So do I get a couple extra seconds 
to explain the t-shirt?
Since, you know, I like to make my own fun t-shirts. 
So tonight it's "I like big books and I cannot lie."
It's true. It's totally true.
I was going to comment on the 
not-counting-down clock. Damn it, it's back on.
So I'm here to talk a little bit about the
role of entrepreneurship in climate change.
But to get started, we kind of need to talk 
and bust a couple of myths.
So as was mentioned, I have the pleasure of 
running a small clean energy business
here in Edmonton and I'm gonna bust a
couple of those myths and hopefully
recruit some people to become
entrepreneurs in this climate change fight.
So first off,
profit is not a bad word.
In fact, we actually really need
businesses to participate in creating
more sustainable businesses because that
driving economic force will help make
the whole thing sustainable.
That's what, we're still going to have a climate, if we,
or, sorry. We're still gonna have an 
economy to take care of,
and making climate change part of that
economy is part of the solution.
So it is not child labour, okay?
Two, it's not rocket science
or at least not always. So sometimes we
think we can't get involved in running a
sustainable business because, my gosh, 
the stuff they do is just incredible, like,
Oh my gosh, the science! And that is true
some of the time but a lot of times,
what we really need is people who can 
help make our lives easier in a sustainable way.
So that can be: reduce. Remember
reduce, reuse, recycle?
A lot of it is about just doing things smarter, 
so don't feel like you can't get involved,
because, my gosh, the science!
So now I'm gonna tell a little bit about my story.
No, this isn't child labor, I get you saying.
I happen to be the proud mother
of three wonderful children
and this is a picture of my twin boys
about six years ago.
And I was in the midst of the absolute
sleep deprivation that is multiples
when one day I was walking the boys and
they were sleeping in their stroller and I
walked by a house being built and they
had a diesel generator running and I thought,
if you wake these babies, I'm going postal!
And that is really, really what went through my mind
and they slept for a long time that day and I kept walking, I thought, why do we use these things?
They're terrible! They're terrible on the environment, they're loud, they're expensive, they're smelly.
Nobody likes using them. So why do we use them?
Why not use some kind of a battery system?
So I talked to a couple of my
friends in the trades and I said,
Would you use a battery system? And they said, you know what, I would love to, simply for the silence,
just to have quiet. But you can't refill a battery
like you can a gas can.
So what happens at two o'clock
when the battery's out? I go home?
That's a pretty legit problem. So I thought on that 
for a bit and I came back and I said,
Well, what if you could take that battery and you could 
just stack them up or swap them in and out?
Done. It didn't matter
that it was less expensive to use.
The fact that is environmentally friendly 
came second. They just wanted the silence.
I thought, oh, there's something in this.
So I spent the last six years building business where we 
built something we called the Grengine Power System.
And it is, on the small end, a potential solution for energy poverty.
Small units that are portable, plug-and-play. 
You do not even have to be literate to use our system.
And they're scalable because our energy needs go up. And if you're not already aware,
economic growth is directly correlated to 
access to energy. So it's a really big deal.
On the big end of the things, on the big energy use, we do industrial systems that have an energy impact
that isn't measured in grams of carbon dioxide reduction, it's measured in gigatonnes.
That's how big an impact it can have.
So this was a big system in the making
and yes, I actually did go to rocket science group - but it was simply started with a problem that I thought,
there's a way that we can solve this problem 
that is also environmentally friendly.
So if you have ever had that idea of, you know, 
this could be a business, I could do something,
then this is what I would recommend. 
First, you have to identify the problem.
You have to have a customer who has a problem. 
If you don't have a customer who has a problem,
you do not have a business.
Don't start one.
You will go bankrupt really fast. 
Or really slow. It's painful.
Two, you have to decide, can you solve it profitably? 
If you can, then you have a business, okay?
If it's going to cost you more than the consumer is willing to pay, you don't have a business.
That's not sustainable.
[high pitched sound]
It's the apples.
And third and most importantly, 
climate change is happening now.
So start. Don't wait. Start.
So I have both good news and bad news.
There's no climate superhero.
There's no one technology or one person 
who's coming to solve this problem.
But the good news is, we have an army of everyday superheroes who can solve this problem.
So, please get started. Thank you.
