The Sunday Edition for March 8, 2020
Listen to this week's episode with guest host Peter Armstrong:
Do the Delhi riots spell the end of India's secular identity? A new citizenship law that discriminates against Muslims ignited India's worst sectarian violence in decades. Kapil Komireddi — a political commentator and the author of Malevolent Republic:A Short History of the New India — argues that the new law flies in the face of India's secularist constitution. He says that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu government is all too willing to trample on the rights of Muslims and inflame religious intolerance in the name of Hindu nationalism.
The social and environmental costs of mining for green energy: Renewable energy technology offers an object lesson in just how hard it is to be green. As Clare Church, a researcher with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, points out, green energy technologies — from solar panels to high-capacity rechargeable batteries — rely on raw materials like lithium and cobalt. And just like the fossil fuels they're supposed to replace, they have to be dug out of the earth, often with significant environmental and social costs.
Fifty years later, Monique Bégin reflects on the Royal Commission on the Status of Women: Before she launched her political career in the 1970s, Monique Bégin was the executive secretary for the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, which had a seismic impact on Canadian society. Its final report was published 50 years ago. Bégin reflects on the creation of the Royal Commission and its report in David Gutnick's documentary — "More Explosive Than Any Terrorist's Time Bomb."
Exile, addiction and racism: what it means to be a gay, Muslim immigrant: Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali has been through a lot since he was born almost 35 years ago in Mogadishu, Somalia. A ruinous civil war; migrating to the Netherlands and then to Canada, a Muslim in a strange land; a fractured family; discovering he was gay; homelessness, alcoholism and addiction. You might say that anyone who's lived through all that should write a memoir. That's what he did. It's called Angry Queer Somali Boy: A Complicated Memoir, and it was widely acclaimed as one of the best Canadian books of 2019.
A study in contrasts: how two grandparents responded to young climate change activists: Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has inspired a young generation of climate activists, as well as many of their elders. Not all, however. Which led to a surprising divide in a many-decades-long marriage of two people who were well used to carrying picket signs and marching for change. Shirley Bradley's essay is called "Climate Generations."
Alberta's orphan oil well problem: As the oil and gas industry goes, so goes the Alberta economy. But when oil companies leave inactive oil wells unremediated, that saddles Albertans with major environmental liabilities that could cost the province tens of billions of dollars to clean up. Daryl Bennett — a farmer from Taber, Alberta and the director of a landowner advocacy group called Action Surface Rights — and Regan Boychuk — a researcher with the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project — talk about the extent of the problem and how it affects landowners on, and in, the ground.
Teaching a code of ethics to tech workers before they write computer code: The ethical issues that come with all-pervasive technology are legion. Surveillance and privacy; the way our data is harvested, used and sold; the way technology is used to make us vote in certain ways or change our behaviour. And ethical alarms are sounding more than ever with the rise of artificial intelligence and facial recognition. Abby Jaques of Stanford University has created ethics courses for the tech workers of the future … to get them to think about the ethical implications of new technologies before they hit the market ... or start spying on us.
Music this week by: Yann Tiersen, Herbie Hancock, Nancy Walker, William Tyler, Laura Barrett, Andrew Bird, Frazey Ford, Caribou and Kid Koala.