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Showing posts from August, 2017

Hell Hath No Fury Like Mother Earth Scorned

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CommonDreams Hurricane-turned-Tropical Storm Harvey unleashed the fury of a warming planet on the Gulf Coast of Texas this week, leaving hundreds of thousands displaced and homeless, thousands languishing in crowded shelters, and killing at least 28 people. Story here. A rabbi removes a Torah scroll from the synagogue before Hurricane Harvey hit the area. Photo by Chad Lubavitch.

A small recreational lake in central Manitoba gets a dose of a farm chemical. Caution advised.

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Military to help evacuate 3 Manitoba First Nations at risk from wildfire

CBC news Fire prompted evacuation of Wasagamack First Nation, partial evacuations of Garden Hill, St. Theresa Point. Story here.

Houston, We Have a Climate Problem

CommonDreams The best response to a disaster is to learn lessons to prevent the next one. Story here.

Did Climate Change Intensify Hurricane Harvey?

The Atlantic “The human contribution can be up to 30 percent or so of the total rainfall coming out of the storm.” Story here.

“The Sixth Extinction - an Unnatural History” - a Book Review

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by Larry Powell If the rest of the living world were to take we homo sapiens to court for ecocide, this book provides copious evidence to find us “guilty as charged.” As a matter of fact, you’d be hard-pressed not to find clues of human culpability in just about every extinction which has occurred since modern man began walking Earth. And that, after all, in geologic time, was just moments ago.   As we speak, fungi incapable of being spread worldwide by any way other than human activity, are killing millions of bats and frogs. For example, where there once were millions, only a handful of Panamanian Golden Frogs now cling to life in a building which must be sanitized regularly with bleach to keep the fungus at bay. And amphibians as a whole are perhaps the most endangered class of animal on the planet today. Prolonged, relentless and cruel hunting methods by humans wiped out every last trace of the Great Auk, a bird born with the misfortune of being flightless, in th

7 reasons we face a global water crisis

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Nation of Change Lake Winnipeg, the world's 10th-largest freshwater lake. In serious trouble due to pollution. Greenpeace photo. Along with fresh water, political will and public pressure are critical resources in ensuring a sustainable future for all.  Story here.

Harvard Study Finds Exxon Misled Public about Climate Change

inside climate news An analysis of Exxon’s research and public statements shows a sharp contrast between what the oil giant knew about climate change and what it told the public.  Story here.

Big business and big oil lose climate battle in pipeline review

NATIONAL OBSERVER Canada's National Energy Board has rejected recommendations from big business and big oil, agreeing for the first time in its history to consider both upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions while reviewing a major pipeline project. Story here

Warmer waters from climate change will leave fish shrinking, gasping for air

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ScienceDaily Great White shark. Photo by Pterantula  (Terry Goss)  Fish are expected to shrink in size by 20 to 30 per cent if ocean temperatures continue to climb due to climate change. Story here.

Only Solution, Says McKibben, 100% Renewables 'As Fast as Humanly Possible'

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CommonDreams "No more half-measures," warns prominent climate author and activist. Story here. Solar panels on a roof top in Germany. Photo by R-E-AL

Pesticide increases probability of bumblebee extinction.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution A bumblebee forages on a sunflower.  PinP photo. Pollinators are in global decline and agricultural pesticides are a potential driver of this.  Story here. RELATED:  Will New Research From Europe Nudge Canada Toward a "Neonic" Ban?

How climate change has altered Kodiak bears' feeding habits

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PNAS Red elderberry and sockeye salmon make up a large portion of a Kodiak bear's diet; usually, the bears treat themselves to spawning salmon before the elderberry season begins. Recently, warmer springs have shifted the elderberry fruiting time to an earlier period, which coincides with the salmon spawn. Researchers observed how warmer springs affected the bears' diets, and found that bears left the streams to forage on berries on adjacent hillsides, disrupting an ecological link that typically fertilizes terrestrial ecosystems and generates high mortality rates for salmon. These findings contribute to the ongoing exploration of the effects of climate change on specific predator-prey relationships and ecosystems as a whole.

Lake Trout adjust their behaviour in the face of a changing climate, new Canadian study reveals.

UM TODAY                      News The scientists observed a reduction in the fish’s growth and condition, which can impact their reproductive success. Story here.

Dirty business: The livestock farms polluting the UK

THE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM A Bureau investigation has found pig, poultry and dairy farms are releasing harmful pollution once a week on average in England and Wales. STORY HERE.

We Hardly Know Anything About the Deep-Sea Life we Are Destroying.

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BuzzFeed News A weedy sea dragon. Photo by Richard Ling. There's been hardly any research into most residents of the deep oceans, despite it being the biggest habitat on Earth – and it's making them harder to protect, according to a new review. Story here.

UN health agency rushes to prevent malaria, cholera outbreaks in flood-hit Sierra Leone

UN News Agency The United Nations health agency is working closely with the Government of Sierra Leone to prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and cholera in the wake of last week's mudslides and flooding in the country's capital, Freetown. Story here.

Camper concerned for the health of a Manitoba lake after a chemical appears to have killed off aquatic life.

QC Country "Residents were shovelling away dead crayfish" according to Denise Melnyk. Story here.

World's Biggest Brands Are Pushing Indonesia's Endangered Wildlife to Extinction

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EcoWatch An ancient Indonesian rainforest, home to elephants, orangutans, tigers and rhinos, is being destroyed by industries which extract products such as palm oil. Story here. A Sumatran tiger. Dick Mudde.

Facts Don’t Matter

alberta views - David Schindler Harper is gone, but pro-development governments continue to ignore science. Story here.

Environment Canada confirms tornado hit Ontario's cottage country, 3,000 still without power

CBCnews Too soon to know how strong twister was, but several structures damaged. Story here.

Temperature anomalies arranged by country from 1900 - 2016

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Gulf of Mexico's Dead Zone Could be Largest Ever, Thanks to the Meat Industry

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EcoWatch Photo of a dead zone with sediment from the Mississippi River  carrying fertilizer to the Gulf of Mexico. Photo by NOAA. Scientists predict  that so much pollution is pouring into the Gulf of Mexico this year that it is creating a larger-than-ever " dead zone " in which low to no oxygen can suffocate or kill fish and other marine life. Details here.

Industrial Pollution Costs Cattle Producers Access to a River in Saskatchewan, Canada.

The Western Producer Several cattle producers along the Wood River in south-central Saskatchewan have to move about 1,000 head to different pastures after water quality in the river declined unexpectedly. Story here.

Extreme heat warnings issued in Europe as temperatures pass 40C

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TheGuardian PinP  photo. Authorities in 11 countries warn residents and tourists to take precautions amid region’s most intense heatwave – nicknamed Lucifer – since 2003. Story here.

THE FUTURE IS HERE FOR THE NEW GOVERNMENT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

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Sierra Club of BC A wildfire in the Okanagan region of BC a few years ago, from space. NASA. Record-breaking wildfires and heat waves are a reminder that we have little time to save nature, phase out fossil fuels and leap to a low-carbon economy, all at the same time. Story here.

'The damage is done': Home electricity meters exploding, starting fires in Sask. drought

CBC news Regina's driest July in 130 years also threatening livestock, crops and farmers' livelihoods. Story here.

Climate change to cause humid heatwaves that will kill even healthy people

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theguardian Drought-affected area in Karnataka,_India,_2012 - Photo by  Pushkarv If warming is not tackled, levels of humid heat that can kill within hours will affect millions across south Asia within decades, analysis finds Story here.

Blue-Green Algae Fouling Lake Winnipeg Beaches Again 2017

H2O: Ideas & Action for Canada's Water A blog about the Lake Winnipeg Watershed  The hot summer weather  in Manitoba has brought along another reminder that all is not well in our great Lake Winnipeg, the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world. Story here.

New Studies Show - Goals of Paris Climate Accord Unlikely to be Achieved. by Larry Powell

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Wildfires in Portugal. Wikimedia Commons. Two new studies paint a sobering picture for the future of the Earth in a changing climate. One report  by a team of American scientists estimates there’s only a five percent chance that global warming can be kept below 2 degrees celsius by 2100. On the other hand, there’s a 95 percent likelihood the increase will be more like 2 to 4.9 degrees! That upper range would generally be considered by many experts as catastrophic for life on earth. And it would clearly represent a failure of  the Paris Climate Accord .   That agreement, signed last year, commits almost 200 member countries, including Canada, to limit the increase to “well under 2 degrees” above pre-industrial levels. Achieving that goal, adds the study, “will require carbon intensity to decline much faster than in the recent past.” The second study  (done jointly by a researcher with the Max Planck Institute in Germany and another from the University of Colorado), mak