- E-bikes are popular because they're basically small cars
Monday, December 16th 2024
This week, This Matters is publishing episodes of the Toronto Star's new podcast Small Things Big Climate.
We live in a world built for cars. But as we sit in endless traffic, it’s hard not to think they’ve become a victim of their own success. Enter e-bikes. They’re big enough to replace delivery trucks, but small enough to zip past the bumper-to-bumper gridlock. They’re increasingly popular among food delivery people, families with young kids and seniors and soon may be replacing pick up trucks as a rural mode of transportation.
Guests: Jennifer McLaughlin, manager of rider experience at Zygg E-Bikes, Kevin McLaughlin, founder of Zygg, AutoShare and Evergreen and Joanna Kyriazis, director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada.
- Plastic is everywhere, it’s made of oil and it lasts 1,000 years
Saturday, December 14th 2024
This week, This Matters is publishing episodes of the Toronto Star's new podcast Small Things Big Climate.
Plastic is a miracle substance that’s revolutionized healthcare, keeping things sterile, and has replaced glass and metal packaging, reducing carbon emissions from shipping goods. It even keeps produce fresh for longer, reducing waste and the carbon emissions that come from rotting food.
But those positives have for too long overshadowed the negatives. Some plastic is toxic. It’s building up in the ecosystem and in our bodies. Today, plastic can be found in virtually every aspect of our lives. Not only in shopping bags, pop bottles and straws, but in places you’d never expect, like furniture and construction materials, and clothes. Yes clothes. Join us for a shopping trip to learn how your pants are contributing to climate change.
Guests: Kelly Drennan, founder of Fashion Takes Action and Max Liboiron, a professor of geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland and director of the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR).
- Fire is both the cause and effect of climate change
Wednesday, December 11th 2024
This week, This Matters is publishing episodes of the Toronto Star's new podcast Small Things Big Climate.
The way we talk about climate change needs to, well, change. Everything is either invisible, like emissions, or incomprehensible, like megatonnes, or inconceivable, like reductions of national emissions 25 years in the future. The cause of climate change is simple: it’s fire. To end global warming, we need to stop burning things.
Guests: Tim Stezik of Toronto Fire Services, Lytton fire survivor and author Meghan Fandrich and Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Fire Weather, John Valliant. - Fighting climate change collectively and individually
Monday, December 9th 2024
This week, This Matters is publishing episodes of the Toronto Star's new podcast Small Things Big Climate.The Star is often inundated with emails from readers asking what they can do to fight climate change. While there are lots of things people can do to lower their personal carbon emissions – and it’s important to feel like you’re part of the solution – individual action cannot end global warming on its own. So in this episode we take a look at community groups working on scaling up individual action to the neighbourhood level, and ask a former environmental activist turned Member of Provincial Parliament whether writing politicians actually makes a difference.- Host: Marco Chown Oved, Climate Change Reporter, Toronto Star
- Guests: David Langille and Julia Morgan, co-chairs of the Pocket Change Project. Peter Tabuns, former head of Greenpeace Canada and the Ontario NDP’s environment critic.
To hear more episodes, go to Small Things Big Climate or find it in your podcast feed.
- It's Taylor Swift's Toronto. We just live here
Friday, November 15th 2024
Guest: Toronto Star reporter Mark Colley and contributor Aisling Murphy
In this episode, This Matters looks at the Tay-Tay-takeover of Toronto, in which the pop star’s six concerts over 10 days have been estimated to bring in as many as a half a million tourists and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy. Reporter Mark Colley provides some perspective on the phenomenon and all it has entailed, from massive security, transit and traffic planning, to the scene around the city. Aisling Murphy, the Star’s resident Swiftie, was at the show on Thursday night, and provides a look at the vibes inside, and a perspective on what the performance was like. PLUS: How Taylor’s Toronto “secret songs” in her first performance tied into the season.
