PLANET IN PERIL

  So the Republican Premier of Alberta thinks a few tears will help us forgive her. She is complicit in the disaster which struck Jasper, a world heritage site. Now much of it is a smouldering ruin. Shame on you, Smith. Your fawning/unconditional/blind/unwavering support for the tar sands over the ages and refusal to get on board in the fight against climate calamity by supporting alternative, sustainable energy sources ought to make you a figure of everlasting shame and disgrace. Resign your position and pick up a backpack sprayer to fight the fires you are responsible for...you'd be serving a more worthwhile purpose than you are now. L.P.

Canada’s National Observer It didn’t take long for the American and Canadian right to weaponize the assassination attempt on Donald Trump against the left. In the United States, Republicans and their supporters immediately pointed their fingers at progressives as the cause of the violence. Ohio senator JD Vance even  blamed President Joe Biden  for the attack. Details here.

  Skip to main content Log in OPINION ANALYSIS CLIMATE SOLUTIONS SPECIAL REPORTS PODCASTS NEWSLETTERS CONVERSATIONS NEWS TEAM ABOUT Degrowth offers a path to a truly just global energy transition By  Jeremy Appel  |  Opinion  |   July 11th 2024 Rio Tinto - Kennecott open pit copper mine. Salt Lake County, Utah. How do we balance the needs of an energy transition with the harsh realities of mining critical minerals like copper? Photo by arbyreed/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Listen to article As the world inevitably transitions away from fossil fuel extraction, there’s a  growing international consensus  that mining critical minerals — including copper, nickel, cobalt, zinc and more — will have to ramp up in order to power clean energy sources. This consensus, reflected in the 2022  Canadian Critical Minerals Strategy , rests on the assumption that our lifestyles in the developed world are sustainable, if only we stopped pumping CO2 into the atmosphere while commuting from the suburbs in our

it’s OK to get angry at climate deniers, but it's NOT OK to be one. finding solutions to our climate crisis is looked upon as a rational, not a wacky response. our schools begin teaching our children, not just the way the world is, but the way it could be. helping the world’s downtrodden - or finding a cure for cancer - becomes more important than a “killer” golf shot or a winning goal. sports become simple enjoyment, rather than mass hysteria and a lust for a gold medal. opposing hockey players drop their gloves, our children shout “Stop!” NOT; “Fight. Fight! Fight!" finding a cure for cancer means removing contaminants from our food, not endless marches for a “magic bullet cure” or an “ice-bucket challenge.” science becomes as influential as religion. the faithful explain, how are we being blessed by the divine hand of a loving God, when war continues to rage, a deadly virus runs rampant across the Earth and violent weather events, spawned by climate change, tighten their

Posted: Jun. 21, 2024 SPONSORED BY: Over 30 years ago, large factory style barns, used for raising pigs, started dotting the landscape across southern Manitoba. Not surprisingly, within just a few years, smelly and sometimes toxic bluegreen algae blooms began to dominate Lake Winnipeg, and other southern Manitoba lakes. Was this just a coincidence? Not quite. In these factory style barns, often thousands of pigs are kept confined together on slatted floors through which their urine and feces fall, collecting in pits underneath. Toxic fumes of hydrogen sulphide, methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide rise from these pits and are blown out into the neighbouring communities by large industrial fans. Should those fans fail, the fumes are so poisonous that the pigs will suffocate within a few hours. Factory hog barn. These waste pits are routinely emptied into open lagoons near the barns, once again causing nauseating odours for neighbours. Those lagoons are then emptied twice a year when that

The unrestricted exploitation of wildlife has led to the disappearance of many animal (& plant) species at an alarming rate, destroying Earth's biological diversity and upsetting the ecological balance. (UN) A pheasant in Saskatchewan. A swallowtail butterfly in Manitoba, CA. (Papilio canadensis) Prairie dogs in Saskatchewan. Blue jays in Manitoba. A cow m oose in Manitoba. A skunk in Manitoba.      A subspecies of the swallowtail  (p apilio machaon britannicus) .                                                                       Photo by Bill Dean - UK.  One of several species at risk in Canada, the small white lady's slipper, (Cypripedium candidum). Photo by Mason Brock.  All photos by  PinP, except where otherwise noted.

By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson | News | May 16th 2024 National Observer A former official in Canada's agriculture ministry accused the federal pesticide regulator of failing to assess the health risks posed by the controversial herbicide glyphosate, a key ingredient of Roundup, months before leaving the ministry. The concerns from David Cox, who at the time was deputy director at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), were revealed in a trove of emails distributed to high- and mid-level AAFC officials — including deputy minister Stefanie Beck — in June and October 2023. They were obtained by Canada's National Observer through an access to information request. "I am not an expert but I do believe in raising red flags where I see large-scale risk exposure and peer-reviewed papers stating there are harms. To say nothing is not public service," wrote Cox in a June 14, 2023 email distributed to eight senior AAFC officials, including Beck. A spokesperson for AAFC said this week