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Environment

Business Strategy

Investing Through The Unfolding Energy Disruption

July 15, 2019
(Source: Sem Tech Solutions)

Although a life long mathematician and technologist, recently much of my focus has been on being a savvy investor, in many asset classes from private seed/angel investing to public markets and alternative investments. While Canadian investors have traditionally thrived on conservative, cash generating value investing and fixed income plays, the future is rendering such risk averse models …

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Arts

Environmental Awakening Fusing of Science, The Arts and Sea Ice

January 10, 2018

Even though a life-long environmentalist, my transformative experiences up north in Canada’s Arctic regions onboard Canada C3, moved my environmental consciousness to a whole new level.

My own journey began as a teenager in the 1960s. Being a voracious reader with a strong scientific bent, was a perfect fit for me to embrace the fledging environmental consciousness of that era.

Clearly the …

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Arts

Canada – A Nation Built by (Extra) Ordinary People

December 5, 2017

In a previous post, I spoke about my involvement with Canada 150 and also the Canada C3 signature project. The latter is an epic journey divided into 15 “Legs”, on a former Canadian Coast Guard Ice Breaker vessel (the MV Polar Prince, ca 1958) refitted to sail from coast to coast to coast for 150 days, and provide an ideal platform …

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Environment

Who Will Lead Our Institutions’ Response to Climate Change

September 18, 2016

Even though a life-long environmentalist, looking at the world through my children’s eyes drives home how pressing, and enormous, is the card we have dealt them. That legacy of unprecedented global climate change, leaves little choice between measures to achieve a rapid reversal of climate change …

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Arts

Social Innovation – Can Social Sector Learn from Tech Startups?

April 3, 2012

It is notable that much of the recent trend towards Social Innovation has come from people who began their careers in technology startups, in Silicon Valley or other technology clusters. Some notable examples include:

Bill Gates, partly at the instigation of Warren Buffet who added his personal fortune to that of Gates, left Microsoft, the company he built, to dedicate his …

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Arts

A “Rare” Tasting Menu by R Murray Shafer

May 5, 2009

“Dawn itself is the most neglected masterpiece of the modern world.” – R Murray Shafer

For those who don’t already know him, R Murray Shafer is the legendary superstar of the Canadian Musical avant garde – a great thinker, teacher, composer and all round renaissance man.

Having been a fan for over 30 years but with little local exposure, it was …

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Environment

A Bright Green Federal Budgetary Stimulus Opportunity

January 25, 2009

“Efficiency is doing better what is already being done.” – Peter F. Drucker

Is there a green lining in the inevitable mountains of cash being channelled into economic stimulus?

The sequence of September’s ho hum election followed by the almost incongruous state of denial about both environmental issues and the state of our economy by Canada’s Stephen Harper Government, renders the proroguing …

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Economics

Playing the Lottery after the Meltdown

December 26, 2008

Fold or raise? Full house or three of a kind? Eager to jump start an economy that has seen almost unprecedented meltdown, governments around the world are racing to place gargantuan bets with taxpayer and treasury money. Only time will separate the profound from the boondoggle among these bets. Meanwhile, poised on the dawn of a new year, I’ll present …

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Environment

Finding Negawatts Right on your Doorstep

May 20, 2008

Big “boil the ocean” issues (with apologies for the corny metaphor) like Global Warming overwhelm many people with their scope, long time scale and difficulty to solve. Predictions that human activity, which has of late been increasingly generating Green House Gases (GHGs) which in turn accumulate in the atmosphere and, by changing the heat retention of the whole earth’s …

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Environment

Does Climate Change Put You to Sleep?

February 18, 2008

Well, perhaps I have the answer for that …

On Saturday, I had the very good fortune to hike through an amazing wilderness reserve and research centre, named rare with London-based artist and filmmaker David Buckland who has created Cape Farewell as well as several naturalists who interpreted this wonderful reserve. The experience was a special one for me, beyond the great …

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