Front Burner

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes throughout B.C. due to wildfires over the past week. The province warns that the fires could get worse in the coming days.

The list of communities devastated by wildfires, and the intensity of the fires themselves, keeps growing. What was once a rare event has become disturbingly common. So why haven't we figured out a better way to fight wildfires? And what could we be doing differently?

Mike Flannigan joins us to answer those questions. He's a professor of wildland fires at Thompson Rivers University and runs the Canada fire weather outlook.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Last Thursday, spurred by a flurry of online rumours, 72,000 migrants arrived from neighbouring Morocco to the shores of Ceuta, a tiny Spanish enclave in North Africa. According to Spanish media, around 142 of them died at the border, mostly from drowning or trampling. Within two days, most of the migrants left, largely on their own accord.

But what’s lingered is a political crisis for the pro-immigration Spanish government in an increasingly anti-immigration European Union focused on border security. And questions surrounding how exactly this came to be and who’s to blame.

We’re joined by Aitor Hernandez-Morales is based in Brussels, Belgium and who’s been covering the political fallout over the last week for Politico.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Earlier this summer, the federal government announced that it would build up to ten new nuclear reactors in the next fifteen years to help achieve Canada’s energy goals.

Canada isn’t alone in making this kind of big investment in nuclear power. Plans are underway to build more reactors in the U.S., China, India, and across Europe.

Still, there are concerns about costs, safety and the long term management of radioactive waste.

Jacopo Buongiorno teaches nuclear science and engineering at MIT. He’s also the director of the school’s Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems.

He’s here to talk about what’s driving Canada’s – and the world’s - nuclear power boom, and what risks could come with it.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On October 19th, Albertans will head to the polls to vote on whether or not there should be a referendum on staying a part of Canada or separating. So, how is the campaign to keep Canada united faring? What about the campaign for Alberta to leave?

Today on Front Burner, guest host Jason Markusoff in Calgary speaks with Toronto Star opinion writer Richard Warnica about his reporting on both campaigns, the enthusiasm gap, and what it might mean for the future of the country.

IDEAS, hosted by Nahlah Ayed is a daily podcast that explores how ideas over place and time shape our world.

There are 19 centibillionaires and a growing list of 3,000 billionaires worldwide. So it might not surprise you that the richest one per cent possesses nearly half of the world’s wealth. History has never seen such an extreme concentration of wealth. Some economists argue the battle of the 21st century is between oligarchy and democracy. How did we get here? IDEAS begins a four-part documentary series The Billionaire Age.
Listen to more episodes in this series:
Listen to Part Two: Disney heiress on the dangers of extreme wealth
Listen to Part Three: How oligarchs are taking over the world

More episodes of IDEAS are available here: https://link.mgln.ai/IDEASxFB