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My name is Gregory Kallenberg. My background is in journalism.
I've written for the Austin American Statesman, New York Times, Esquire Magazine,
a lot of other publications.
In 2006 I turned my focus onto documentary filmmaking.
In 2008 I was sitting in this little cafe called Strawn's
and I overheard a conversation by these two farmer-types about this huge
natural gas find called the Haynesville shale.
I immediately turned my camera on it
and found this incredible story that became the documentary "Haynesville."
When we first released "Haynesville," we were especially lucky because we got
it into one of the largest film festivals
in the country which is South by Southwest in Austin.
From there things kind of took off on us and then we found ourselves playing
for everyone from
environmental festivals, to industry conferences, to universities. We showed it in
front of communities, we showed all over and we saw this tremendously positive
response to it.
During the time we were taking the film around the country we really did see
something amazing.
I mean, granted, there was this polarization where people were
totally the split on the issue.
But what we saw was, was this larger group in the middle that were
starting to serve collect around the film and the issue of energy.
Running into people who didn't understand, like, where it came from,
or how much we used of it
was a common occurrence. All those things were things that people coming
into the theater and wanting to discuss.
And that's when I got one one of the most exciting calls I think I've ever gotten,
which was an invitation
From TEDx
in Austin, to present this idea of
what this film is, and sort of the idea of what the film has become.
You know, if you're going to speak at TEDx, you need a great idea, and so
I came back to my team and really started working on what it was I was going to present.
And what we all decided was to present this idea
of these people, this group that had sort of collected around Haynesville.
You know, these people had come to learn more about energy to learn more
about how they can help to sort of bring about a cleaner energy future.
And internally we called this group the "rational middle."
And the rational of middle wasn't these extreme ends of the argument. They
weren't the people behind the barricades, you know heaving molotov cocktails and
insults at each other. This is a group that was willing to sit down, to compromise,
to look at sort of the risk and rewards of energy and to start working on
a cleaner energy future.
In the end,
we are gonna be the ones that are going to be the primary architects.
We're the ones who are going to change the trajectory of the energy future.
So after TED, we sort of collected ourselves as a production team, and we thought,
what was next?
What was next for the Rational Middle. I mean, this had had such a
tremendous response thus far.
It had really sort of brought all these people to the issue who had never been
there before but we were only doing it about two hundred to four hundred
people at a time.
How could we should go big with this Rational Middle concept
and do it in a way that actually could have impacted and maybe even start to change
the way that everyone started to look at energy.
What we came up with was this concept that we call the Rational Middle Energy Series.
And what the Rational Middle Energy Series would be
is a series of short films that would help build that foundation of information for
these groups of people who really need to know,
want to know what energy is about, where it comes from, why we need a clean energy
future, and how to get there. So our idea was to go back and interview, talk to,
the world's leading energy experts. I mean I'm talking academics, environmentalists,
and pundits.
These experts would really help us communicate to these people
how to sort of gather around energy
in such a way that will really help us bring about manifested a cleaner energy future.
And then we were invited to the Aspen Ideas Festival. If you've never been to the Aspen Ideas Festival.
it's one of the greatest gatherings of some of the most astounding minds in the world.
It's in subjects ranging from philosophy, architecture, to energy.
And that's where we met, among other energy minds, Marvin Odum,
who is the president of Shell.
And the way I remember it, as I was flying on my way to Aspen,
and one of the people on the staff had handed me a DVD and said you ought to watch this.
And it was the independent film "Hainesville."
It provided what I thought was a very different and very balanced view
that I thought was very important.
And so Gregory had come up with this idea of what he calls the Rational Middle.
And it made absolutely perfect sense to me.
After Aspen, we were invited down to Houston to pitch our idea to Shell.
I had this natural trepidation of being sponsored by a huge energy company,
so we laid the ground rules out from the very beginning, which was that
we were going to be
completely transparent
about who was sponsoring the Rational Middle Energy Series,
And then,
that I was going to get complete creative an informational control over
the subject matter.
The way it came to me was the idea that Gregory can do this in a very independent fashion.
Which, you know, given just a few seconds thought
also made perfect sense to me
because this has to be told from an independent point of view,
it can't be influenced by a company like Shell,
because they won't have the credibility that really needs.
So it was decided, Shell would fund the Rational Middle Energy Series.
and the ground rules were all agreed to. I mean we would work
outside of the company so the company had no influence what we were going to
be doing,
and we had four created and informational control over the films themselves.
I think this series is incredibly important,
Not just because of what someone might see in their backyard or happening
in their neighborhood.
I actually start thinking about this at an absolute global level.
So if we think about the fact that the world has seven billion people in it today,
and there's a growing middle class around the world
where the consumption of energy is going to escalate dramatically over the next
half century.
The issue of energy, and
the challenge of the cleaner energy future
is one that is incredibly important to me and my team.
The creation of the Rational Middle energy series was an amazing opportunity.
This ability to bring this issue to the people in such an easy,
excessible, and open way
is something that is an incredible opportunity.
But this is really just beginning.
I think there's a lot that's working against
A Rational Middle type concept having a huge impact. And when I say that,
Immediately what I'm thinking is,
you know, think of the political situation in Washington coming up
on this election year.
You know, Republicans all the way to this side, Democrats all the way to this side.
Everybody that's really thinking, you know, knowing the right answer is
somewhere in the middle.
But that's not where the dialog is. But I think, I really do deeply believe that
the people in this country are much smarter than that.
And that when something like the Rational Middle is available
and they can see it, and they can understand it, and they can understand that it's
balanced and real, then they can take that, and they could take it back to
their politicians or whoever and say
"This is what I believe
and this is what I want to happen and this is what I want you to make happen."
That i think is the real opportunity here.
What I hope people take away from the Rationale Middle Energy Series is not just
information, and it's not just wow facts.
I want people to take away a different way of thinking. I want people
to realize that we have to work on this together.
We have to compromise on what's there, how we use it and what we use
in the future as far as energy is concerned.
What I want the Rational Middle Energy Series to do is to collect people in such
a wayso that we start working on an energy solution and we start doing it
together.
But we're not going to do it
unless we work together. We're not gonna do it unless we break this stasis and
we come out of these places on one side the other, meet in the Rational Middle,
and sit at this table
and look each other in the eye and listen,
and together we will decide where we are as an energy nation,
where we want to go,
and most importantly,
how we intend to get there.
Thank you.