This Matters – Details, episodes & analysis

This week, This Matters is publishing episodes of the Toronto Star's new podcast Small Things Big Climate.

Of all the climate solutions out there, the heat pump is a no brainer. Not only will it reduce your emissions by 60 per cent or more, it’s cheaper to operate, improves air quality and makes your home more comfortable. Despite these many qualities, many people are getting talked out of getting a heat pump by their HVAC contractor.

Guests: John Gultig, heat pump owner, Michelle Hjort, Energy Advisor at Energy Neighbour and carbontech innovator Phil de Luna.

This week, This Matters is publishing episodes of the Toronto Star's new podcast Small Things Big Climate.

Sometimes it feels like you need a PhD to figure out how to shop for lower carbon groceries. Why isn’t there a simple rule of thumb to follow? Host Marco Chown Oved starts this episode with a simple question: What’s more important for the climate, what you eat or where it comes from? And the answer is: It isn’t even close.

Guests: Jonathan Foley, Executive Director of Project Drawdown, Cory Van Groningen, beef farmer at Hillview Farm, partnered with VG Meats and Rowe Farms, Brent Preston, farmer at The New Farm, President of Farmers for Climate Solutions.

Guest: Allan Woods, Toronto Star global and national affairs reporter

On the weekend, a 20-year-old gunman opened fire at a Donald Trump campaign rally, apparently injuring the former president, killing a bystander, and injuring two others. Toronto Star reporter Allan Woods wrote this week about the history of political violence and assassinations in the U.S., and about what that history might teach about how to step back from the brink of civil war. He also discusses the political fallout and implications of the shooting, the ongoing Republican National Convention, and whether those in attendance are tempering or ratcheting up their rhetoric.

This episode was produced by Julia De Laurentiis Johnston and Paulo Marques

In our series, “The Kids Aren’t All Right,” the Star has been highlighting the many ways in which children are struggling in Toronto. Mayor Olivia Chow joins “This Matters” to talk about why she thinks a lot of these areas stem from housing affordability and about her plan to try to break the logjam on that file. She also discusses her history of advocating for children at the city and what inspired it, and gives some concrete steps she plans to take in the next year or two to try to make things easier for families and children.

Employees are taking care of business but are businesses taking care of employees? Within a matter of weeks, Canadians, and people around the world, have learned which industries and workers are essential for our survival. So are major companies doing enough to protect them? Is it time we consider how to make our economy more sustainable in a post-COVID world? Adrian Cheung talks to Toby Heaps and Michelynn Lafleche from Corporate Knights about the economic realities so many of us face—and especially in a time of crisis—what our workplaces owe us.

Star City Hall Bureau Chief, David Rider, talks with Dr. Eileen de Villa, Toronto’s public health guardian, on her life and the weight of the fight against COVID-19. Dr. de Villa, medical officer of health, is the eye of Toronto’s public health hurricane. David Rider got a few of de Villa’s precious minutes to check up on the doctor.

Some people can work at home, avoid transit, connect to colleagues and friends via Zoom, order supplies to their door, stockpile necessities, and avoid COVID-19. Others can't. Saba Eitizaz speaks to Ian Goldin, of Oxford, about how the Coronavirus has highlighted a class divide and what kind of world will we live in after this is over. Saba also speaks to the Toronto Star’s social justice reporter Laurie Monsebraaten about how this looks in Toronto and who are the most vulnerable falling through the cracks.

Raju Mudhar speaks to Kate Allen, the Star’s science and technology reporter, and asked under what circumstances it’s safe to go out for a stroll. The messages about physical distancing seem to be finally getting through to Canadians, as the mantras of “stay inside” and “stay at home” have been repeated over and over again by public health leaders. But that does leave us with a bit of a strange question: Is it okay to go outside for a walk?

Adrian Cheung talks to Ben Makuch, national security reporter for Vice News, about why some neo-Nazis and white supremacists view the COVID-19 pandemic as their moment to act out their racist ideologies.

Raju Mudhar speaks to fellow Toronto Star journalist May Warren about her experience with COVID-19. She discusses how she got COVID-19, how she couldn’t get tested and how much this disease beat her down, regardless of how young she is and revealing how community spread has been in Toronto longer than expected and how—without widespread testing—it’s hard to know how pervasive this is.