Climate Change

The climate crisis is also a mental health crisis. Psychologists have known this for some time. But this week, preliminary findings from a massive new study have revealed that global warming’s impact on young people’s well-being is far more intense than anyone predicted. The worst part is that the kids’ distress isn’t irrational: The problem lies with their governments. 

Sept 17, 2021

Young people are increasingly skeptical of our political system. Here’s how to restore our trust.

[Editor’s note: This is an abridged version of a story that first appeared in our pop-up election newsletter, The Run. Sign up here to get new issues sent directly to your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday until election day.]

Every election, young people get to hear all the latest platitudes about the power of the youth vote.

Pleased with her good fortune, the woman remarked, “We’d planned to go to Mexico this summer, but we didn’t need to. It was hot enough here!”

In a different time, it wouldn’t be such an unsettling comment to have overheard while out and about in Alberta, where summers were short and often cool.

But in the midst of a season marked by climate extremes and disasters, it made me wonder how well it’s understood that what we’re seeing is not some temporary aberration; this new summer heat is the sign of a lasting condition. And it isn’t one we should delight in.

September 14, 2021

PROMISES WITHOUT ACTION AREN’T ENOUGH

When journalists interview me about old-growth forests, the hardest question to answer is “what is it like to be in one?” Standing in undergrowth so dense it’s hard to walk through with beams of sunlight piercing the tops of trees that were hundreds of years old before Europeans even arrived on this continent — how do you put this feeling into words?

Sept. 15. 2021

Light rail transit (LRT) supporters can look forward to shovels in the ground as soon as the middle of next year now that Hamilton city council has ratified a key milestone.

Sept. 17, 2021