The Decibel

Canada has an opportunity when it comes to electricity. We’re ahead of the game in some ways. A sizable part of the electrical grid is already decarbonized. And, about 80 per cent of our electricity comes from clean sources like hydroelectricity. But with demand expected to double as we electrify everything in our lives – from electric vehicles to heating homes – Canada’s grid faces some major cha...

The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, they imposed an extremist interpretation of Shariah law on its people, harboured Osama bin Laden as he planned 9/11, and were ultimately routed from power by the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2001. Now, they’re back, and giving interviews promising a kinder regime, with amnesty for all Afghans who worked for the government. Meanwhile on Wednesday,...

After 17 months of lockdowns, masking, social distancing and vaccinations, it looked like we might finally be cresting the worst of the pandemic. But the official word has come from Canada’s top public health officer, Theresa Tam: we’re now in a fourth wave. Cynthia Carr , an epidemiologist based in Winnipeg, talks about how the combination of the Delta variant, vaccine hesitancy, and schools reop...

The Taliban’s capture of Kabul has caught NATO governments flat-footed in their efforts to extricate their embassy staff and the Afghan nationals who have been helping them, as well as the troops. While many foreigners have been flown home, a lot of Afghans are stuck . Now, these residents are scared that the Taliban will find them and their families. Many are wondering if Canada will help them es...

It’s been almost 1000 days since Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were detained by the Chinese government. The move was widely seen as retaliation for Canada arresting Chinese citizen Meng Wanzhou on behalf of the U.S. Now, Spavor has received an 11-year sentence for espionage, Kovrig’s sentence is expected any time now, and Meng’s extradition case could continue for years. The Globe’s...

As a bonus, we're bringing you an episode of Stress Test , a podcast about personal finance from the Globe and Mail, hosted by Rob Carrick and Roma Luciw.  The pandemic ruined many wedding plans. But even before that, a culmination of peer pressure and over-the-top consumerism had pushed the cost of weddings sky-high. It’s made some couples ask: What is a wedding worth? We hear from Jasmine, a gla...

Canada’s last federal election was in the fall of 2019, and the Liberals won a minority government. Now, as some experts say the fourth wave of the pandemic is upon us as case counts rise thanks to the Delta variant, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is rumoured to be preparing to call an election as early as this Sunday, which would mean an election day in late September. Globe writer at large, John...

Monday’s IPCC report brought together the world’s latest science to tell us what we know about what causes climate change and what exactly it’s doing to our planet. It painted a picture of a world becoming, in some areas more than others, harder for people to live in. Millions of people are already displaced each year because of weather events like hurricanes, flooding, drought and extreme heat, t...

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the latest scientific knowledge about climate change has been released, detailing how human behaviour and particularly greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver of climate change. Globe science reporter Ivan Semeniuk is back on the show to explain the report’s main findings. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company....

Over the summer, more than 1,200 probable unmarked graves have been located on former residential school sites in Canada, which were mostly run by the Catholic Church of Canada. This has ignited calls for a formal apology from the Church. Globe reporters Tom Cardoso and Tavia Grant have been investigating the Church’s wealth , and Tom joins us to tell us what we know about the Church’s finances, i...

Beloved Toronto Raptors point guard, Kyle Lowry, announced he’s leaving the team to play for the Miami Heat. Lowry was a big part of the Raptors’ win of the NBA 2019 Championships and fans are sad to see him go. Vivek Jacob , a freelance sports writer, tells us what Lowry’s departure means for the future of the Raptors, his influence on the team’s rise in the NBA, and why fans want to see his stat...

Beneath the Straits of Mackinac, the connecting waterway between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, lies Enbridge Line 5 : a pipeline built in 1953 bringing natural gas and crude from the oil sands in Alberta to refineries in Ontario and Quebec. Opponents of the pipeline worry that it could rupture, poisoning the fresh water supply, blocking shipping routes, and crushing tourism. Michigan Governor Gret...

Working four days a week instead of five has often come up as a way people can reclaim some of their time from their employers. But who exactly would benefit from that, especially in the gig economy? And could there be other ways for all employees to regain some control over their work-life balance? Armine Yalnizyan , an economist and an Atkinson Fellow on the future of workers , weighs in on the...

American gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from both the team and individual all-around competitions, a few athletes have passed out from the Tokyo July heat and dozens of people connected to the Olympics have COVID-19 , while case counts reach all-time highs in the surrounding neighbourhoods. On the other hand, Canada’s athletes have made this one of the best Summer Games for our country so far, with...

Before there was Youtube and Vevo, there was MTV and MuchMusic. These TV music stations were the curators of cool. And when millennials were teenagers, they flocked to them to watch the hot new video or catch an interview with their favourite musicians. But now, Much (as the channel is now called) no longer airs music video content as artists drop their new singles directly onto their own social f...

African nations have a problem. They can’t get enough COVID-19 vaccine doses. Vaccine hoarding by wealthy nations and an underserved COVAX program – the one designed to make sure the developing world wasn’t left behind in the pandemic – have resulted in a slow vaccination rate for most of the continent. These global factors have also led to a menacing opportunity for the Delta variant to spread am...

The summer is half over, vaccination rates are rising, but we aren’t out of the pandemic woods yet. And since we last explored vaccine passports , the question of whether businesses can legitimately ask for proof of vaccination to enter – whether it’s a restaurant or a sports arena – has only become more fraught. Restaurateur Jacob Wharton-Shukster tells us what happened when he announced that an...

To keep their edge after a fantastic showing at the 2016 Rio Olympics , Swimming Canada got serious about their data-mining mission. They tracked all kinds of metrics to really understand their swimmers’ performance. Data analysis can show you how to shave a fraction of a second off a race time and, in some cases, that can mean the difference between a gold and silver medal. Grant Robertson , a se...

After the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent swell of Black Lives Matter protests, companies rushed to declare their alliance to the cause of fighting anti-Black racism in the workplace. In Canada, corporate leader Wes Hall designed the BlackNorth Initiative , wherein CEOs pledged to not only promote diversity, but actually hire, retain and promote Black talent. Initially, 209 companies si...

A growing number of nurses are leaving hospitals . The relentless workload, the crushing experience of watching so many people get very sick from the novel coronavirus and die, and the increasingly short-staffed nature of many intensive care units has created an untenable situation for many nurses across the country. And this is having an impact on hospitals, with some emergency rooms having to cl...

As the U.S. continues to pull its troops out of Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of fighting, the Taliban is taking back more and more territory. This has left Afghan nationals who worked for foreign governments feeling more and more unsafe and now they want to leave. A lot of countries have specific programs for current and former employees who want to relocate, but Canada hasn’t unveiled the de...

Ontario movie theatres will reopen on July 16th. For some – like in the Greater Toronto Area – it’ll be for the first time in about nine months. And while many theatres across the country reopened earlier, Ontario represents a big chunk of the Canadian box office, which has been hurt badly not only by lockdowns and public health restrictions, but also the rise of streaming services like Netflix, A...

Phone technology has evolved at an incredible pace, from the first cellphone in the 1980s, to the sophisticated computers we call smartphones in our pockets now. But some of the most important calls we make are to 9-1-1 in an emergency. And the system that 9-1-1 centres run hasn’t kept up. The Globe’s telecom reporter Alexandra Posadzki tells us that there’s a move to introduce “next-generation 9-...

Events in Haiti have been unfolding quickly following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in his Port-au-Prince home on July 7. In the past week there has been news of arrests of mercenaries, a siege in the country’s Taiwanese embassy and the alleged involvement of a doctor in the murder. But if you look back at Haiti’s history , a lot of the political turmoil is tied into all the...

Can racism cause schizophrenia? It’s an area of mental health research that has been ongoing for decades and over time, researchers are increasingly finding that having a darker skin colour than your neighbours does seem to have an effect. But just how much and how that alters your brain chemistry is difficult to tease apart due to the complexities of schizophrenia as a disease. Erin Anderssen, wh...