Earle Gray (Author of About Canada)

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Earle Gray

欧宝娱乐 Author

Born

in Medicine Hat, Canada

Website

Genre

Nonfiction, History

Influences

William Raymond Manchester, Will Durant, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Pa ...more

Member Since

March 2013

URL

/sandygray

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I began writing during my high school years in a village on the west coast of British Columbia, for the local weekly newspaper and as a stringer for the Vancouver Sun. After high school I followed a common enough path at a time when newspaper reporters liked to think that five years on the job provided a better education than university and a bachelor鈥檚 degree, and a journalist was said to be a reporter without a job. I worked as a reporter on a weekly newspaper in West Vancouver, on the Vancouver Sun, and the Albertan, one of two daily newspapers in Calgary, Alberta. These were the early years of the Canadian oil boom. For a time I spent my days writing about oil for the Albertan, and my evenings as a sports writer. Then I joined an oil in I began writing during my high school years in a village on the west coast of British Columbia, for the local weekly newspaper and as a stringer for the Vancouver Sun. After high school I followed a common enough path at a time when newspaper reporters liked to think that five years on the job provided a better education than university and a bachelor鈥檚 degree, and a journalist was said to be a reporter without a job. I worked as a reporter on a weekly newspaper in West Vancouver, on the Vancouver Sun, and the Albertan, one of two daily newspapers in Calgary, Alberta. These were the early years of the Canadian oil boom. For a time I spent my days writing about oil for the Albertan, and my evenings as a sports writer. Then I joined an oil industry publication as writer and sub-editor.
I changed my career from writer to publisher, launching a small-town weekly newspaper in Invermere, in central British Columbia. It took a year to go broke, in a manner once described in a Hemmingway novel: first slowly, then all of a sudden.
Returning to Calgary, I was editor of Oilweek magazine, one of Canada鈥檚 premier trade publications, from 1956 to 1971. This was when I wrote my first two published books, one a layman鈥檚 guide on how the petroleum industry functions, and its economic impact; the other, a history of the Canadian petroleum industry.
From mid-1971 to the Fall of 1977 I was stationed in Toronto as director of Public Affairs for Canadian Arctic Gas, a consortium of major U.S and Canadian firms that spent about $200 million on engineering and environmental studies, and regulatory hearings in both countries, for a proposed multi-billion dollar pipeline to transport natural gas from Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope of Alaska and the Mackenzie River Delta in Canada, to cities across both countries. A competitive proposal won government approvals, but the pipeline has never been built; this despite the assurances of a U.S. President and a Canadian Prime Minister that it would be. It was, at the time, thought urgently needed. Prudhoe Bay is the largest oil field ever found in North America, but also one of the largest natural gas fields. Most of the Prudhoe Bay oil has now been produced, but all the natural gas is still there, frozen in the Arctic, as it were.
Since 1977 I have worked independently as an editorial consultant, speechwriter, publisher (two small periodicals), and author of eight more non-fiction books. My awards include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Petroleum History Society (Canada) and the Samuel T. Pees Keeper of the Flame Award from the Petroleum History Institute (U.S.), one of just two Canadians to receive the latter award.
I am just starting work on my most ambitious, and possibly my last book. The working title is Fossil Fire: The impact of prehistoric fuels in the era of global warming, a history of coal, oil, and natural gas from the start of the Industrial Revolution. It will focus on the social, environmental, and economic impacts, good and bad. Fossil fuels have done more than any other resource in the last 300 years to advance human welfare, but now pose the greatest threat to human life in the form of global warming.
On a personal note, my interests include hiking, cooking, photography, and, of course, reading. I am also a bit of an exercise fanatic and a healthy eating zealot, both stemming from a cardiac arrest that almost took my life at age 58. Joan, my wife, drove me to the hospital as I felt, for the first and only time, the searing pain of angina. A cardiologist suggested I stay overnight for 鈥渙bservation.鈥� During the night I was hit by two major cardiac arrests, and would not have survived but for defibrillation within a very few minutes.
After that, I determined to exercise more consistently, building up slowly, and follow a rigidly healthy diet. At age 78, I was one of thousands to climb the 1,776 steps to the top of one the world鈥檚 tallest building, Toronto鈥檚 CN Tower, in an an ...more

39 posts
Earle Gray's Blog

Fossil Fire: the fuels that rule and risk our lives

In my last blog, I mentioned in passing, the book I鈥檝e recently started working on. So let me tell you a little bit about it.

My working title is 鈥淔ossil Fire: A social history of the fuels that rule and risk our lives in out time of climate change.鈥� Publishers, not authors, determine what the actual title of a book will be. Sometimes they even have different titles for the American and English edi Read more of this blog post »

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Published on September 06, 2013 08:12 • Tags: authors, fossil-fuels, publishers, writers, writing

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Combine Editions
Earle Gray鈥檚 books

Average rating: 4.35 · 20 ratings · 10 reviews · 11 distinct works

	About Canada: "My God, this is a great country." 4.38 avg rating — 16 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Great Canadian Oil Patch; Second edition. The petroleum era from birth to peak it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2005	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Super pipe: The Arctic pipeline, world's greatest fiasco? 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1979	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Impact of oil;: The development of Canada's oil resources 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1969	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wildcatters: The Story of Pacific Petroleum and West Coast Transmission 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1982	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Great Uranium Cartel 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1982 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ontario's Petroleum Legacy: The Birth, Evolution and Challenges of a Global Industry 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2008	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Free Trade Free Canada How Free Trade will make Canada 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 1988	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Forty Years in the Public Interest: A History of the National Energy Board 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2000 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The great Canadian oil patch 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Earle Gray…

Quotes by Earle Gray (?)

“Most of the seven billion people in this world suffer from malnutrition. Half do not have enough to eat and the rest of us eat too much.”
― Earle Gray

tags: excess, food, hunger, malnutrition, obesity

5 likes

“Never a horse that can鈥檛 be rode and never a rider that can鈥檛 be throwed. (I鈥檒l pass this off as my own, but I really stole it from my father, a cowboy and rodeo rider in his younger years.)”
― Earle Gray

tags: ability, achievement, cowboys, defeat, losing, rodeos, winning

2 likes

“21Most food goes to waste in affluent societies. When we throw leftovers into the garbage, it goes to waste. When we eat more food than we need, it goes to waist.”
― Earle Gray

tags: food, hunger, obesity, waste

1 likes

See all Earle Gray's quotes »

Earle鈥檚 Quotes

tags: ability, achievement, cowboys, defeat, losing, rodeos, winning

2 likes

“For more than a century-and-a-half, Europeans had been killing North American Indians with firewater鈥� Now, in the first decades of the nineteenth century, Canada鈥檚 pioneer settlers were killing themselves with their own medicine. About Canada. Toronto: Civil Sector Press, November, 2012. Alcohol, North American Indians, Settlers, Canada”
― Earle Gray, About Canada: "My God, this is a great country."

tags: alcohol, canada, north-american-indians, settlers

1 likes

“21Most food goes to waste in affluent societies. When we throw leftovers into the garbage, it goes to waste. When we eat more food than we need, it goes to waist.”
― Earle Gray

tags: food, hunger, obesity, waste

1 likes

“Most of the seven billion people in this world suffer from malnutrition. Half do not have enough to eat and the rest of us eat too much.”
― Earle Gray

tags: excess, food, hunger, malnutrition, obesity

5 likes