Peter Calamai
Peter Calamai has been a foreign correspondent, national reporter and editorial page editor for Southam newspapers and, most recently, science reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star. He is now freelancing to avoid the catastrophe of retirement.
Articles by
Peter Calamai
Pity the grad students in a seminar with Vaclav Smil. Or perhaps, envy them. If they survive his intellectual blast furnace, they will emerge much stronger. In Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next Fifty Years, Smil dismisses the faulty analysis of other senior academics, many named, with phrases such as “this is nonsense” and “entirely missing the fact.” Perhaps students receive more gentle…