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Showing posts from May, 2018

International organizations slam Trudeau for pipeline support

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ricochet  One of the many protests against the Kinder Morgan pipeline in Vancouver. Photo by  William Chen. Groups say prime minister’s stance on tar sands negates attempt to position Canada as a global climate leader. Story here.

Special Investigation: How the common agricultural policy promotes pollution - the View From Europe.

The Ecologist. Almost a trillion Euros in taxpayers' money is handed to EU farmers as part of the Common Agricultural Policy. The money is supposed to leverage environmental practices. But an international team of investigative journalists, today publishing with THE ECOLOGIST, has found the cash actually feeds significant pollution. More here.

Nipah virus outbreak in India 'definitely a concern,' Canadian scientist says

CBC news Much is unknown about the virus that is spread by bats, but here are some answers. More here. RELATED: "In Hogs We Trust. Part 3 - the magnitude of disease in the livestock industry."

'It’s wrong to stink up other people’s lives': fighting the manure lagoons of North Carolina

The Guardian Pigs outstripped people in Duplin county long ago - but now the residents are fighting back . More here.

Canada should ban bee-killing neonics in 2018!

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DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION A PinP photo. Europe will ban neonics by the end of the year.  We need parallel action to protect bees in Canada! More here.

Human race just 0.01% of all life but has eradicated most other living things

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The Guardian A clearcut at Bugaboo Creek, B.C. Groundbreaking assessment of all life on Earth reveals humanity’s surprisingly tiny part in it as well as our disproportionate impact. More here. RELATED: "The Sixth Extinction - an Unnatural History," a book review.

Climate change on track to cause major insect wipeout, scientists warn

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TheGuardian A PinP photo. Insects are vital to ecosystems but will lose almost half their habitat under current climate projections. Story here.

Climate change puts city's ash trees at greater risk from killer insect, researchers say

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Winnipeg Free Press Winnipeg's ash tree canopy may be in more imminent danger than anticipated from an invasion of destructive insects because of significant changes to the city's climate. More here. Trees in Pennsylvania killed by the emerald ash borer.  Steven Katovich, USDA Forest Service

One-Third of Protected Areas 'Highly Degraded' By Humans, Study Finds

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EcoWatch A traffic jam on the road to the famed Lake Louise in Jasper National Park, Canada. PinP photo. A study published in  Science  Friday presents what authors call a sobering "reality check" on global efforts to protect  biodiversity —one third of all conservation areas set aside as wildlife sanctuaries or  national parks  are "highly degraded" by human activities. More here.

Salmon with side effects: Aquacultures are polluting Chile's rivers with a cocktail of dissolved organic substances

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ScienceNews Salmon farming in Reloncavi Estuary, Chile. Photo by  Pablo RodrĆ­guez Tasty, versatile, and rich in essential omega-3 fatty acids: salmon is one of the most popular edible fish of all. Shops sell fish caught in the wild, but their main produce is salmon from breeding farms which can pollute rivers, lakes and oceans. Just how big is the problem? Scientists are working to answer this question by examining the dissolved organic compounds which enter Chile’s rivers from salmon farms. They warn that these substances are placing huge strain on ecosystems and are changing entire biological communities. More here.

Scientists struggle to explain a worrying rise in atmospheric methane

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The Economist A PinP photo. In the past decade methane levels have shot up, to the extent that the atmosphere contains two-and-a-half times as much of the gas as it did before the Industrial Revolution. More here.

Leaked report warns Cambodia's biggest dam could 'literally kill' Mekong river

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The Guardian A narrows in the Meykong - Laos. Photo by Hector Garcia. Government-commissioned report says proposed site is the ‘worst possible place’ for hydropower due to impact on wildlife. More here. RELATED: " Mekong - a River Rising. "

Investors urge fossil fuel firms to shun Trump's Arctic drilling plans

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The Guardian The Porcupine herd on its home range - the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. It's feared the decision last year by the U.S. Senate to allow oil drilling there will disrupt and endanger the herd, considered the largest and healthiest on the continent. Photo by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  Oil extraction in Alaskan wilderness area would be an ‘irresponsible business decision’, trillion-dollar investors say. More here. RELATED: "Oil drilling threatens yet another caribou herd" - by Larry Powell.

The race to save Arctic cities (in Canada & elsewhere) as permafrost melts

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NATIONAL  OBSERVER In Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, a good home is hard to find.  More here. NASA Earth Observatory images by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. The walls of this immense Siberian crater are more than 85 meters tall in places.  Batagaika Crater has formed as rising temperatures have thawed the permafrost in Siberia. Warmer summers and shorter winters are causing the frozen layer cake of ice and soil to collapse (or “slump”) and erode away in much of the Arctic. 

Modern, U.S. Family Farm Pastures its Pigs.

RODALE INSTITUTE A behind the scenes look at the Rodale Institute Organic Hog Facility with Farm Manager Ross Duffield. More here.

Alien Waters: Neighbouring Seas Are Flowing into a Warming Arctic Ocean

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Yale Environment 360 Drift ice in the  archipelago of Svalbard. Photo by  AWeith   The “Atlantification” and “Pacification” of the Arctic has begun. As warmer waters stream into an increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean, new species — from phytoplankton to whales — have the potential to upend this sensitive polar environment. More here.

Beavers do 'dam' good work cleaning water

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ScienceDaily A PinP photo. Beavers could help clean up polluted rivers and stem the loss of valuable soils from farms, new research shows.   More here.

Has Canada made itself vulnerable to a catastrophe on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon?

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NATIONAL OBSERVER An investigation by Joel Ballard indicates there is reason to believe that's exactly what Canada has done. More here. The Deepwater Horizon.  Photo by the US Coast Guard.

China-backed Sumatran dam threatens the rarest ape in the world

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TheConversation The plan to build a massive hydropower dam in Sumatra as part of China’s immense  Belt and Road Initiative  threatens the habitat of the rarest ape in the world, which has only 800 remaining members. More here. Photo by   Tim Laman

Agroecology: A better alternative in Sub-Saharan Africa

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ScienceNews Two "big rigs" ready to begin work in western Manitoba. PinP photo. Agroecology is a better alternative than large-scale agriculture, both for the climate and for small farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to researcher. This agricultural model preserves biodiversity and safeguards food supply while avoiding soil depletion. More here.

Satellite Reveals Troubling Retreat of Patagonian Glaciers (Video)

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EcoWatch

The right-wing government of Manitoba, Canada, “chops” a valuable tree-growing facility

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WinnipegFreePress                                             A Pineland Forest Nursery photo. The provincial government is selling a massive tree-growing operation near Hadashville that produces and stores seeds for every type of tree grown in Manitoba. More here.

Just Say NO to 285 new hog factories in Manitoba!

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Letter to the Editor Virden Empire-Advance May 3, 2018 01:57 PM Rural people could wake up one morning to find a factory hog barn next door, and there will be nothing they can say or do about it if the hog industry gets its way and the Pallister government passes Bill 19,  The Planning Amendment Act . Bill 19 gives local councils and planning districts the “choice” to get rid of the mandatory conditional use approval process for large livestock operations, along with all the legal protections the public currently has. In so choosing, municipalities give away the ability to set conditions such as requiring manure storage covers and shelterbelts to attempt to control odour and require development agreements to make the hog factory pay for road building and maintenance, instead of taxpayers. All municipalities will have to review their zoning by-laws and decide within one year if they want to control large factory hog and poultry operations, cattle and sheep feedlots on be

Transit union head says city of Winnipeg uninterested in grants for electric buses

The Winnipeg Free Press The union that represents Winnipeg Transit staff says city hall is missing out on an opportunity to access loans and grants to electrify the transit fleet. Story here.

Diseases spread by ticks, mosquitoes and fleas more than tripled in the U.S. since 2004

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The Washington Post A wood tic - Manitoba, CA. PinP photo. The warmer weather of spring and summer means the start of tick and mosquito season and the diseases they transmit,  including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, West Nile  and Zika. More here.

Pollution from Canadian refineries an ‘embarrassment’ compared to U.S.

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NATIONAL OBSERVER The Irving Oil Refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. Photo by  Cusack5239 Sarnia’s Imperial Oil refinery emitted 10 times more fine particulate matter, seven times more carbon monoxide and 49 times more sulphur dioxide than the Detroit plant. More here.

Melbourn's water supply at risk due to "collapse" of forests caused by logging.

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The Guardian Logging in Australia. Photo by  Peter Campbell Tree-felling helped trigger ‘hidden collapse’ of mountain ash forests, ecologists say. More here.

Even familiar birds at risk of extinction, new study finds

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BirdLife INTERNATIONAL A White-crowned sparrow. Photo by  Wolfgang Wander The 2018 State of the World’s Birds report, which provides a comprehensive look at the health of bird populations globally, has found that the extinction crisis has spread so far that even some well-known species are now in danger. More here.