A&S scholars sharing their expertise in the media this week

From the recent G20 summit in Rome to shifts in Canadian government policies around burning coal as a source of energy, scholars from a range of disciplines across the Faculty of Arts & Science are sharing their expertise on a variety of issues in the media.

Here’s some of what they had to say this week.

October 29, 2021

• John Kirton, a professor in the Department of Political Science and director of the G7 and G20 Research Groups at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, lays out five “credible commitment tests” for G20 leaders in Politico.
• Aurel Braun, a professor in the Department of Political Science and the Centre for European, Russian & Eurasian Studies at the Munk School, comments on the G20 summit and Prime Minister Trudeau’s meeting with the Dutch prime minister on CTV News.
• Department of Earth Sciences professor Miriam Diamond claims in Nunutsiaq News that graphs explaining the contamination of water in Iqaluit contain incomplete information.

October 30, 2021

• Department of Sociology professor and chair Scott Schieman and sociology PhD candidate Philip Badawy write in the Toronto Star (paywall) about a survey they conducted, showing that one-third of Canadians believe their employers do not support a healthy work-life balance.
• Department of Political Science and School of the Environment associate professor Jessica Green debates the efficacy of the Glasgow COP26 summit in the Toronto Star.
• Jessica Green also writes in the South China Morning Post that the COP26 summit will not make or break global efforts to address the climate crisis; she also discusses carbon pricing.
• Jessica Green further comments on The Weather Network that there is no evidence that oil and gas firms are making meaningful efforts to decarbonize.

October 31, 2021

• John Kirton of Political Science comments in the Globe and Mail (paywall) and Sydney Morning Herald that G20 leaders have not made firm enough commitments to confront climate threats at their latest summit.
• In Politico, John Kirton goes on to say that G20 leaders have fulfilled 84 per cent of commitments since the last summit.
• In the Associated Press John Kirton cites the agreement to end international coal financing as the one “specific and real” commitment to have emerged from the Rome summit.
• Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics research associate Jennifer West explains on CTV News that distant space structures are connected by magnetized filaments.

November 1, 2021

• Jessica Green of Political Science speaks on Toronto’s CityNews about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pledge at the COP26 climate summit to put a cap on emissions produced by Canadian oil and gas companies.

November 2, 2021

• Department of English associate professor Ian Williams is a guest on TVO’s The Agenda for a discussion about his recent book Disorientation: Being Black in the World, a collection of essays based on his experiences as a Black man moving through the world.
• Bryan Gaensler, Director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, is quoted in Boston Magazine on his views of astronomer Avi Loeb’s supposed discovery of extraterrestrial life.

November 3, 2021

• Senior researcher John Scott-Railton of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School reacts in BNN Bloomberg to the blacklisting of NSO Group by the U.S. commerce department.
• The Guardian reports that U.S. President Joe Biden’s move to place the NSO Group on a U.S. blacklist represents a victory for researchers at Citizen Lab.
• Department of Political Science professor Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, comments on the U.S. sanction of Israel’s NSO Group in the Washington Post.
• Michelle Murphy, a professor in the Department of History and the Women & Gender Studies Institute, is featured in an episode of a podcast presented by The Conversation that explores the notion that pollution is as much about colonialism as it is about chemicals.
• Nelson Wiseman, a professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science, comments in a CTV News story about the refunding to Canadians of sales tax paid for the purchase of face masks, produced by a Toronto-based company connected to recently elected Canadian Member of Parliament Kevin Vuong.
• Department of Geography & Planning PhD student Juan Carlos Jimenez writes an op-ed first published in The Conversation and reprinted in the National Post exploring the historic trauma affecting second-generation Central Americans in Toronto, resulting from migration and civil wars in several Central American countries in the 1980s.

November 4, 2021

• Douglas Macdonald, a senior lecturer emeritus at the School of the Environment, comments in a CBC News story about shifts in Canadian government policies around burning coal as a source of energy.