I had a weird reference sheet that I carried around forever, one that represented a chink in the armour of academia. It was a photocopy of a page from a manufacturing cost accounting textbook I kept from university days. The page contained a cost-volume-profit problem about a washing machine manufacturer. If the manufacturer used a cheaper component, profit margin would increase by a certain percent, but sales would go down because the machines were less reliable. It was a simple profit vs. [Read more]
Call it what you want, but the National Energy Program is back
Not everyone is a market hawk. Not everyone enjoys watching the prices of everything from orange juice to pork bellies to crude oil bounce around like tennis balls in a dryer. Not everyone gets swept up in the nuances of hourly price changes, and that is a good thing – such short-term small fluctuations are often trader-driven and borderline irrelevant. On the other hand, some market data is pretty shocking and worth taking a peek at. For those that don’t pay much attention to markets, I [Read more]
BC’s LNG, a major natural gas pipeline and more crude by rail – Canada’s products finally get moving to a world that needs them
A few weeks ago, one of my columns spoke of the pall or lethargy that seems to have been cast over Canada. Whether through over-regulation, over-consultation or over-inhaling, Canada seems unable to rise to the challenges of keeping the nation moving forward. Many wrote to say how much the message resonated (thanks), and a few semi-coherent emails came in that missed the message but defended cannabis (and that resonance, between the garbled messaging and the defense of weed, seemed touchingly [Read more]
Mock you like a hurricane: “How about you drive a Prius, we’ll hold climate conferences in various tropical paradises, and we’ll let you know where you’re coming up short, ok?”
“Climate change is real, it is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating.” Leonardo DiCaprio “And there’s no question that there are contradictions. I just flew in from Japan. And flying is a very carbon-intensive activity…I contribute to putting green energy in continents like Africa. This is just to compensate for what I’ve put out – it doesn’t mean I’ve reduced my footprint.” [Read more]
The downward spiral – a stoned Canada quits its job to sit on a park bench and feed the birds
“Have you been making your mortgage payments?” “Relax dude, have you tried this stuff? It’s the bomb.” “I asked you a question.” “Yeah yeah, I made some payments.” “How?” “The money was still flowing in, so it was, like, easy.” “What about next month’s bills?” “Dude, relax, something will come up. We got all sorts of resources.” “Why did you quit your job?” “Man, that job was bogus. It was working for the man and it was killing the environment. I’m doing good now, [Read more]
World’s largest man-made CO2 sequestration project, world’s largest boreal forest reserve, a carbon tax, an oil sand emissions cap: Not bad for a “stupid to the last drop” province
Bragging sucks. It makes most decent people itch to brag, even at the thought of it. It’s generally the hallmark of little people trying to look big. On the other hand, if someone takes a picture of you sitting in your car and simultaneously looking at your cellphone, and they paste it all over social media and insinuate that you’re texting and driving and that you habitually do it, is it bragging to deny it? Is it bragging to point out that you have no traffic tickets, that you don’t text [Read more]
Guilty until proven innocent – If we could burn the endless stream of oilsands disinformation we wouldn’t need fossil fuels
Falsehood will fly, as it were, on the wings of the wind, and carry its tales to every corner of the earth; whilst truth lags behind; her steps, though sure, are slow and solemn, and she has neither vigour nor activity enough to pursue and overtake her enemy… Thomas Francklin, 1787 This quote, while a bit poncy and dour and unfunny for these parts, is also a pretty useful one to keep in mind. It may be maudlin, but it is also in turns useful and fascinating and disheartening. And Homer [Read more]
Hey, nice coup! Protesters: what is your plan for the country?
Maybe it’s just poetic justice that for decades we’ve struggled with how to reconcile Canada’s history with indigenous peoples. Some think we’ve done not enough, some think too much, and most agree it doesn’t work very well. Maybe it’s a reflection of reality that Canada caters to the protest movement, we’re too nice to deal with them in any meaningful way, and we let them dictate national agendas. Maybe the two, along with Canada’s inability to deal with either, are a marriage made in [Read more]
Smoke on the troposphere: CO2 emission targets rendered meaningless in the face of mother nature
A funny thing happened the other day as I returned home from the grocery store. My homeward trip coincided with a person from my neighbourhood whose car I recognized, and I got to observe his driving habits first hand. He was meticulous in lane changes, signalled every move, even in places where people usually don’t. We went through traffic circles, and he waited properly and even signalled every move correctly on those, which is rare. He maintained a proper speed limit, and his every action was [Read more]
Daily distortions: brainless media coverage of the oil and gas industry is ripe for consequence
I don’t know what it’s like to be the editor of a mainstream media news outlet, but it must be a miserable job. The popular information world has sort of gone off its rocker with the demands to be entertaining, insightful, current, hip, and wise, non-stop, all day long. It’s one thing to work on a story for days or weeks, as institutions like Reuters often do; the end result can be insightful journalism. Some institutions like Bloomberg however have resorted to the equivalent of painted [Read more]
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