Terry Etam

As we are now firmly underway in a new year, the welcoming ascension of the sun above the horizon provides a much-needed jolt of spring hope. On the other hand though, all that sunshine also provides a better view of the train wreck that is our nation’s economy/industrial future. More daylight brings into full view the whole mess grinding to a halt, felled by a few random objects on a few railway tracks, or a handful of not-imperilled protesters. While Ottawa devotes itself to finding a way to [Read more]

It’s showtime, everybody. Anyone that’s spent much time observing the ever-more bonkers climate dialogues has suspected a day of reckoning would come when the irresistible force/fear of climate change meets the immovable object of people trying to live their lives. It looks like we’re here; get ready to watch the fireworks. For the past several years, climate activists have become ever more emboldened because no one has made any effort to slow their progress. In fact, the opposite has [Read more]

In the poorly understood world of electrical generation and transmission, a strange tale is unfolding. The media won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, for a number of reasons – first, it is miles over their head, and second, the conclusions run counter to their current bombastic narrative about the “renewable energy revolution”. There is a risk in even discussing the situation, because in the powder-keg debate of climate change vs. lifestyle, the denier police are on high alert to brand your [Read more]

Oh no, I can feel it, another diatribe coming on. Like a developing migraine, there's no point fighting it, the looming inevitability.  My trigger is inadvertently stumbling on blistering displays of energy ignorance, which set me off, and out comes the Incredible Hulk. Look, I don’t want to go there either. I’d rather write about secure and reliable energy supplies, birds chirping, sunshine and koala bears. I keep my nose clean; I stay away from the CBC and similar to avoid the obvious [Read more]

To: Dr. Jason Carmichael, Associate professor of sociology, McGill University Dr. Carmichael, A friend forwarded me your recent interview on Global TV, where you discussed research on petroleum industry advertising. Normally I don’t watch such news items, but after doing so, I thought your research was worth commenting on since it reached such a wide audience, one that in general is not aware of petroleum industry issues, and may therefore form opinions based on seemingly authoritative [Read more]

Not that very long ago, I succumbed and downloaded the Starbucks app to my phone. It was unpleasant to do so for all sorts of reasons. Being a fan of all kinds of coffee, it felt like sort of a false promise, like being a creep and leading someone on – I had no intentions of any sort of monogamous coffee behaviour. It also felt invasive, because it clearly was gathering intel, and it wanted money, and its phony cheerfulness (shove that “Good morning, Terry!” up your virtual a__ you little [Read more]

“Struggling for breath in that ditch full of pee 65 years ago in a working-class suburb of Sweden, little did I know that I would be the first of my family to go to university.” Hans Rosling in “Factfulness” Have you ever read anything so beautiful? Beautiful in two ways. First, I needed a mental remap of Sweden anyway. There had to be more to the country than IKEA, meatballs and Nordic murder mysteries. Now I can add that ditch and its forlorn occupant to my mental list of visuals, [Read more]

I’m not normally one for New Year’s resolutions; there is no thrill in backpedaling furiously on a self-promise before January is half over. But, as with the potential rebirth of the energy scene through things like the ultra-massive hydrogen potential, perhaps it’s time I tried something different. So here’s a New Year’s resolution. It’s a bit early but I’m going to take a run at it and hit 2020 in a higher gear (if I don’t gain too much weight). Before committing to any sort of resolution [Read more]

Grain of sand in an hourglass It came down to him or me Canada’s greatest band The Headstones - “Long Way to Neverland”   As the year draws to a close, it’s natural to look back at the one just past and ruminate on how it went. If you were thinking of doing that, let me save you some time: Bad idea. If you’re reading this, you’re interested in energy, and if you’re interested in energy it has been an exasperating and dumbfounding year. There were, in effect, two central [Read more]