and then whatever generation comes after,

Keri Norley  39:05

My kids I don't know if they have a label yet

39:09

Oh, yeah, they got to get a little older before they get brandish.

Keri Norley  39:12

But they've got a lot on their hands I look at these kids you know, I'm my boy my boys are 12 and 8 and I look at them like wow, you our generation that's going to make some big changes and like imagining like I just know what they've been through with COVID and the stuff that they've had to deal with it no generation has had to go through yet, work it's you know, and I'm like, man, they're resilient kids, but they're and and and no, right. So it's going to shift them. And the way they show up for some of these decisions in a way because they're seeing like in their own eyes that youth like the way that they're being created through this. To have a stronger voice like I look at my 12 year old he went back to school in the first day he went back to school, which was February of this year, so almost a year later. And they had to be met wearing masks all day even when they went outside and he came home Here's Mom, this is not freedom. And he was screaming, he's like, we're supposed to live in a country of freedom, and it's not freedom and he was off and I was like, you go 12 year old kid, and you take that out to the world, and you tell people, like, you know, it's not his place at this moment. But that that will create like, these things will create little, like, you know, injection points into their lives of which things will they won't want to sit and watch this on the sideline like, baby boomers, you know, so I think it'd be very interesting to see what happens for sure. On these generations. Okay, so But, way

Steve Gute  40:37

Yay before I did, you know, I was in my early 20s, I think before I realised that reality was garbage. So

Keri Norley  40:43

Right, hopeless. Um, so Okay, so we fill this with water. Ultimately, what I'm hearing you say is, and like this goes beyond I think, even where people are local to the situations because to me, what I'm hearing is, it's like, we're destroying our water supply, we're destroying the water that we can drink. And water is like, that's where we started this whole conversation. Water is life, like we as human beings cannot live without water. And so the more that we destroy it, like, and I'm even hearing to mean, like, I know, for me, like, I want to have drink filtered water, that's chemical toxic, free as we can get it. But I don't think that that's actually even a possibility. Because I think there's so much stuff in it, I don't think that we can actually keep it totally clean. And I know that like is a health person, how that can affect like, as you said, like you said cancer, but it can affect in every single way shape and form the health of our systems. And I think the more that we is a general rule of thumb, the more that we put toxicity into our bodies, whether it's from the oil spills, whether it's from electromagnetic frequencies, whether it's from you name, all the ways that we can create toxicity in our bodies, the more that we struggle to be at our most vital self. And so many people I so many people look at like, Oh, it was generational. Oh, it was like, Oh, my gosh, I didn't know we're gonna go here that we have your genetics, yeah, right? Like, no, you actually drink some really toxic stuff, you put it into your body, so did your mom's.

Steve Gute  42:15

Generational too, especially heavy metals. I mean, it's kind of like someone born with addiction issues, you know, they didn't have a fair chance because their parents were addicted to substances while they were pregnant. And ultimately, that, you know, imbalance not addiction gets carried on to the next generation. It's the same thing with heavy metals. And publishing, you know, if you grew up in an area, like, let's take the Southwest, for instance, here in the United States, my parents generation was living here at the time when they were doing nuclear testing in Nevada. And so that ultimately didn't just stay on the Nevada Test Site, that radiation basically emitted all over the Southwest. And so especially areas like St. George, you know, that were downwind of the test site were heavily impacted. And so JFK when he heard that the radiation was in the clouds in the rain, and they were finding unsafe radioactive levels, and most of the milk that was produced to dairy farms, and Calvin, you know, Southwest, he knew that, you know, this had gotten out of control. And we're in the process of, like, killing ourselves, just to try and stand up to an enemy. And, you know, realistically, a lot of was just concocted opposition in the first place. But, you know, ultimately, the test ban was enacted by JFK in 63. And ultimately, you know, we started to confront a lot of these issues in the 70s. And, you know, the EPA was created under Nixon, you had Greenpeace really moving forward, and, you know, starting the first Earth Day, and so there was a real consciousness associated with fighting these problems in the late 70s. And then, we all know what happened after Ronald Reagan was elected, you don't need to have full compensation. Basically, they just like I said, you know, we're gonna let industry just do whatever they want. And government is the problem. regulation is the problem. And that allowed us to be unfairly poison, and our health really dropped off, I think, in the 1980s. And especially in the 1990s. When, you know, we started really getting some of the worst food in the history of mankind, you know, just served us in normalised way. But I'm really happy that there has been some kind of consciousness associated with food that gives me some hope, because I used to talk about Monsanto and GMOs. You know, the difference between traditional farming versus the petrochemical monoculture farming that we have now and I've seen progress made in a short time and so I know if We make it a priority, and there's an economic incentive to change, then people will. But the problem is the oil and gas industry is such a mafia that they own our government, and they have billions and billions of dollars of subsidies from us. So, you know, standing up against a villain owns your own government. I mean, it's hard, it's very difficult. And it's almost like to take these people down, like, we're gonna have to have some kind of, you know, like, like coup against the typical power structures, but not in a mindless lay, where we're just storming the Capitol, we need to have like, a very, very aggressive, insightful strategy to stand up to these villains, because realistically, they've done a really good job consolidating power, and dividing us and keeping us fighting amongst ourselves, rather than pointing the finger up the top of the pyramid, exactly where we are right now. Yeah. And that's where we're at. And I know you're in Denver. So Colorado, you know, one of my old former home states is a beautiful, beautiful place, but you kind of unfairly taken advantage of early on, when your government said, You wanted to be like a test ground basically for fracking.

Keri Norley  46:15

Can you talk a little bit more about fracking? So I wanted to bring that part of the conversation too. So, so explain, because I think there's many people here who've heard the word but have no idea what it actually is. Yeah. So can you give a little explanation of that?

Steve Gute  46:25

Alright, so fracking, basically, I mean, the technology has been around since the 1930s, the idea of breaking up petroleum reserves underground, and then syphoning up to the surface. And so that concept is not new. And but what we couldn't do was we couldn't frack shale reserve, and do it in an efficient way. And so I remember, even in the 80s and early 90s, my dad always saying that, you know, I guess he, he read a lot of this energy propaganda before I did, and like knew, he was conditioned to accept it before it happened. But he used to tell me that the United States would be the largest energy provider in the world. And we sat on the largest energy reserves in the world if we could figure out how to access them. And so that mainly was talking about tar sands, and shale reserves. And so a friend of mine is a guy named Tony raffia, who lives in Ithaca, in New York. And he was he was a scientist, he worked for the oil and gas industry and helped develop the fracking process. And so basically, the problem was, was they needed to be able to figure out a proprietary chemical slurry concoction that they could shoot down into the well, that would have the right buoyancy to send the oil back up. And so it took them years of research with, you know, how to do the proper casings. So basically, they drill a hole, you know, and in a lot of cases, these can be two to five miles down and chances now it's like it's gotten insane. So and traditionally, what people would do is they would just drill straight down, and then oil would go straight up. But now what we're doing is horizontal drilling. So they'll drill down, and then they can drill to the side, and then they can drill down on the side again. And so it is just insane what we're doing. And, you know, they could go and drill, and then go horizontally drill onto your land, even if you don't give me permission. And when I press any legal, you know, with standing and say, Well, you know, we drilled from this location, so you know, that we're able to tap that reserve, but, you know, it's, it's ours now, and we don't have to pay you any money. And, you know, realistically, so what they do is they drill this hole in the wall, they inject these chemicals, and then they

Steve Gute  49:00

set off explosions underground to break up the shale. And after the shell is broken up, they syphon the gas and oil up to the surface. So there's fracking for oil, and there's also fracking for gas. And realistically, now they're fracking more for gas than oil. And the efficiency of these wells is absurd. I think I was reading usually, they're lucky to capture 30% of the gas that comes out of these, if they're lucky. So that means that 70% is going going atmosphere. And and so when Tony was telling me about this technology that they invented, they thought this was going to be used for like very difficult remote wells and, you know, deposits that weren't able to be accessed with traditional drilling. And it became pretty clear around like, 2007 2008 that that's not what their intention was. There. In intention was to just use this as a normalised process because it's cheaper, and they can just blow everything up, send it to the surface. And they don't need to be specific with their geological work looking for said deposit. So it's very, it's a lazy way to go about drilling honestly. And so Tony told me that he had a moral opposition to the technology that he helped create. And so after he saw how the technology was being abused in a very quick timeframe, he ended up changing sides and started collaborating with Josh Fox and a lot of the other anti fracking activists in Pennsylvania, New York, and there has been some progress made. I mean, I'm not a fan of Governor Cuomo by any stretch, but the moratorium in New York was a step in the right direction, they need a full ban. But the moratorium was, you know, I'll say at least it was good, they did that. And they're not drilling anything into those areas. But areas like outside of Scranton, I mean, it's it's unbelievable. And you know that the industry controls Pennsylvania right now in the Marcellus Shale reserves. So that area is just, it's insane. And you know, you drive around a battery, and it's beautiful. It's very uncontaminated, but, you know, you smell the air, and you go, What is that, and it's basically all of the methane that's being released constantly, you know. So methane is something like 70 times more volatile than carbon as a greenhouse gas. And so the Al Gore's of the world would love to tell you, we just need to shift away from carbon and you know, everything will be fine. And these people even touted fracking, it's green technology, because it's natural, clean burning gas. And, you know, the, the shift to move our entire infrastructure to natural gas as a bridge fuel for the next 40 years, is just a death sentence for future generations. And so I think a lot of these kind of brainwashed liberals need to be called out on their bullshit immediately, because they're being very Cavalier and also very smug at the same time saying, we need to do this, it's the top priority, you know, and it just, it's it's imperative that we do this now. But they don't want to do anything, it's almost kind of like a controlled opposition, it's the way that they can go and Co Op the environmental movement, and then kind of say, this is what's going to happen. And they can dictate the future of the environmental movement, in a way that's favourable for industry. And they can slowly transition rather than having to confront the inevitable and the solutions, or they're like, you know, we do not need to be making plastic out of petroleum, for instance, right now, we do it, because that's how the industry makes money, they need to sell us our waste products. And it's so cheap, that people like it, and the consumer likes it. But realistically, you start to see the levels of plastic, you know, in our ocean, and how that's breaking down and creating micro plastics. It's, you know, like we're literally becoming plodding,

Keri Norley  53:07

we're eating I mean, like we inhale, I think it was obscene amount of plastic every year: Microplastics.

Steve Gute  53:12

I can't remember the exact stat but they released a new one, like two weeks ago, and I'm like, Oh my god, like he like five pounds of plastic.

Keri Norley  53:20

It is something ridiculous like that. I was reading about it recently, too.

Steve Gute  53:23

So it's, it's pretty out of control.

Keri Norley  53:26

And it's really hard to get out of your body to it's not like it's something that you're just like, Oh, I'm gonna just go and drink some water and it's gonna flush out in my body. No, like, you have plastic stuck in you.

Steve Gute  53:35

And it's creating endocrine disruption. So it's throwing our whole hormone levels out of whack. And, you know, it's affecting fertility, fertility, ovarian cancer, you know, impotency, low sperm counts. I mean, from a reproductive point of view, it's a disaster. So,

Keri Norley  53:54

like, so many of the things that I see right now happening in the world from current things that I, you know, don't want to mention because of censorship right now.

Steve Gute  54:04

Yeah, we only get pulled out mid feed, you know, no,

Keri Norley  54:08

to these types of things, like, you know, there's just so many ways that the powers that be want us to stop reproducing, ultimately, you know, like, they're affecting the way that we are able to, and so many more, so many more couples are having problems having children right now, and probably ever, I don't know, the staff, but like, it's happening,

Steve Gute  54:24

Anyone knows the stats, honestly. But they don't really want this kind of information and get out there. Because if they did, they have to confront you know, they're killing all of us. And yeah, you know, like to look at, like, what degree of that agenda is the case? I mean, it's a it's very subjective. And it's hard to even have these conversations because it's basically an investigation of genocide. And, you know, if you look at what happened to the Native Americans, for instance, I mean, we literally are still trying to kill them, and destroy their culture. And so this idea that America Uh, you know, that's something that was in the past, like now we need to confront how we're still doing this and how we're responsible for propping up other countries. You know, our leaders, at least in other countries that are committing horrible war crimes, you know, we claim to care about justice and democracy. But you know, our track record really proves otherwise. Like we're really more interested in overthrowing democratically elected leaders to instil right wing dictators that are favourable for imperialistic corporate means, instead of actually, you know, doing the thing, people decide their own process. And I mean, that's why the whole thing of like, talking about the hacking of the 2016 election is so kind of absurd to me, because it's like, we have meddled in every single other democracy on the planet, and especially Russia's, and I don't even think they were really the sole cause of what happened. Like, you really look at what happened in 2016. It was just a full on rebellion against the status quo, people want to change. And, you know, you had one candidate that was offering this, you know, kind of bastardised version of change, but at least he latched on to populism, you know, you had Hillary Clinton saying, you know, you're all just, you know, just being uncompromising, and this is the way it is. And, you know, they weren't listening to anybody, they were telling people, it's gonna keep being like this. And finally, there was just an opposition against it. I mean, I've been to I think I was in 37 states or something stupid in 2016. And so I knew what was going to happen before it happened. I told everybody, like, you know, Trump's gonna win, and everyone thought I was nuts. But lo and behold, I was right. That's funny,

Keri Norley  56:40

one of my one of the, I have like a little section in my book, that's that I talked about Trump. And I said, you know, regardless of politics, whatever you think about him or politics at all, it's like, he came in to the office at the time he did, because the world was enough, it had enough of stuff. And if Clinton had come in, we would have just stayed in the same, same thing, nothing would have actually changed. And because of the way that he showed up, it actually asked all of us to look within ourselves and go, that frickin sucks. And I no longer want that anymore. Right? Whether it was you in so many ways, right? And whether it was through his personality, whether it was through different things, like we all had to look and say, like, hey, that's not cool, but then look at ourselves, and like, what are we going to do to stop that in this world, and it took somebody who came in who was willing to do the things that others weren't? Because he was, in many ways, right in his own in his own madness, that that meant, like, we could actually see things and start to stand up in ways that as humanity we haven't before. And interestingly, because when I think of democracy, I think of this this, this, the thought that, you know, like we are here as a democracy is actually the protection. The Constitution is actually protection for the people, not the government. You know, and I think people forget that. And I think what's happened so much now is that it's become like this, the government is the best, but no, like, the government is full of all sorts of things that wants to control and manipulate us. Because it's easier for us as humans, for them to be able to control us, then for those of us who are standing up and actually having a voice and saying, This is not okay. Because they don't want that they don't want to have no, they don't want the you and me of the world to come out and say these things, because then they can't control it, and they can't make it. They're sort of peaceful.

Steve Gute  58:25

Exactly. Well, I will say, you know, I was no fan of Trump whatsoever, you know, I thought like, realistically, policy wise, there was very little that I had, you know, good say about him. I mean, the one thing I will say is, you know, he did stop the TPP and I think like, you know, if you look at the WTO and a lot of these other international trade organisations, and you know, economic groups that are fronting to be, you know, democratic, you know, they're actually the exact opposite, you know, big transition point for me and understanding human history. And like, just the whole Zeit, guys that we currently live in was the Seattle WTO protests in 1999, which I think is one of the more underlooked moments in human history. And if you really look at, you know, what happened then that was foreshadowing everything that was happening now. So, you know, that's why they don't want that intentionally, intentionally leave it out of the history books, but a lot of our history gets on lineage. And that's why nobody knew about Juneteenth until two weeks ago. And that's why, you know, nobody really knows about like the the Tulsa bombings or the long walk that the Navajo had to go through, because it doesn't really look make us look like the good guys. And our whole reputation falls apart pretty quickly. And once you really look at like, some of our previous actions, but I think, you know, the one thing that Trump did that I liked, was it made it obvious how fucked up we were, and people took to the streets and said, we're not going to take this shit anymore. And last year was a really amazing Summer of consciousness and like I filmed, I think 15 protests or something. And it was just every day, it was just a magical fairy to go out and join your community and go speak out for what's right. And it was amazing the bonds that were built and you know, a lot of people who were coming from different affinities join hands to say, you know, we need to, like look at the bigger enemy is. And then after Trump was taken down, and now we have Biden, I'd say like, 75% of those people just went straight to sleep. And now we're having the summer that's all kind of based on hedonism and selfishness and quote, unquote, the roaring 20s. And I love to tell these people, you know, what happened after the roaring 20s, the Great Depression, like you idiots, like go and start paying attention to how your community is affected, don't just go and justify like, hot girls summer, just because you've been locked inside for, you know, a couple years, there's some people who can't go and enjoy that quality of life, because they're disproportionately affected by our economic system. And those are the people who are doing the work, which is really frustrating. So, you know, I just implore people to just open their eyes a little bit more. And just to like, say, you know, we can't accept this mediocre transition to the future, we either do it now, or we're just doing everyone that comes after us. So yes, a lot of kind of a downer. But you know, that's just, I'm also kind of a realist. And I want to also inspire people, but also not just let them off the hook. Because if we only say like, we're going to focus on positivity and manifesting a great world or whatever, you know, I think that's kind of dangerous, because it's like, it's basically squashing the conversation before it happens, because it's like, oh, your negative needs. We don't want negativity in our space students, we only want to create a beautiful world for ourselves. But you know, that's usually at the expense of other people, unfortunately.

Steve Gute  1:04:24

I'm just gonna say, you know, they're I think one of the things people love to talk about now. Especially in like, New Age community, I've noticed that you know, people like to talk about economic abundance a lot. And I guess that's just a term that I have a lot of issue with, because like based on the, the work that I've done, travelling around and investigating, I mean, if you really want to look at like the things that are most important, like access to clean water, access to clean air, access to good topsoil, that's becoming scarce and their idea of abundance. You know, it doesn't really translate to an environmental kind of mindset. Because Do you have abundance, you need to have an abundant supply, you know, as well, and especially with water, it's just dwindling quicker and quicker and quicker. And so I think this is probably the best way I can link, you know, what we're talking about now with the pipelines and everything at Standing Rock from before. So do you know who? Chief arval looking horses? No. Okay, well, he was kind of one of the quintessential leaders in during Standing Rock. And so he's, I think, probably in his late 70s or early 80s. Now, but he is just a magical person. And he's a very traditional medicine man. And I got the honour of interviewing him in his tent in Standing Rock, and he broke down the whole situation like, you know, just from start to finish in such a concise, amazing way. And he talked about different Lakota prophecies that, you know, his people have for shout out for, you know, for years and years. And so, when Standing Rock happened, it was all about the prophecy of the Black Snake. And so, Lakota long said that, one day, a black snake would emerge through the countryside, and would spread dark spirits all over the land, and would poison their farms and give people bad health. And it would also contaminate people's minds in terms of, you know, like, forgetting about the traditional wisdom and latching on to a more white view of the world. And you know, kind of a seat you model as they would call it. And so that's, you know, I think that was a large talking point during Standing Rock was the prophecy of the Black Snake. And so, at the end of the interview, though, he told me about another Lakota prophecy. And I think this is what's around the corner is the prophecy of the blue gold. And so now, water is become so scarce, that it's being traded as a commodity on the stock market. And that is ridiculous. It's a violation of, you know, the the UN protocol saying that water is human right, and it shouldn't be treated as a commodity. But so there's already water acquisition wars happening in drier places in the world. And, like, if you look at like what that tool did in

Steve Gute  1:07:54

in, where was it wasn't in Colombia. It was Bolivia. Yeah. And so Bechdel basically bought out all the water in Bolivia, jack up the prices and people rebelled against it, and it was a huge success. Livia, but that's the kind of stuff that's happening here in the southwest now is California you have lots of wealthy landowners going and buying up water rights. And they're hoarding water like the Reznik families specifically who owns like the palm wonderful brand. They make a lot of your almonds and pistachios and cutie oranges and those things, but they are buying up as much of the water in the Central Valley as they can. And then even just access to the Colorado River. You know, states have been fighting for designate fights happening in the in the 1920s or 30s, I think it was there was a, like a near military altercation between Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and there literally was like the state National Guard move their different troops in to the border by the Colorado River. And there was a near military conflict that happened over water rights. And it's another thing that's very overlooked in American history. But if you go and research that, I think that's again, a precursor for what's around the corner. And, you know, states like Nevada have gotten the shaft in terms of the access to the Colorado River. And so a lot of people in Vegas specifically are like, Well, you know, we only get like 4% of the flow or 5% or something ridiculous. And so and then California gets most of it. And then surprisingly states like Wyoming get a lot of it for the cattle ranch. And so the diversion of the Colorado River is, you know, it's a big Powder Keg and that's why California has been rushing to build Sacramento Delta twin tunnels, which is again, just an environmentally disastrous project. And for a fiscal concern is also disastrous. Like, you know, it was supposed to be something like $20 billion. Now it's already supposed to be like $37 billion because of a lack of bid competition and just handing out contracts to Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsome, Tony's but you know, it's the same situation we're having with like high speed rail, we can't have nice things, because of all the corruption associated with our state governments. And so, you know, realistically, the prophecy of the blue gold, I think that's something we should be very concerned about. And I've talked to, like a general honoree, for instance, in Louisiana, he's the person who's the Army General, who basically stabilised New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Katrina. And so he's someone that became an environmentalist, through his work, you know, after the hurricane. And traditionally, the military is not very favourable of confronting these things. But he recognised that we have a geopolitical problem associated with climate change. And if we keep pursuing things in the economic status quo fashion that we have now, we are ultimately pushing for a future of instability and military conflict, because there will be so many people that are fighting over access to clean water. And you know, it doesn't matter how much you have in the bank, if you don't have anything to drink. It's all irrelevant. And so you know, that's, it's weird that like a Native American medicine man and an army general from the United States echoed the same sentiments. But that's when you know that this is a real problem. And it's not something we can ignore anymore. Like, we need to start making water our number one priority and error. And, you know, if we need to live a slightly different lifestyle to accommodate that, I'd say it's worth it because your lifestyle is going to be even worse if you don't change voluntarily, because that change will be forced upon you later. And you're not going to like the way the world's gonna look in 50 years. If we keep going on this course.

Keri Norley  1:12:10

No, no, actually, I'd love to hear I want to hear what your thoughts are on what we can do. And I want to add to that, because I was interesting, you said topsoil, and it's something that I know, we don't have enough time to get into here. But that's a whole nother story. But my husband's been really studying and looking into it. And actually, he's been working on AR VR, like changing and like, how can I change the soil and all this stuff, but for him ahead of the curve, right? You know, we got to do and it's true, we all have to do it. This is the whole point. We all have to do this on our own in our own literal backyards, right? Yeah. But for those who don't know, like, just go look up topsoil issues right now. Because when I, when I came up with the movie, I have to find the link and put it into the show notes here. But we watched a movie on it. And they said, like, within 50 years, we're not going to have enough topsoil, to be able to actually get the nutrients out of our food and be able to plan diamonds

Steve Gute  1:13:00

are saying 50 to 60 more harvests in America, and then we're done. It's crazy. It's crazy, I think, potentially our lifetimes

Keri Norley  1:13:09

that. I mean, that's my I mean, I'm 43 it could easily and indefinitely my kids. And so that was why, like, we heard that. And all of a sudden, I mean, he's always been he wants to go into sustainable, like he wants to build his own sustainable house and community and permaculture and all these sorts of things, implementing in our own yard currently. But it's definitely a part of our conversation at home. And so speaking of that, what are the things that people can do? Because you said a lot of really important things. And they're really big picture. And I think it can be really overwhelming for those of us who are like, Okay, I'm just, I'm just at home, I can't do anything about the big oil companies like they're crazy, you know, like, this is all big stuff. And it's it's a lot, it's a lot to take on if you've you know, as you've been listening to this, but even like I just said, there's things that we can do in our literal own backyards. So what are things that people can be doing now, to make an impact on the future? as we as we move on?

Steve Gute  1:14:07

Well, I know it might be a cliche thing to say, and people love to use this quote all the time. But you know, Gandhi said, Be the change you want to see in the world. And so I think it's really important for you to live that change as much as humanly possible. And you know, in the process of living that change, you're going to be confronted by the more kind of basic people that question why you live that lifestyle. And, you know, ultimately, you're going to have to put up with that. And if you want to see that change, you're going to have to stand up against the injustice you see in the world. And in a lot of cases that means having very uncomfortable conversations with your friends and family that you know ultimately can very much jeopardise certain relationships unfortunately, but to live that life, I think, you know, is a life consciousness and to live a life that's based on your own material pursuits, and, you know, just economic comfort, that that's not really a holistic lifestyle. And so if you want to live a holistic lifestyle, you know, there are things you can do immediately, like, I think the most radical thing you can do is to be self sufficient, and not to rely on the government or the status quo for your food. And that's why they've tried to make it very much illegal for you to grow your own food, to have your own livestock. And yeah, that's I think the the most important thing you can do is to rethink your diet, and the food that you're putting in your body, where it comes from. And if you can grow as much of that as possible, and you can learn about permaculture, aquaponics, and all these other solutions, we have to do more sustainable agriculture. I mean, the solutions are there, it's like, that's the thing is, it's not even new technology. This is just about technology, technology, and getting away from this Frankenstein model that we have now. And like, you know, we need to just stop blindly trusting. You know, these people, you know, from the pharmaceutical companies, big AG, you know, the government, because realistically, they don't care about your health, as much as they like to tell you they do this pandemic and vaccinations, they've never been about people's health. It's been about protecting an economic model and protecting the status quo. And you know, with this pandemic, I think rich people finally said, oh, wow, this could actually affect me, like, you know, what can we do to stop this? And then, you know, use that to manifest control over the population and a lot of other ways not to sound like a crazy anti science person, because I'm very pro science, but the merit of science and the full, like the, the framework of science is to ask fervent questions, and if they can hold up to that question, and all of the stress of everyone else here reviewing your work, then that's what science is. Science is a constant, you know, and so not just like, a theory is developed, and then it's just done forgetting forever. And I think, you know, a lot of the people who like quote, unquote, worship science, it's become more of a dogmatic religion to support like the current Zeitgeist of science rather than to ask questions. And so I think we're in a weird state where like, you know, if you want to ask questions, you're kind of labelled as this like free thinking artist or anti science or Flat Earth Society person conspiracy

Keri Norley  1:17:52

theorist, because I might just think that my body is actually able to be healthy if I feed it with good food, and give myself nutrients and go outside. I mean, it's hilarious. Like I saw a meme recently that was like, science is telling you to stay inside like this is house right? Stay inside separate, which we just talked about is one of the, you know, I was actually just reading something today about babies and how when we're not touched, babies die, like they could be given food, water, or breast milk, whatever it is, they can have all of their needs met. If they're not touched, they will die. And look what has just happened to us over the course of the I mean, I can't imagine how many people who are literally alone, not touched for a year, like stay inside, don't get touched, don't talk to people. Don't get sunshine, all of the things that make humans thrive. Please don't do that.

Steve Gute  1:18:42

And go look at a screen all day and get inundated with a bunch of electromagnetic interference.

Keri Norley  1:18:49

I mean, speaking back to kids, my like my son, who's we have Waldorf trained, like, we've been in water schools since they were, you know, in kindergarten, and it's been amazing. And then all of a sudden, he moves into sixth grade. And all of a sudden, he's been no technology and maybe a little bit we used to give him like an iPad, like a little bit a week, right? Cuz he's a kid. But generally speaking, no technology had no idea how to use a computer. And now all of a sudden is on it for eight hours a day. And he went frickin mental like literally depressed, like, seriously mental, totally scattered. It was so bad for him so bad for all the children. And like all of these things are not for our health. The government did not help us for our health in that way. Like, where were the signs that said, Go out and take your vitamins, that these vitamins will help you stay healthy if you're going to have to be home, where were the signs that said, Hey, if you do this, this can actually help you in your health stay amazing with your immune system. Like none of that was actually shared.

Steve Gute  1:19:49

You know, in a lot of us were not given any kind of government assistance. I mean, those people in the independent gig economy like we, you know, locked down, our businesses were shut down. on everyone else who worked for corporations got unemployment and then the state told us like, oh, you're just bombs that never had a job in the first place. Like, here's $100 and food stamps. Good luck. Good luck right? And that's all they gave us like, you know and maybe we got a little bit of stimulus money but hey, that's just like a scraps compared to the PP you know, loans that got handed out to massive corporations totally out standing. But I wanted to touch on one thing about topsoil removed on Yep. You know, because you brought up the fact like, you know, we have potentially 5060 years of topsoil and harvest slept in this country. And I think that is just that when I heard that number, I said, Oh my god, like, you know, we're not going to be able to grow food here in like a

Keri Norley  1:20:48

in like crazy my life. Like that is real people like this is not a lie. This is not like we're not exaggerating, it is real.

Steve Gute  1:20:56

And then we get back into like, the kind of dogmatic cultism again, because if you look at like what a lot of vegans are pushing as like a quote, unquote, like sustainable model, it is dooming us to destroying our topsoil very quickly, because we're, we're only pushing monoculture. We're not doing prop cycling. And if people are going to switch to a more vegan lifestyle, then they're going to have to do it and do it in a more sustainable, you know, intelligent way. Because right now, more people shifting to a vegan lifestyle is basically putting more pressure on our topsoil. And especially if you're a vegan farmer, and you don't use livestock and animals in your process, you're going to be just, you know, using, you know, even if you're trying to use organic fertilisers, I don't think that's going to be realistic, you know, you're going to end up supporting the oil and gas industry and then using nitrogen based fertiliser from probably the byproducts of petroleum manufacturing processes. And that's going to fuck up the topsoil even more. But, you know, we we need to have balance and need to move away from this kind of privileged mentality of saying I only this, I only need that, like, you know, if you talk to anyone who's low on food, and money, you know, they're not going to have this whole like, fervent mindset of my diets, this my diets that they're gonna have to, like, pursue survivalism, more than, you know, some kind of privilege, you know, diet and we need to really be looking at having nuances in these conversations and not just in hearing to, you know, the easy colour choice that makes us feel good about ourselves, but ignores the obvious and so

Keri Norley  1:22:55

yeah, I was really surprised when I was when I was learning about this and how like the cows and the livestock walking on the land is a huge part of actually helping the topsoil to regenerate. And so it's important that we have them and it's just fascinating like the two you know, like when we start to look at the depth of the story, how it's just very interesting i i hear you on that. Okay, so some things that I'm thinking about that people can do at home, I think is like just reducing your plastic waste I know for me, like you guys, seriously, you can go out and you can get I'm gonna just rattle off things like sandwich bags, go out and get reusable sandwich bags go out and get reusable beeswax. What are they called? You know beeswax. Instead of using saran wrap or cleaner clean wrap. I watched people I don't even know how I don't even know how I hold my mouse and if you have a way to tell people this but when I am in a supermarket line and I see somebody who has put bananas in a plastic bag I want to take the bananas out and be like are you kidding me? Like what the heck? Like they're in a bunch? Like seriously I don't even first of all you can get mesh bags that if you really need to put something into a bag then that's fine. No seriously you guys potatoes came from the ground. They're dirty they do not need to go into plastic.

Steve Gute  1:24:05

My favourite repealed oranges. And they have these Trader Joe's now where they have oranges that have been, you know, peeled. And then they cover each slice individually in plastic. Oh my god, just like didn't nature figure out a better container for us already. It's just like, Are you really that lazy where you can't like unpeel an orange eat it? I mean, that just kind of says it all there are plastic fantastic, you know, economy. And yeah, I mean, reducing your own plastic consumption.

Keri Norley  1:24:41

plastic water bottles. Yep. Speaking of water, right, actually speaking of water and reducing plastic water bottles, people drink water and plastic water bottles because they want quote unquote filtered water

Steve Gute  1:24:52

and not safe. Like realistically there's less regulation on most bottled water than there is for tap water. And the The issue like it really is just like it's propaganda that's been pushed by these different companies like Nestle in particular is really the the regenerator of this propaganda about trying to market safe alternatives for people in areas that don't have good clean drinking water. And so this was just basically an excuse to get everyone hooked on drinking, you know, five or 10 bottle bottles of water a day. And I remember Fuji water specifically, they made some really like just snide asshole remark about tap water, and specifically cited the city of Cleveland for some reason in you know, saying, you know, like, just criticising their water purification techniques for some reason. And so the city of Cleveland was very offended. And so the people from the water treatment plant decided they were going to go and do their own independent analysis to go and see what was like, cleaner, the Cleveland tap water from the Great Lakes or the, you know, the Fiji water that comes from God knows where, and so in every single sample studied, the Cleveland tap water was significantly cleaner way Fiji water, I would not every single bottle they sample and you know, it's because there's no regulation on any of these bottled waters. And so the biggest thing that they found the VG water was that there was unsafe levels of arsenic and a lot of them. And there was unsafe heavy metal levels, like there's literally no regulation. So most of the time, what these bottled water companies are doing is they're going and they're using wells that their permits expired for in the 60s and 70s. And, you know, in a lot of cases are getting this water from RA, very arid climates. And so you know, about 45 minutes to an hour from here, and the San Bernardino area, Nestle Arrowhead, all those companies have been pumping groundwater, which has been messing with our water table here in a bad way. And so we're losing our aquifer, and then our water is being displaced elsewhere. And then there's also the transportation issues associated with it. About the one thing I will say about you know, our tap water though, is if you're going to drink tap water, you probably are going to want to do additional filtering of your own to make sure it's safe.

Keri Norley  1:27:35

So what's a filter as was an ask you so if we can prevent using plastic bottles? I use I personally use the kangen water filter. I love it. What's Uh,

Steve Gute  1:27:45

what's the charcoal base filter, right?

Keri Norley  1:27:47

Yes, I think so.

Steve Gute  1:27:49

Yeah, those are great, but they don't really do very well with the chemicals

Keri Norley  1:27:53

on it. No, you have to add in extra filters to filter out the fluoride.

Steve Gute  1:27:57

Exactly. And that's the big elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about is that we fluoridate our water supply. And if you want to go down that rabbit hole we can, but basically fluoridated water, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever and is based on just bunk research just

Keri Norley  1:28:15

toxic shit, they decided to throw into our water because they know us to dump it.

Steve Gute  1:28:19

It's literally industrial waste from China that's been processed and be made into synthetic fluoride, not naturally occurring fluoride, and then that is dumped into our water supply. So we can have better teeth. And the studies have shown that that is pretty much insanely non effective model. So it was the American Dental Association that was lobbying so heavily fluoridate our water back in the 70s. And it's just, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, even from an economic standpoint, it doesn't make sense, because we're paying all this money for a process that we don't need to do. And then we're giving a bunch of money to China to go buy all of their waste products to then consume. Here it just it blows my mind. And then I talked to these water scientists, and they're like, well, fluoride is good for your teeth. I go, did they get to you too? I mean, the fluoride experiments have been around for a long time. And, you know, based on like, we really don't know, like what the full extent is, you know, but if you really want to look at like the people that initially started doing for research, it was the Germans and the 1930s. And so they were experimenting with fluoride to create a more docile population. And, you know, a lot of this, you know, the ramifications of fluoride get into the realm of pseudoscience probably because you don't really know what the actual effects are. But we can tell you that fluoride is one of the more reactive elements on the periodic table and probably triggers all sorts of genetic mutations and it's probably responsible for at least a a rise in autoimmune disorders and cancers, but could be as threatening as having our pineal glands calcified. And all of you know that. And I have noticed personally I can't you know, I I'm not going to make a blanket statement and say this is this is all anecdotal and this is my own personal experiences. And I've lived in places that have fluoridated their water supply, and other places that have like I used to live in Estonia for a few years. And Estonia does not fluoridate their water. And not every county in America, even for dates, their water, but when I've lived in places that haven't been fluoridated, I've had much, much more vivid dreams. And then when I in areas where I drink fluoridated water, I don't really dream as much. Hmm, interesting. Yeah. And that might have something to do with the way that our brain produces serotonin and dopamine and, you know, melatonin, and regulates our sleep wake cycles. So I just think there's no reason to be fluoridating our water, and we can save money, and people would probably be healthier, and it would probably, you know, alleviate people's concerns about the dangers of tap water, and the, you know, the propaganda from Nestle. But we can't keep submitting to this model of virtually just placing all of our water to be sent all over the world back and forth. And right. I even I feel so strongly about this. When I was in Europe two years ago, I went to Switzerland and went to Vegas, Switzerland on Lake Geneva, to the Nestle corporate headquarters. And I told them to go fuck off in person. And so I just had a one man protest, kind of Nestle corporate headquarters and security came out and they're like, Oh, no, not you guys again. It was the most beautiful place in the world. It's just right next to interlock in and Montreux, and you're right there on the lake, there's more water than you'd ever know what to do with that area. And the fact that those people feel that they need to go and steal other people's water under the guise of being a little Swiss chocolate company. I mean, those people are some of the most evil, evil corporate assholes out there in existence. And so we need to confront their whole agenda. And I think, you know, reverse osmosis water is probably about the best way that you can do that.

Keri Norley  1:32:25

So reverse osmosis. That's where you guys Moses,

Steve Gute  1:32:29

yeah, and you can even get reverse osmosis filters, these days, you can instal under your sink, or you can get whole home units. And so this is even good for, like, let's say, if you're taking a shower, you know, because if you're taking a shower,

Keri Norley  1:32:43

it's all in your skin, and your skin is your largest organ on your, in your body. It's not even

Steve Gute  1:32:47

that actually, the big problem is when you take a shower, and you turn on the hot water, you're going to get steam, and then you're going to inhale that steam and so that's the quickest transmission of those chemicals. And so in Flint, Michigan, where I've spent a lot of time filming the past few years, that was when people really started getting sick, was when they had the boil advisories and so people would boil the water and then they inhale it and you know, there'd be all these you know, bad gases in their house and people started getting really really sick when the oil advisory started and then you know, they're taking showers and you know, people are having all sorts of heavy metal contamination and all sorts of weird chemical contamination so having a whole house filtration system is a good idea for you know, your shower usage and it's just sad it's come to this but you know, you need to add another line of defence before like that hits your body. And

Keri Norley  1:33:48

you know, I have we have a we have a shower filter, too. And it's like, I mean, my kids now like, because one of our showers doesn't one doesn't and my kids because we always just shared the shower anyway, they fight over which shower they get and they won't, they won't shower, they won't shower on the other one. They're like not won't do it. And I don't even think they've even began to realise right away until like, they were like, Yeah, because that was the filter and it feels much better. And why would I go? Yeah.

Steve Gute  1:34:10

I mean, the only thing reverse osmosis can't really get rid of his radiation. And so if you live in an area that has radioactive groundwater, that's going to be a problem. And you guys in Denver, you have rocky flat right outside of town, which is a radioactive Superfund site, but from what I understand in Denver, you know, your water is important, basically over the great divide, as a result of, you know, just water allocation from the Colorado River. So you guys probably aren't getting localised groundwater there, which is probably a good thing. But the whole Colorado River is slightly radioactive at this point did all the uranium mining that's been occurring, you know, there's just such a crazy, like, myriad of issues that face our water supply. That's why this project has turned into just such an insane endeavour, like it originally was just meant to be one film than two films, and then basically came a lifelong endeavour to, you know, try and understand all the different ways our health, our political system, our economy, and just like our reality, in general, are affected by just all of these issues affecting our water. And like I said, in that bio, or someone else wrote about me, they, the the water is the best ultimate lens to investigate all of these issues, and it's done in a way that's not partisan. It's just literally just looking at our water as a reflection of our society. And so I think it's time for people to wake up. And for people to realise, you know, just the inevitable before it's too late. And it's, it's, it's the apex concern to care about our water. And I think I told you, when I met you at the film festival, I made this movie about the occupy movement in 2011. And, you know, it's a very, like, punk rock, but the place like anti capitalists kind of endeavour. And it was just a little too extreme. I think, for a lot of the general population, it was just a few years ahead of the curve. And it was interesting, because like, it came out in 2015. And I think a lot of people weren't quite ready for it. But you know, we ended up somehow getting a distribution deal, and it got out there. And it's still available up online, if you search for radicalised documentary, you can find it and it's all about everything that happened in LA during the occupy movement. And but after that movie came out, and you know, we had our run and everything. And I was thinking, well, what's the one thing that can really night people? What's the one thing that like, if you had to think of one issue where people can get over their bullshit and join together in this water, I mean, even like the most hardened conservative asshole, if you put a glass of polluted water in front of them, they probably won't drink it. And then that's usually the one thing that gets people to reverse their ideology is when they're affected negatively in their health deteriorates as a result of being close to some kind of pollutive industry. And so I've seen, I know a lot of people who were like hardened Republicans who are now very anti Republican, as a result of, you know, the D reg aspects of that party. And I've seen a lot of people who have completely reserved versus their positions, and, you know, have kind of a cataclysmic, you know, just just re identification, who they are.

Keri Norley  1:37:52

I think there needs to be, there needs to be a new party, because both parties are a bit messy.

Steve Gute  1:37:57

Yeah, exactly. I'm a big advocate of being independent and squashing the two party system. And so it's important that we all think for ourselves and you know, we just we get out of these echo chambers that are just telling us we're right, and everyone else is wrong. That's a just a bad way of going about finding consensus. You know, I think you pick a team sports mentality, we're always going to be enemies, and you know, House Divided cannot stand, we need to recognise that we're all I mean, not just Americans, but we're all human, we're all in this together. And, you know, we need to think about our other like, relatives who aren't humans, you know, all the other animals and species and plants that we share this biosphere with, because, you know, we have killing them, too. That's a real pandemic is that there's an extinction crisis happening, and pretty soon we're gonna be on that list if we're not careful. So it's, it's the time is now?

Keri Norley  1:38:50

Yes, it is. Um, so on that note, how do people find you for Confluence, then that I know I can put a link up in here in the show notes show notes for the waters Life video, I can Yeah, whenever.

Steve Gute  1:39:02

Alright, well, um, you can find me on a few different platforms. Confluence has had its majority of success, and biggest following on Facebook. Unfortunately, Facebook as a platform has very much failed us, despite all of the work we put into that platform. And we really were kind of labelled a fake news site, I think, at a certain point. But we have been able to advertise in several years. And now with the repeal of net neutrality, it's pretty much impossible to reach an audience without paying for it. Unfortunately, we're really good at navigating the targeting and the algorithm back in 2016. But 2018 19 onwards has been a different affair. And so we've become a little jaded and discouraged with the Facebook platform, but if you search on Facebook for Confluence documentary, you can find our page we have a Instagram account. And if you go to Confluence documentary.com Our website is being redesigned right now, but it should be back in work soon. And you can follow me personally, if you search for Steven Guti on Instagram, and you can see, you know, that's more kind of behind the scenes of my travels, going around covering a lot of these Superfund sites and other toxic areas, but also doing a lot of work covering police brutality issues, and really frontline environments everywhere. So, you know, I've been to 48 states now since I started this process, and we really tried to go to the front to really see what's happening to find the truth and not rely on secondhand information or, you know, other sources. So, you know, our worldview is informed by our experiences, not what we've been told. And I think that's what's really valuable, more people need to start doing that thinking for themselves and just thinking while you can, you know, recognising the conditioning that like we've all been indoctrinated with, and trying to break that, it's very important that we do that. And it's very hard to do that work. And it can be, you know, weird on like a metaphysical level, even, you know, and asking who we are and how we relate with our own world, you know, who have we been, you know, who are we becoming? Where are we going, you know, just those kind of philosophical issues. So, you know, I would implore people to, you know, to have those kinds of discussions and you know, to really seek that kind of consciousness instead of just being mindless enjoying the roaring 20s

Keri Norley  1:41:47

right? It's interesting because, um, I was just thinking about like, the the way that what's the thing that we can do like what's the what's the biggest thing we can do and I love how I think we can finish this here and saying that you know, including the media censorship piece, right, like this whole fake news thing, it's like Think for yourself, stop listening to either side, any side no side, both sides, all sides, and make your own informed decisions like be willing to really think about is this logical? Is this like, for me the best thing is this like, Is there something underneath this because like you said, like, it's heartbreaking to me. And I know because I would be on the fake news side I have been told I'm fake news. And I'm like I'm not faking it or something. Right? Right. I'm like I have been told by I have been it had Instagram and Facebook shut down. pars clear me stop me. And, and like I said, I'm just like, you know, I'm not even that big of a, quote unquote, deal is, you know, as far as the things I'm saying, and, and so I just think it's so critical right now. And like you said, like, part of what's happening with all of this toxicity across the board in our lives. And I love how you said it, like blocking our pineal gland blocking our third eye blocking this, this this space, that's like our vision, it is our openness, our It is our mind, it is our mind, you know, and they're trying to make it so that it's, as you said, calcified. We can't use it. And the more that we ingest these things, the I'm gonna say it the stupider we become, right. And so while you while you are here, like wake up and go and do your research, be willing to look in the places that you haven't been willing to look. And and like you said, Steve, like you're on the front lines. This is real stuff that's happening across the world across the board. And the people who are in it are the ones who are getting blocked and censored, and it is heartbreaking to watch. And I know for me when I left for Australia, when I first went over there, I was student teaching, and I finished so I was 22 years old, I finished in Australia, I met my mom this, you know, very Aldous Americanness, right. And I was like, anti American, and he she's like, here you are American. And I was like, You Americans do stupid stuff. Right? And it's not until I left the country because we are so conditioned by media to think and feel and expect and do certain things. And we have a very, very limited focus because media makes it so and unless you choose to walk outside and look like unless I had left America, I'd still be in this little tunnel vision. Right, exactly. But I left and I saw and I was like God Americans are like hated around the world. And not all Americans and the ones who tend to leave we tend to have like, you know, a little bit more culturalism but like, overall, there's a lot of people who don't like Americans across the board around the world. And and so it was like this real eye opening experience. And it started that point for me to be like, wait a minute, we actually I can look outside of here, we actually can look at side of the media, we can actually look outside of the narrative that we are being told. And part of my work, even though we were talking about wealth and all these things, and you're saying, like, you know, and I get what you're saying the abundance piece of it, it is the fact that we have been conditioned at some level to struggle, right? And that's in our finances, that's in our health that's in our relationships that's in every aspect of our life. And from the top down, we've conditioned look at the country itself is based on debt, like, so no wonder, well, anomic

Steve Gute  1:45:28

system doesn't work, like more than anything is because, you know, new prosperity is created by more debt debt, I totally love more money, you're producing more debt. And as more money gets into the system in a fractional reserve base currency, it means that, ultimately, someone's going to pay the price for that wealth. And so there's no way for everyone to have abundance in our current system, not in our current system abundance for people who are like living the good life at the expense of everyone else. And so, especially like, now, it's becoming very obvious, like, if you're a landowner, and you own real estate, you're in a different dimension than the rest of us. And so when you want to talk about the American dream, and like, what ultimately like, you know, people like to broadcast is what makes this country the best, quote, unquote, or unique, it really, it starts to break down, when you investigate the destruction of upward mobility and opportunity for people to jump classes in this country, it's not easy, if you don't have a trust fund behind you, all you need is just to have one business venture go wrong, and then you become a debt slave for your entire life. And that's kind of what happened to me, when I had one movie lose money. And you know, we had one LLC after the collapse, and then you know, you're basically branded with The Scarlet Letter of saying, You're not a functional member of our society, despite all the work you've put in, you know, and if you don't have the ability to be a normal person, you know, and to have housing or access to food, you know, and you are living in, you know, a situation where like, you have all of these blockades from having you being able to get yourself out of poverty, odds are, you're just going to ultimately subscribe to nihilism, depression, substance abuse, etc, etc. And after the Great Depression, the federal government did a lot of investigation into how to brand spire people, because there is a whole class of people in the 1930s that just like gave up on life and just basically became alcoholics and, you know, drug addicts, or whatever. And so, you know, a lot of these people, they lost their jobs, and then their families and abandoned them, because you're not a man, you can't take care of us. And so there was this whole generation that was lost in the mix of people that had no real relevancy. And I think that's what a lot of the millennial generation has been encountering. Because we don't have the same access to wealth as our parents generation, did the bill, take care of ourselves, everything's gotten more expensive. But you know, when the baby boomers were, you know, our age, they ultimately controlled Something about like, 20% of the economy. By all metrics, now, we can say that the millennial generation controls less than 5% of the wealth in this country right now. And it's probably closer to three to 4%. So, you know, you do the math on there, like, if you take 15% of the general wealth economy away from an entire generation, how are they supposed to thrive? And especially if you're, like, independent or entrepreneurial type person? How are you going to be able to, you know, manifest that success on your own? So, you know, realistically, we have all of the, you know, the what we reinforce is just the the offspring of rich people, and these people don't really know anything about reality, or what it's like for the rest of us, but we give them all power. And I think that's, you know, it's interesting, like right now we're getting a recall election here in California, you know, I'm no fan of Gavin Newsom, and he's handed out more fracking permits than the other Governor's date. But the solution is for the republicans to jam Caitlyn Jenner down the public's throat. And what does Caitlyn Jenner know about anything, you know, except for reality TV and pipe and image and status and, you know, it's like, we got to stop just making these famous people, you know, more powerful, like we need to start, you know, looking at like the grassroots individuals and people that actually you know, understand the problems so we can combat that. If we just keep propping up this, you know, system of intergenerational wealth, like we're just going to have these aristocratic tyrants that just rule over us. And, you know, just play Cavalier monopoly with our lives. I mean, you know, like Ilan Musk is a perfect example is a person that gets elevated as someone who's a quote, unquote, genius, he's not a genius. He's just living off his family's blood, Emerald diamond mines in South Africa, it's pretty easy to succeed when you've got billions of dollars to reinforce your safety net. And so I think, you know, propping people like that up is ultimately counterproductive, because he doesn't give a shit about you or changing the world. His whole modus operandi is to take off to Mars and leave the rest of us here to fucking die in the hellhole they've created for us. So, you know, I think, you know, we just need to reinvestigate and reprioritize everything, what we value in our whole, like, moral campuses, and I think like social media even is a good example of it. Who do We reward narcissists and egomaniacs and people that have attractive bodies, but you know, we don't really value people's minds anymore. And you know, we claim to care about consciousness. And, you know, the New Age community loves to tout it all the time. But realistically, that's not what we're doing. We're celebrating the wrong things and worshipping false idols, and we need to move away from that. And before we like, learn a big lesson really quick, which I think is right around the corner if we're not careful. But I still think there's time I wouldn't do this work. If I didn't think that things could get better.

Steve Gute  1:51:45

I'm starting to lose a little bit of hope that we can, you know, actually move to a more egalitarian world quickly, but I think, you know, we need to continue to do the work to at least temper that then go down swinging if we have to. So it's, it's important to, you know, get involved in whatever way you feel comfortable, you don't need to be out there, like getting hit by the police. And you know what not to go and make a difference, you know, you can donate to different causes, you

Keri Norley  1:52:16

know, are there any, are there any specific causes that you would suggest people can donate to? Yes,

Steve Gute  1:52:20

absolutely. Um, I would mainly recommend donating to different indigenous causes. Like, if you want to donate to the resist line three camp, they need all the help they can get. Another topic I feel pretty strongly about is the missing and murdered Indigenous women. And so you can contact the red nation. And there's all sorts of groups. My friend, Cheyenne, Antonio has been doing a lot of good work in the southwest in the Albuquerque area in that regard, because there's so many Navajo woman that go missing every year and usually are sex trafficking situation where these women are then trafficked into areas, their hubs for oil and gas operations. And so wherever there's oil and gas, you tend to have high levels of prostitution, drug use. So that's where a lot of these women end up like new town in North Dakota or Western or Farmington, Oklahoma. There's all sorts of barriers, but so you can donate to those causes. You know, and I would avoid donating to large NGOs and nonprofits. I think they've got enough money already. And despite like, you know, the, I mean, the Sierra Club and you know, these 350 and these different larger, you know, kind of greenwash orbs, they do some good work, but they have a lot of fundamental problems as well. And in a lot of ways they've been co opted by the groups they're trying to stand up against, especially the Sierra Club that endorse fracking and refuses on a national level to confront that fracking so that idea they're actually touting it as like a solution to climate change I didn't know it's ridiculous Yeah. So you know, try and find like, if you donate to like one person, like individually who's out there on the frontlines doing the work you know, though, that can change the world more than anything like because if you just give like an activist some money they can keep organising, and that creates a ripple effect. But you know, when it goes to an NGO it's usually just going to pay someone most most summons Wait, wait, sorry. And yeah, they're just trying to they're they're like the Democratic Party. They're more focused on their own fundraising model that actually changing anything. And so that's a real problem. But yeah, I mean, if you want to donate to like Flint rising for instance, those people haven't had any justice and you know, Flint hasn't had clean water since 2000. 14. And, you know, it's been let down by Republicans and Democrats who like it worked in a bipartisan way to make sure that there is no justice for Flint, because if there was justice for Flint, all the other polluted communities around the country would have legal precedents to stand up against the government, the corporate, you know, entity that polluted them have to pay to clean it up and for Reparations, and that ultimately could really be an economic concern, you know, for the whole system in general. So, you know, Flint rising. I'm trying to think of some other ones.

Keri Norley  1:55:37

In other words, what I'm actually hearing is local, you guys it's like, it's like individualism right here in this fact that we were just saying, like, Think for yourself, be willing to look in research and do your own work. Actually, I'll even say you can go on to gogo duck calm because you will find way more information on gogo duck first search engine, then you will Google because Google, again, is totally censoring things,

Steve Gute  1:56:00

and they don't know your information and sell it to corporations, right?

Keri Norley  1:56:04

It's actually sorry, DuckDuckGo. Sorry, yes. So duckduckgo.com and you will actually find some real information from people who have not been censored and it's, you will stay private as well. But ultimately, like look local, and I know for me too, like I you know, when I see that there's there's women that have been left from abusive relationships or any of these things, or, you know, sex trafficking and all these different things. There's local organisations everywhere. So look local for yourself, look and decide and say, like, even you, when we when you start talking down this road, like the moral, the moral high ground that you are like that, really for you is what's important, because there's so many topics like Steven, I just walked down, there are so many important things, from sex trafficking, to domestic violence, to water to fracking, if you're in Colorado, we do have fracking going on in dire every world or every not good. It's like this gas is being led off in our neighbourhoods, in our communities. This, there's so many places that you can start to look locally to really help to support your local communities. And so that's where, you know, I love that you've, you've said that, Steve, it's just like, Look local. And that person, that person, I know, for us at Christmas time this year, we donated to families to people to go buy Christmas presents didn't go through somebody else, we gave money directly, like here, go have some Christmas, you know, like there's people in your backyard that need your help. And I think it's such a big thing right now, especially as we look at this globalisation that's happening, like you know, we're sending people in all these all these places around the world to help people but it's like your own backyard literally needs help. So go and do some research. Think about what's important to you. Give your time, give your money, give your energy and most importantly, just start to look at like how are you showing up in the planet right now? And what's the impact that you were currently creating? And so like I said, you guys, I mean, we literally it's just like, you know, he's been taking things like getting woodchips and different things to be able to help doing the research to find how can I make my topsoil just in my backyard better? Right now, last night, I was watching him he was researching to create his own hydroponic thing from our fish tank to our plants. And yeah, right, it's like chronics right, and it's so simple, it's not going to be like we're not going to go change the world because all of a sudden one of our plants is being like, you know, being fed by our fish steak. But it's learning like for him it's like taking each step to learn so that as you said, like there's going to be a day when you need to be able to supply your own food and start now learning however it is that you can to be able to feed yourself you know, and to supply yourself and to be sustainable and to make the lowest impact that you can make because if we go outside and we pick up some fruit and vege off of our yard out of our garden, it didn't get the water that it took to send it across the world to another place even thinking like your local cycles when you start to look at eating your food it's your supermarket like where did this come from? Did it have to be flown from Brazil that was grown six months ago frozen yada yada yada and brought to you here? Or was it local and local produce so going into fresh farmer's markets looking at sustainable farming even from your fruit and if from your animal supply you know, like there's horrible things happening in that world, but we can do it from a sustainable way and so starting to look at all of these ways that you can personally make these changes stop using plastic bags was one of the worst things that happened during Corona I know in Colorado, they wouldn't let us quote unquote like at one point wholefoods was saying no, you can't bring a bag in I was like, Are you kidding? My clothes have my germs on it. It's okay people, but they wouldn't

Steve Gute  1:59:38

have all their water filters during COVID as well.

Keri Norley  1:59:42

Horrible. And and sprouts, this is where I have shopped, they would let us bring it in but you couldn't put it onto the counter. So a lot of people, I love them. It's only actually like in the last few weeks that we've able to have been able to 16 months later, bring my bag in and put it on a counter. So I'm like, it's hilarious. I'm like I'm here, I've touched everything, okay? Apparently my bag makes the difference. But because of that, so many people turn to plastic bags again, like Stop it, you guys use reusable things wherever you can straws. You know, like, stop using straws in restaurants, bring your own straws stop using plastic reusables. One time you straws, because they ended up in that water supply. And it's bad news. Yeah.

Steve Gute  2:00:26

And then even like Uber Eats, and Amazon and all that, like everyone's like, feels that they need to be like, waited on hand and foot and had everything driven to them and delivered. And we need to get away from that model, because it's just ultimately creating so much more waste. And using way more petroleum. You know, if we were to have everything in a more centralised location, and then you drove to a store to go and pick it up, it would make a huge difference. But people are just their expectations are so high these days, that immediate gratification. Yeah, and then what do we do with all that waste afterwards, and it's just, it's, it's kind of an elephant in the room. But you know, people need to have these conversations. And, you know, like you said, Just do whatever you can, like, you know, but don't just also donate money and think you're changing the world, because that ultimately isn't enough like, and that's just more than anything. It's just probably dissuading your own guilt. And you know, the fact that you come from like, means, it's not real activism, you know, your actions are what make a difference. So go and go and donate money, but then go and reinforce that with some kind of work on the ground. And even if all you're doing is just donating supplies, you know, just cheering people on sharing material, having conversations, you know, you don't need to go and lead your own protests. But you know, if you do enough work, eventually, that's what you're going to be compelled to do. Because you're if you figure out what's actually happening, and you actually have a heart, you're not going to let it stand anymore. And you're going to want to dedicate your life to trying to make things better, before it's too late. Because you can't sleep at night, knowing that all this is right around the corner, at least me personally. So I knew I needed to take my tools, and my craft and what I did, and use that to help try and make a difference. And you know, not everyone is a journalist, they'll make you know, this is just what I do. You know, think about like, what makes you unique, what your skill set is, what your craft is, and how you can use that to create a better world and not just capitalise on it. Because a lot of people think they need to get paid, they need to be rewarded to do what they're trained in. Now, it's like a certain point, you also need to have some kind of service that's associated with what you do your craft. And I think a lot of people who are creative, you know, we lost the ability to capitalise on our craft, like we used to, and, and it's been devalued by society. And so we feel a little bit more readily available to go and commit and use our tools to, you know, same thing with musicians, but use our tools, you know, just for the greater good. And it's time, you know, other people started doing that, especially lawyers, like, there's a lot of really good lawyers out there that like do pro bono work and help. But for the most part, I feel like that is a realm of people that are doing it just to make as much money as possible. And it is very difficult to get help when we need it. And so I really, I just I think the world of all these lawyers that use their skills to help people like me, when we get, you know, unconstitutionally arrested to have the charges dropped. And I would have been like, thrown through the gamut of the legal system. A lot of times if I didn't have help from these pro bono lawyers, and nl GLA and MLG, everywhere, like those people in green hats have saved my ass more times than I can count. So, you know, think about, like, what you can, you know, provide to help all these different groups that are trying to you know, change the world. And you're not going to agree with everything that you know, everyone says, like, you know, when you go to like a, you know, a consolidated action of people, but you're going to find common ground, and you're going to find affinity. And like, as long as you remember about what you have in common, rather than what your differences are, you're probably going to be able to thrive. And if you're going into indigenous spaces as a white person, listen to them. Don't go in there and tell native people what to

Keri Norley  2:04:45

do, I think, in any country around the world, as they

Steve Gute  2:04:49

know ultimately what to do. Like, if anything, the big problem is we just don't leave them alone. If you have like the ability to help and you want to work with indigenous groups, I have been nothing but welcomed in all of the indigenous circles that I've participated in as a white person. And that is like a huge honour to me. But I know the only reason that's the case is because I have been rolling with massive amounts of respect. And, you know, ultimately, I just want to help what they're doing, and not insert any kind of other dynamics into that mix or an agenda. So and just remember what your roles are, you know, it's not always your role to be an organiser, you know, in some cases, it's your job to help amplify other people's voices. But just think about what works for you, and how you can get involved and just what makes you special, share that with the world use that for good, not just for money. And that's, I can think the only advice I really can give people on how to move forward, because right now, numbers are so low, like all we really need is just for people to care again. And that's what it comes down to, on a fundamental level, people need to give a shit right now they don't. And until people actually do in a critical mass level, things are going to continue to be the same. So it's it's time that we woke up, and we move towards that critical mass level. And if we do it now, it'll be something that will be more egalitarian and more coming from a place of love. If we wait a few more years, it'll be a more kind of coming from a place of desperation, exposure. Yeah. And that's when you'll see good teams. So all you rich people, if you want to stabilise your wealth, the best thing you can do is to give back, you know, do it before it's too late, because you're going to be targets pretty soon. What can you basis?

Keri Norley  2:06:47

Well, Steve, thank you so much for this amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing amount of information. It has been an absolute pleasure to speak with you, I'm so grateful that we get to bring this conversation to more people in the world. And thank you for all the work that you're doing everybody go and find him go find the confluence documentary, go look for the water as life goes, go watch as he is continuing to bring news from the frontlines and, and make this important, whatever it is for you. We've given you so many ways, and so many resources to be able to make a difference in this world. And every single one of us matters every single one of us matters. So thank you, Steve, if Do you have any last words? I think you've just kind of summed up everything.

Steve Gute  2:07:32

Yeah, I think I've covered all my bases. But yeah, just think while you can think while you

Keri Norley  2:07:38

think what you can. Until the next time. I'll see y'all later.