You had to know this was coming
About my inevitable foray into Substackery
Yup, I’m starting a Substack of my own.
In part, I’m doing this because the mainstream media universe seems more precarious by the day, and building my own platform — well, in addition to Twitter — seems like a good precaution to take.
In part, I’m doing this because I occasionally find myself with things to say, and nowhere to say them with the speed I’d sometimes like.
But I’m really doing this because I want to create a resource for people in Calgary, in Alberta, and in Canada so they can better understand what’s happening with the energy transition and climate change. This is something I spend a lot of time writing about already, and I doubt that will change any time soon. But there’s still a yawning gap between the information people in the energy sector are getting and what they need to in order to fully understand and appreciate what’s happening in the world beyond Alberta’s borders.
Every day, it seems, there’s a new announcement or development that makes it more clear than ever before that change is afoot in global energy markets. And every day, it seems, there’s a column that gets written and published (in a Postmedia paper, of course) that tries to deny this reality. I’m not worried about the people who read them in order to confirm their pre-existing biases, whether that’s about Justin Trudeau’s nefarious intentions or why climate change isn’t really a problem, since these folks are generally beyond the reach of reason and data.
But I am worried about the people my age and younger, whose futures and careers depend on the industry’s ability to adapt and evolve. They need better and more reliable sources of information about what’s really happening out there. And if this Substack can serve as one of those sources? Well, I’ll have done more here than the War Room does with its tens of millions of dollars.
So yes, give me money. Shower me with support. But more than anything else, subscribe and stay engaged. Share this with friends and family if you want, and forward it to coworkers if you can. The more informed we all are, the better off we’ll be in the months and years to come.