Some anti-GMO activists have blamed the high suicide rate directly on biotech seeds—specifically, cotton tweaked by Monsanto to contain the Bt pesticide, now used on more than 90 percent of India's cotton acreage.
GMO enthusiasts, by contrast, counter that Monsanto's patented seeds are a boon to India's cotton farmers: They've boosted crop yields, driven down pesticide use, and alleviated rural poverty.
Oil giant’s US president says hugely controversial drilling operations off Alaska will stop for ‘foreseeable future’ as drilling finds little oil and gas. Story here.
Organic onions on their way to market. PinP photo. "We need a higher rate of growth in order to get close to meeting the demand," said Laura Batcha, chief of the Organic Trade Association. Story here.
An expensive remote Arctic facility, personally promoted by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a "world-class” research station, is less about pure science, and almost entirely about pushing oil, gas and mining development in the rapidly melting north, says one of Canada’s top polar climate scientists. Story here.
Paul Ehrlich writes in Nature Climate Change that Francis is wrong to fight climate change without also addressing the strain from population growth on resources. Story here.
With its focus on the economy, the recent election debate pointed to the Harper government’s big – and thus far spectacularly bad – bet on China. Story here.
A non-governmental organization has initiated a water-related study about Shoal Lake 40 First Nation as part of a world-wide investigation into healthy communities. Story here.
I find it hard to sympathize with the crew of the Atlantic Charger, the Canadian fishing boat which sank in Frobisher Bay this week. The 9 fishers had to be rescued by heroic members of our coast guard, who have saved the bacon of many people like this who go to places where they do not belong. This state-of-the-art vessel, replete with a skull and crossbones emblazoned on its bow, was out to conquer what is left of our dying oceans, now overfished beyond recall by people like this. Instead of respecting the relentless advance of climate change and staying the Hell away, this macho nine would rather go down in history as part of the crew that is wrecking our common home, Earth. I hope they are made to pay every cent of the cost of the rescue. I really don’t understand why you or me should be stuck with any of the cost of their stupidity, greed and machismo.
When California officials went out on April 1 this year to measure the amount of snow that had accumulated on mountain slopes over the winter, they were met with bleak scenes of dried, brown grass. The snowpack was so bad — a measly 6 percent of normal — that there was nothing like it in the 120 years of records. STORY HERE.
Corals are recovering from last year’s bleaching but warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures this year will likely lead to deadlier year for coral reef. Story here.
CBC Radio Quirks & Quarks - A team of Canadian Scientists has looked at Canada's system for protecting endangered marine species and discovered that almost none is receiving protection despite policies and legal requirements. Listen here.
The climate science sphere has been wrapped up in a major debate for the past several years: over the global warming “pause.” But now, a growing body of research has some scientists saying that the case may, in fact, be closed. They’re arguing that the pause never existed. Story here.
The number of victims from massive wildfires raking Northern California has grown to five, with two more bodies recovered in the Valley Fire. Story here.
Local doctors are in the eye of a storm swirling for the past three years over whether corn that’s been genetically modified to resist pesticides is a source of prosperity, as companies claim, or of birth defects and illnesses. Story here.
'This our sacred duty to those this country harmed in the past, to those suffering needlessly in the present and to all who have a right to a bright and safe future.' Story here.
Unprecedented rain in Japan unleashed heavy floods on Friday that tore houses from their foundations, uprooted trees and forced more than 100,000 people from their homes. Story here.
“A culture that places so little value on human beings, that it allows them to be thrown to the waves, is also going to allow poor people’s countries to disappear beneath the waves because that is a threat to today’s profits.”
Canada’s commitment to resettling refugees has been modest and processing rates painfully slow. Remind the Prime Minister and all party leaders that Canadians welcome refugees. Story here.
If you are not dedicated to the destruction of empire and the dismantling of American militarism, then you cannot count yourself as a member of the left. It is not a side issue. It is the issue. It is why…
Many of the people likely to be on the front lines of a changing climate are indigenous. Already assaulted by centuries of colonialism and exploitation, many indigenous people must also now adapt to rising seas, warming temperatures, and other disruptions to natural systems. Story here.
Every year, about one million Americans and tens of millions of people worldwide suffer the debilitating effects of salmonella poisoning, episodes sometimes serious enough for hospitalization. Story here.
Lives of semi-nomadic tribespeople being irreversibly changed by relocation into poorly planned settlements to make way for sugar plantation, says released report. Story here.
During his controversial Alaska visit, the US president continues his trend of lofty, climate change speeches coupled with more support for Arctic drilling. Details here.
The ideological and physical hold of American imperial power, buttressed by the utopian ideology of neoliberalism and global capitalism, is unraveling. Story here.
The sentencing in August of the Canadian journalist, Mohamed Fahmy to three more years in an Egyptian jail, is, sadly, yet another painful reminder of just how little the Harper Government seems to care about one of its most sacred trusts - protecting Canadian citizens who get into trouble abroad.