PLANET IN PERIL

Executive summary Bighorn Country, Alberta Eastern Slopes  Photo by Aerin Jacob The Prime Minister has directed the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, with the support of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Minister of Natural Resources and the Special Representative for the Prairies to create a new Canada Water Agency (CWA) to work together with the provinces, territories, Indigenous communities, local authorities, scientists and others to find the best ways to keep our water safe, clean and well-managed. The Prime Minister also directed the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada to “develop further protections and take active steps to clean up the Great Lakes, Lake Winnipeg, Lake Simcoe and other large lakes.” These two commitments are being addressed in an integrated manner. To support this effort, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) released a public discussion paper in December 2020: “Toward the Creation of a Canada Water Agency”. The

Eco Watch The  pollution  is even worse than earlier feared. Story here. RELATED: Research Suggests Our Past, Prolific Use Of The Insecticide DDT May Still Be Contributing To A Scourge Of Modern-Day Diseases Related To Obesity.

         CBC News Janine Gibson takes over from lawyer James Beddome, who led the party for fifteen years.  Story here.

The Conversation A PinP photo. Research found that investor ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan was negligible in 2002, but by 2018 had climbed to nearly one million acres — almost 18 times the size of Saskatoon.   Story here. RELATED:  Saskatchewan farmland, new serfdom

 

 

 

  The Energy Mix Sahtu region, western NWT - Photo by Jean Polfus  A stark choice between climate stability and global devastation is the constant drumbeat from a landmark report released today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Details here.

Canada is not immune. by  Larry Powell Intensifying phytoplankton blooms off  the coasts of BC and Washington State, 2006. Credit: Lian Feng After pouring over almost 800 thousand NASA satellite images taken over almost two decades, a team of Chinese researchers has generated a map which paints perhaps the clearest picture yet of the extent of these blooms - organisms that can be agents of either good or ill.  Their findings have just been published in the journal, Nature. Dr. Lian Feng of the Southern University of Science in Shenzhen, China and colleagues discovered, phytoplankton were affecting 8.6% of the entire global ocean area in 2020 -  a stunning expanse of 31.47 million km2. That was an increase of 13.2%, or 3.97 million km2 from 2003. They found algal blooms in 126 out of the 153 coastal countries examined. Globally, both the size and frequency of blooms increased significantly over the study period, Phytoplankton are families of microscopic algae. Their blooms heave been ac