Carol Goar: Natural catastrophes mount while Harper shrugs (in The Toronto Star)

"As scientists produce ever more evidence that climate change is disrupting the atmosphere, causing more floods, droughts, storm surges, wildfires, landslides, extreme cold snaps and deadly heat waves, Canada’s financiers are beginning to sound the alarm. ...

"What [the Toronto Dominion Bank's report entitled Natural Catastrophes: A Canadian Perspective] aims to do is persuade policy-makers, business leaders and individuals in Canada to mitigate the impact of the climate upheavals that are already happening or foreseeable.

"Most of the provinces are already taking steps to limit the damage. Oil companies, automakers and homebuilders, likewise, are making adjustments. Only the federal government refuses to deviate from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s full-steam-ahead approach to energy development.


Natural catastrophes mount while Harper shrugs: Goar | Toronto Star

Rick Salutin: The end of Mad Men and the era of ads (in The Toronto Star)

"What ever made anyone think news and ads could easily mix? It wasn’t always so. If you look at early newspapers, like William Lyon Mackenzie’s Colonial Advocate (Toronto in the 1830s), it’s a solid wall of news and opinion. The only ads are classified, from readers to readers, like the Internet. Ads came to dominate all other forms of income but it was an uncomfortable marriage; and it’s crazy to think the divorce won’t ultimately be a Good Thing, even if the stresses are agonizing now, especially for people working in journalism.

"Or TV. Who could imagine TV without ads, it was always ads. But the best TV ever, like Mad Men, was done for cable, with its alternate revenue stream, coming straight from viewers."

The end of Mad Men and the era of ads: Salutin | Toronto Star

Interesting article on the future of ads.

Tony Burman: Climate change — time to wake up, smell the CO2 (in The Toronto Star)

"If hell on Earth doesn’t actually exist, the essential message from this week’s dramatic United Nations climate change report is that it one day might.

"And if that does happen, can I be the first to propose that its hottest corner be reserved for the political and media ideologues and “deniers” — including here in Canada — who act as if this fragile, overwhelmed planet is their own personal piggy bank from which to loot? ...

"The world’s nations are beginning to work toward a new international climate change protocol that would replace Kyoto. The crucial meeting will be in Paris at the end of 2015. Governments will gather there claiming some sort of mandate from their voters to determine the road ahead.

"Canada is scheduled to go the polls next year, shortly before this meeting is held.

"Isn’t this a great opportunity for Canadians as a people to reclaim our commitment to an environmental policy that truly serves our future generations?"


Climate change — time to wake up, smell the CO2: Burman | Toronto Star

Tony Burman, former head of Al-Jazeera English and CBC News, teaches journalism at Ryerson University. (tony.burman@gmail.com )