- How to ruggedize your life and prepare for ... whatever comes next
Sunday, September 1st 2024
This weekend, we're revisiting an episode from two years ago that we felt framed the discussion around climate change, and human adaptation to it, in a really unique and fascinating way.
We hope you enjoy! Happy labour day!
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It's no longer a question of if our comfortable lives will change as the climate does over the next few decades. The questions are how much will they change, and where will they change the least?
People with lots of money are already buying property in places they believe will be safe from disaster. You can Google "Best places to live in climate crisis" and find a lot of listicles. But very few of us have the money to buy everything we'll need, or move across the world. So how can you prepare for whatever comes next in the safest and most sensible way possible?
GUEST: Alex Steffen, climate futurist, author of The Snap Forward
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca
- Will Canada's EV tariffs on China actually work?
Friday, August 30th 2024
It depends what your definition of work is... but in announcing a 100% tariff on all electric vehicle's produced in China, Canada is following in America's footsteps. But we're a much smaller economy than the US, which means these tariffs may not have the intended impact.
Of course, the intended impact also varies depending on whom you ask. Is it to score the government a few polling points? To protect Canadian EV production? Take a human rights stand? Get more Canadians into electric vehicles? There's no way even a 100% tariff can accomplish all of that... so what will this policy really do?
GUEST: Moshe Lander, senior lecturer in economics at Concordia University in Montreal
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca
- When your community becomes a toxic waste dump...
Thursday, August 29th 2024
It's expensive to follow complex disposal protocols for construction waste that can often contain toxins. It's a lot less expensive to find someone willing or desperate enough to simply allow waste to be dumped directly onto their land, with no regard for the health and environmental impacts.
An Indigenous community in Kanasatake has dealt with this problem for years. Until some community members banded together, at personal risk, to get the story out there and force the government to take action. This week, the government finally did.
GUEST: Chris Curtis, investigative journalist, co-founder of The Rover
(NOTE: Nexus, a company named by reporters covering this story, has denied their role in a comment to La Presse: The company says it is only responsible for the soil transportation component and assures that it "has not at any time dumped soil into the Ottawa River." It assures that it "maintains a buffer strip between the natural environments and the deposit site" and reiterates that its "commitment to environmental protection remains unwavering”)
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca
- How health officials solved a deadly year-long listeria outbreak
Wednesday, August 28th 2024
When public health finally figured out in June what was causing a listeria outbreak that has killed three and sickened more than a dozen others, it did so by finally cracking what every one of those cases had in common, and tracing the infections back to an unlikely source...
GUEST: Hannah Alberga, health reporter, the Canadian Press
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca
- When a DIY approach to safe supply ends in arrests
Tuesday, August 27th 2024
Safe supply programs across the country that aim to provide alternatives to street drugs are under scrutiny right now. But today's story isn't an official safe supply program... it's an activist-led attempt to purchase untainted heroin, cocaine and meth and deliver it straight to users.
The creators of the program argue that it has saved lives. The federal government says that what they've been doing is simply drug trafficking. And it's charged them accordingly. But is it possible both sides are correct? And what does this truly renegade approach to the overdose crisis tell us about the state of Canadian drug policy?
GUEST: Omar Mouallem, filmmaker; contributing editor and reporter at Maclean's
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca
