It's Time for Change. Big Change! (Global Warming & the Manitoba Flood Connection)

Dear Editor,  

                                                                                      

Many Manitobans are upset that the federal election is happening at the same time as major flooding threatens their homes, businesses and farms. 

Red River Valley - 1997 - Natural Resources CA

After all, who wants to be distracted from the stressful job of protecting your livelihoods and families by yet another political campaign and trip to the polls?

In a saner world, there would actually be candidates on the ballot from the two major parties we could vote for, who would be attacking the root causes of the catastrophic flooding so they don't get worse in the future. These candidates would already know that these events are on the rise in both frequency and intensity, due to climate change. Climate change is anthropogenic.

If that is too big a word for you, Stephen, or you, Michael, it just means, it is caused by human beings. That's because we are producing way too many greenhouse gases from the fossil fuels we produce in various ways - notably through the vehicles we drive and planes we fly in.

In a saner world, that would place the problem in the realm of something which can actually be addressed by governments through enlightened emissions control regulations. But, of course, such governments would first of all need to care and, secondly, understand big words. (Neither seems to be the case now if, indeed it ever was.)

There's little doubt that massive engineering projects like "Duff's Ditch," have spared people a good deal of grief by protecting them from the worst. But just how much longer can we rely on human technology to save us? Are huge machines, which burn lots of fossil fuel, breaking up ice jams and building higher and longer dikes really the long-term answer? Or are they just band-aid solutions which merely dabble with the symptoms while aggravating the disease?

The refusal of governments to attack the root causes of this phenomenon has now entered the realm of the criminal.

The fact that greenhouse gas emissions are skyrocketing in Alberta, home of the tar sands, is not surprising. That project, perhaps the dirtiest of its kind anywhere, is one of Stephen's darlings. Not only does he exempt it from meaningful emission controls, he gives the rich oil sands companies over a billion dollars of our money each year, just because he likes them so darn much. Peter, his new "Minister of Environmental Destruction," would have us believe that the government actually has a plan (to fight climate change), and that the plan is working! Michael thinks the sands are pretty nifty, too. His party is calling for a cockamamy scheme called "cap and trade" which will allow the capitalists of the world to somehow make money, betting on our planet's survival.

Meanwhile, nobody is minding "the climate file." Nobody.

Flood waters creep up on millions of dollars worth of farm 
machinery at a dealership (above) at Elie, MB. A PinP photo.

   

If the flooding is as bad again this spring as it appears now,  these same politicians must surely bear responsibility for the misery they will have once again helped to inflict on the citizens of Manitoba's and elsewhere. 

Our lawmakers should have stopped acting like climate criminals and taken the catastrophe of global warming seriously years ago. That's when the best brains on the planet were trying to alert them to it. But, instead of setting a leadership example for the world, Canada has become a laughing stock in the international community.

It goes without saying that we need wise public policies which provide security for our seniors, the disabled and students. We also need to make sure the economy and health care are safeguarded. But politicians who can walk and chew gum really ought to be able to handle these important issues and the climate, too.

And the myth needs to be exploded that working to fight climate change will somehow damage the economy. We are already seeing good jobs being created elsewhere in the new "green economy." Here in Canada, we are being left behind in the dust. Here, record amounts of taxpayer dollars are being spent to compensate producers and homeowners for mounting crop, livestock and property losses spawned by climate-induced, severe weather.

It's called the cost of doing nothing.

Here in Manitoba, greenhouse gas emissions are rising, pretty much unchecked, too. How are we countering this? By allowing increased production of that "clean, sustainable, alternative" fuel - (sarcasm intended) oil! Drilling for oil in this province is now at an all-time high.

Work is proceeding apace to expand the Winnipeg airport to accommodate countless more jetliners, the most effiicient climate-change producers known, and to build that white elephant known as Centreport. It will link Winnipeg to distant points such as Mexico and Nunavut by every mode of transport known to man. It's promoters call it "world-class." I call it "fossil fuel City!" Where do governments get their mandate to do these things? Not from their electorate, that's for sure. (I know someone who lives near Winnipeg, who had no idea what all the massive construction was about!) 

It's clear our powers-that-be now take their cues, not from you or me, but from the non-elected "Captains of Industry" who, in our so-called democracy, stand to profit, big-time from such misguided schemes.

The World Health Organization says climate change is already killing 150,000 people and making 5 million more sick, worldwide, each year. Populations of insects which carry diseases and destroy vast expanses of forests and crops, are moving northward in a warming planet. Food production is being seriously disrupted due to droughts and floods. All this has helped drive food prices to new highs, not just "somewhere else," but in Canada, too.

The old saying, "It's time for a change," is a saying no longer. It's time to completely jettison the two old parties who have governed this country forever, like the "warts on the rump of history" they have become. If you care about your kids, it's time to elect a party which has never governed this country before. They can do no worse.

Larry Powell

Roblin, Manitoba, CA

Canada's Main Climate Skeptic Continues to Mislead

Dear Editor,

I am disappointed that a largely discredited individual like
Tim Ball (r.) was afforded close to a full page in the March 15th Roblin Review ("People need to understand plants need C02"),  in which to air his negative views about climate change.

The book, "Climate Cover Up - the crusade to deny global warming," describes Ball this way. "There are few 'skeptical scientists' with as little experience and as much ambition as the Canadian geography professor, Dr. Timothy Ball. Never a climate scientist, per se, Dr. Ball quit his position at the University of Winnipeg in 1995, ending an academic career that featured a lifetime output of just four peer-reviewed journal articles, none of which addressed atmospheric science."

Dr. Ball is actually being sued by a Canadian climate scientist, Andrew Weaver, for libel. Dr. Weaver is a leading author with the Nobel-prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A conservative website Ball wrote for, has already apologized and retracted certain statements Ball made about Weaver, attacking his credibility. Indeed, the site now seems to have removed many of the articles Ball had contributed.

(And this isn't the only lawsuit Ball is facing. Please also read this article.)

 
Yet Ball continues to make a career out of manipulating media with his folksy style. He seems to have convinced way too many of them that he knows more about the subject than thousands of real climate scientists who now agree that global warming is real and caused by a buildup of greenhouse gases in the air which we humans continue to create through the burning of fossil fuels.

Ball's outright assertion that the globe is not warming, but actually cooling, is outrageous. It runs counter to all authoritative evidence available.

A "go-to" agency for credible information on this subject is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a division of the US government. It keeps up-to-date, sophisticated and long-range weather data using computer models, thousands of monitoring stations and satellite readings from around the globe. (Where does Dr. Ball get his information?)

Here is what NOAA has to say. "For 2010, the combined global and ocean surface temperature tied with 2005 as the warmest such period on record. 1998 is the third warmest year on record."
 
Meanwhile, ice cover in the Canadian arctic is receding, at an alarming rate. 

So, just what are we to make of all those images we are seeing in the news of polar bears swimming for their lives, gargantuan ice shelves breaking away into the ocean and vast expanses of open water where thick ice-packs once were? Perhaps the media are "photo-shopping" each one, to present a false impression?

Does he really believe there is some kind of conspiracy in the world to "cook the books" on this? What possible motive could they have?

Give me a break! Just how stupid does he think we are?

Or might he have an ulterior motive himself? Ball has always been mysterious about where he gets his funding.

As documented in the same book, "Climate Cover-Up," he used to be a front man for "Friends of Science," a shadowy group with a clever, but clear misnomer. Just who were the individuals behind its formation? They included geologists from the Calgary oil patch and some oil industry PR types.

So who would you rather believe? Credible scientists who spend their working lives at the world's leading universities studying these matters, or individuals who get their pay-cheques from an industry with a vested interest in selling as much of its product as possible?

Ball has been a hit as a speaker at livestock conventions in western Canada. But, he is surely revealing himself as anything but a friend to farmers. By actually telling them they "better hope for global warming," he is doing them a deep disservice. Rather than warning them that this phenomenon is likely spawning the very torrential rains and other extreme weather events which are ruining their crops and pastures (something now widely believed in the climate science community), he is tacitly giving them the green light to continue the fossil-fuel-rich methods inherent in modern agriculture. 

Surely this only helps ensure that the problem will not only continue, but worsen.

Larry Powell
Roblin, Manitoba, CA

CBC Manitoba Thinks Nothing Can Be Done About Climate Change! Larry Writes Yet Another Letter-to-the-Editor

Larry Powell

I made what I thought was a reasonable request of CBC Manitoba the other day.

I asked it to start including atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (C02), in its weather casts.

After consulting with John Sauder (CBC photo - r.), their extremely competent "weather guy"(John is Manitoba's only broadcast meteorologist), a CBC spokesperson told me, "no."

Why? Because it might be "inflammatory!"

The CBC further explained that, wind chill factors and UV levels, which they report regularly, were things upon which their listeners/viewers "can actually take some immediate, personal action."

The implication in that response is that there is nothing we can actually do about climate change! That, I found, was the most chilling part of all.

Apparently, we can no longer choose to drive smaller cars, take the bus, live close to work or just visit the Mayan Riviera every other year.

By way of background, I'm someone who realizes that global warming is real, it's happening now, and it's caused by humans. (Note, I did not say I believe in it. Because it is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of fact and science!)

The flood of the century - Red River Valley - 1997. 

We all create too many greenhouse gases through the fossil fuels we burn in the planes, trains, cars, trucks, quads and snow machines we love so much. Those gases, mostly C02, are trapping heat and leading to the warming of our planetary home. This, in turn, is creating climate change, and with it, melting ice caps and glaciers, rising sea levels, droughts, floods, horrendous wildfires and an increase in the frequency and intensity of storms of all kinds - hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones, tidal surges, snow, rain hail and ice.

So, if the CBC won't do what I asked, may I be permitted to do it myself?

Atmospheric levels of C02 now hover at about 388 parts per million. Anything above 350 is "not compatible with the planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted."

So, who said that? Some radical climate crank?

Not really. It's James Hansen. Hansen works for the Goddard Space Institute at NASA. He happens to be considered Earth's foremost climatologist.

So, do you feel "inflamed?" 

Perhaps you should.

Are Hypocrites and Opportunists Taking Over Our Lives?

Dear Editor,

 When a hollow man like Jim Prentice can don a phony cloak of "green," take on a sacred trust as this nation's "Minister of the Environment," then hightail it off to a cushy job with "CIBC" (which is helping to bankroll the Alberta tar sands, the world's dirtiest energy project), be afraid. Be very afraid. 

Jim Prentice, Climate Criminal

  

Dead ducks in an Albrta tar pit. (Vancouver Sun photo)

As Prentice skulks off into the night with visions of money bags dancing in his head, he gets a pat on the back from Stephen Harper and a free pass from a polite media.

Fish caught near tarpits - Jason Franson CP

Preoccupied with political "process," "strategy" and "positioning," news outlets obviously no longer believe they have any duty to actually hold the ethical behaviour of our leaders up to any kind of public scrutiny. That would just be wrong! Instead, they pontificate on how the balance in the cabinet might now be affected or, if Prentice might now be positioning himself to become Prime Minister!

(Remember my reference to "hypocrites and opportunists? I rest my case.) 

One newspaper fit for fish-wrap actually referred to this traitor as the "epitome of public service" and a "capable" leader! Yet this is the same climate criminal who, while in office, did squat on the carbon file, the most important if the climate change genie is to be put back in the bottle. Squat. Nothing. 
What can be done?

Before the story of Prentice's departure broke, it hadn't really occurred to me that companies involved directly in tar sands extraction, along with big banks who lend money to them, would even qualify as "ethical" fund investments. (And who would?)


The Don of Canada's Climate Criminals
Upon checking my own, I discovered, with dismay, that they included both!

So I have now personally set the wheels in motion to divest myself of any financial holdings I may have in the development of that despicable project known euphemistically as "the oil sands."   

If you want to be remembered as a friend of Mother Earth, rather than one who stood by while the Harpers and Prentices of the world acted as accomplices in her demise, I hope you'll do likewise.

Larry Powell is a blogger and activist near Roblin, in western Manitoba. 

=======

 

A couple more climate crooks. Sen. Duffy (l.) & Sen. Wallin (r.).

Also conveniently neglected by Prentice/Harper et al in this scenario are the indigenouse people living downstream from this incredibly destructive project. Here is an excerpt from a submission by the Indigenous Environmental Network. l.p.


"Fort Chipewyan, which is located on the shore of Lake Athabasca and downstream from numerous tar sands mines, has been described as ‘ground zero’ for the devastation caused by Alberta’s oil boom. A local doctor has raised concerns over alarmingly high rates of what should be very rare bile duct cancers in the town, as well as reported abnormal rates of immune-system related conditions. A study commissioned by the Alberta Health Services confirmed in 2009 that there were indeed elevated cancer rates in the community.
"High levels of dangerous toxins in the Athabasca River have been found in areas downstream from tar sands developments. A study in 2007 commissioned by the local health authority of Fort Chipewyan revealed high levels
of arsenic, aluminium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iron, lead, phosphorous, selenium, titanium, and phenols in the water. It found high levels of arsenic, cadmium, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and resin acids in the sediment, as well as high levels of mercury in tested fish."
=======
COMMENTS:
Larry - I read your letter. This is a shameful act. And replacing the environment Minister, we have none other than Mr. Baird. Now that is a joke.


JOHN FEFCHAK
Virden, MB

On Harper's Northern Tour

Au 24-'10 - Below is my letter to the Winnipeg Free Press (now published, Au 27.) l.p.

====

Dear Editor, I find media coverage of Prime Minister Steven Harper's current tour of the north, appalling. If I heard the CBC correctly this morning, our Prime Minister is "putting emphasis on science" in his approach to northern development!

An emphasis on science?

The sad fact is, this so-called leader of ours has been spitting on science and scientists ever since he came to power. He has been appointing "climate-denying" oil and gas toadies as his "science advisers" while being nothing but criminally negligent in his approach to the crisis of global warming.

As our "True North" melts around the people and creatures living there, Harper parades about, peddling "Arctic sovereignty" as some kind of opiate we can all use to avoid the harsh reality of climate change.

No doubt Harper has a greedy eye on the petroleum bonanza that lies beneath melting permafrost and the ocean's surface, now made more accessible with quickly disappearing sea-ice. While this approach might extend the supply of this unsustainable energy source, it will also surely guarantee that global warming will do nothing but worsen, with consequences I personally would rather not think about.

Apparently the media tagging along with him see themselves as little secretaries, faithfully recording his every utterance while turning a blind eye to the changing world around them.

I just hope they didn't get wet in the deluge of rain or blown away by the 100 K winds which were supposed to hit Churchill while they were there!

Larry Powell Roblin MB

Factory Farms & the Flu. Who Says They're Not Related!

By Larry Powell

Sadly, politicians are again placing the interests of a failing industry ahead of science, the public interest and possibly even human health.


Manitoba and Ottawa are doling out another 37 million dollars -good money after bad - to factory hog producers in this province.


Both the Manitoba government and the "Feds" have swallowed, hook, line and sinker the siren song of the industry; that it is being unjustly connected to the current outbreak of swine flu and is suffering financial hardship as a result.


In announcing this latest welfare payment, the Minister of Agriculture, Rosann Wowchuk, cites what she calls "the false connection to H1N1 flu" as one of the factors hurting the industry today.

This rush to judgement and readiness to be a cheerleader rather than an even-handed lawmaker, does a disservice to Manitobans.

In contrast, the Green Party of Manitoba has taken a position based on reality and science, as opposed to political expediency.

In light of the current outbreak of H1N1 influenza, or Swine 'Flu, the Party is therefore calling for an immediate halt to the development of any new confined animal feeding operations, or "CAFOs," in the province.

Large numbers of hogs and chickens are fed in these facilities, also referred to as "factory farms." Many such operations were approved under the watch of our present government, especially in the southeast and central areas.

While it has placed a freeze on any new developments in these regions, vast areas of the province are still eligible for new ones. It is part of a larger style of industrialized agriculture which has for years, drawn growing concern from around the world.
Not only does it hold implications for the environment, communities, human health and animal welfare, it is highly dependent on exports, which are simply unsustainable over the long term.

As the party leader, James Beddome has stated, "The preponderance of scientific evidence implicating such operations in the spread of serious infectious diseases, is just too convincing to allow them to multiply.
"Operations housing both hogs and chickens in close proximity, already up and running in parts of Manitoba, (notably the RM of Hanover) pose an especially dangerous combination. These must be phased out as soon as possible."

Several huge hog and chicken CAFOs also operate near the small Mexican town where the Swine 'Flu outbreak apparently began. Some local people there believe a virus from those barns infected the little boy who became the first known victim.

The Government of Manitoba either does not know or care about the growing body of medical research and scientific evidence on this issue.

For example,


• The World Health Organization, the Canadian and American Public Health Associations, and the Canadian and American Medical Associations have, for years, all raised alarms about the public health risks of CAFOs.


• In 2006, research teams from the universities of Iowa and Wisconsin, with help from the Centers for Disease Control, warned that hogs play an important role in the transmission of the flu virus back and forth from animals to humans.
Their study found that farmers, veterinarians and meat processors exposed to hogs in their jobs, ran a greatly increased risk of coming down with H1N1, the flu strain involved in the current outbreak.


• In 2007, another research team with the (U.S.) National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (a branch of the Surgeon-General's office) concluded, "Because CAFOs tend to concentrate large numbers of animals close together, they facilitate rapid transmission and mixing of viruses. There is a concern that increasing the numbers of swine facilities adjacent to avian facilities could further promote the evolution of the next pandemic."


The current outbreak is still cropping up disturbingly in unexpected places in Manitoba and elsewhere. So steps such as these are essential as a precaution against a full-blown pandemic which some medical authorities say is not only possible, but probable in the future.

But more steps should also be taken. These could include improved bio-security measures at CAFOs and the monitoring of people involved in their operation.

The government cannot be unmindful of any economic hardships these policy changes might have on the industry. Any adverse effects it encounters as a direct result of these policy changes ought to be compensated, appropriately.

But, to what degree can this situation continue and for how long?

It is now clear that our dominant system of animal agriculture, the CAFO, or factory farm, has failed on so many levels and needs to change.

So the government should stop propping up these factory farms and instead, begin to provide far more assistance to small, sustainable, straw-based, organic, family livestock farms.

 

Larry Powell

Green Party of Manitoba
Roblin

Media Commentators. Responsible Citizens, or Junk Scientists?

Dear Editor,

Are our "opinion-leaders" doing their jobs? Or, are they letting us down?
I will defend to the death the right of media commentators to speak their minds on any issue.
But what if those opinions are based on fairy tales rather than facts?
When addressing global warming, for example, are they seeking out the best evidence on which to craft their editorials?
Or are they simply being contrary, making their pronouncements based on nothing more than junk science or personal bias?
One doesn't have to look very far for media diatribes that label environmentalists as troublemakers or even "wackos."
According to these "opinion-leaders," those who drive hybrid cars or buy carbon offsets when they travel are wasting their time.
And lawmakers who clamp down on idling vehicles, are Communists!
They would have us believe that either global warming isn't happening at all, or is being caused by just about anything other than human activity.
So what is responsible then? Well, according to them, it's solar flares, or the tilt of the earth, or natural trends similar to what's happened throughout history! (All of which flies in the face of mounds of scientific evidence.)
Even my last barber absolutely knew that global warming is just a natural phenomenon and that Al Gore is a fraud!
He didn't point out any specific, factual errors Mr. Gore had made in his movie, or whether, in fact, he had even seen it!
Perhaps he's been listening to too many "opinion-leaders?"
Yet the degree of consensus that global warming is real, serious and "man-made" is remarkable.
Scientists who don't agree are rare, indeed: Like the one who speaks to farm groups, telling them what they want to hear;
that agriculture is not a major contributor to global warming when, in fact, it is.
I just can't bring myself to agree with this point of view. Because, to do so, I would also have to label as "wackos," the following;
• The world-renowned meteorologists and Nobel prize winners of the United Nations' International Panel on Climate Change,
• The scores of highly-qualified researchers and scientists of the World Watch Institute,
• The Earth Policy Institute (These last two being internationally-renowned, science-based "think-tanks." (Both were founded by Lester R. Brown, who has been described as one of the world's most influential thinkers),
• The thousands of respected universities around the world which employ academics with impressive credentials who publish countless science-based, peer-reviewed studies on a regular basis,
• "NASA," the North American Space Administration. (Dr. James Hanson of NASA pointed out the reality of global warming 20 years ago. He is now recognized as a virtual prophet in the field.)
• Institute of Science in Society (ISIS). Its director, *Mae-Won Ho is a widely-known science adviser, a much sought-after speaker and author of best-selling books.
I could list many more. But, you get the idea.
I would ask these "opinion-leaders," do you even read the studies these groups publish? Well I do.
After spending years studying to gain their degrees and their jobs, these experts spend much of their waking lives examining the world's climate.
They measure, observe, chart, document, photograph and prepare sophisticated computerized climate models (after weeks, months, or even years, often "on the ground" in remote, hostile conditions).
Do you?
My point is this. I am decidedly not one of the experts I list above. I don't have a masters degree is science, or meteorology. I have high school! Period!
That is precisely why I defer to them. After all, who the Hell am I not to? To do otherwise is to display arrogance of the highest order.

(Photo courtesy of the CBC)

Explain away, if you will, the unprecedented ice storm that hit Manitoba just last week, causing traffic chaos, highway and school closures and power outages. (Have you ever seen people "skating" down a major highway? I haven't.)
How about the huge snowfalls that have disrupted Victoria, Vancouver and London, England (which rarely if ever seen such freakish conditions).
Or the incinerator that was southeastern Australia.

I would suggest that none of these "severe weather events" were the work of solar flares, or natural trends.
Climate scientists have been predicting for years that such events would increase in both intensity and numbers. And they have.
The Worldwatch Institute reports that recorded floods, hurricanes and other "natural" disasters, nearly doubled between 1987 and 2006.
So, are these "climate change deniers" really being responsible?
Or are they short-changing present and future generations by giving them faulty information on which to base the ways they respond to the climate crisis already upon us?
"Climate change scepticism is politically motivated, the evidence is all around us. Good science is about dispelling common prejudice, not taking leave of common sense." *Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

Larry Powell
Roblin MB

THE HOG DEBATE RAGES. WHY YOU SHOULD CARE!

Photos Courtesy of "Stop the Hogs."



Dear Editor,

Seldom has there been a more important public debate in Manitoba than the one now raging over the hog industry.
Make no mistake. The issues here are grave.
A powerful industry, represented by the Manitoba Pork Council (MPC), is not only pitting itself against those of us who actually care about our air, water and soil, it's also challenging the very right of a democratically-elected government to govern on behalf of its citizens.
Thrown into this explosive mix are questions about the role of our cherished academic institutions. Are they remaining "above the fray?" Or are they taking sides?
Over a year ago, amid howls and threats from the hog lobby, the government of Manitoba imposed a temporary ban on new factory barns. This was to allow the Clean Environment Commission (CEC) to study how sustainable they are.
After receiving that CEC study a few weeks ago, the government obviously decided, they aren't sustainable enough.
It kept the ban in place in three regions of the province. That leaves open a vast area of Manitoba where they will still be allowed, however.



This map shows existing hog factories.











But that isn't enough for the industry. As usual, it wants it all. It is demanding the government reverse its decision and lift the ban in all areas, saying, with monotonous regularity, that it is being "picked on."
It has once again dragged out a tired old "study" that pigs contribute just a tiny part of all nutrient-loading in Lake Winnipeg. It turns out, that "study" has never been peer-reviewed, published in a scientific journal, or even mentioned in the CEC report!
Perhaps even more disturbing is the knee jerk reaction of a University of Manitoba official to march in lock- step with the MPC's shaky science on the matter. In several media statements, the Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Michael Trevan has supported the MPC's position.
Significantly, the CEC itself recognizes there are "shortcomings in the current science" surrounding this matter. So just how can Dean Trevan be so sure of himself in this case?
The U of M has had long-standing relationships with the pork industry over the years.
For example, a company specializing in hog genetics, "Genesus," provided the breeding stock at the University's Glenlea Research Station south of Winnipeg.
Genesus is no shrinking violet when it comes to politics. In a recent article on its website, it demands that the Government of Saskatchewan get out of the hog business. The article labels that involvement "foolish and socialistic."
So does the University (and Dean Trevan obviously speaks for his institution) simply share the same ideological bent as its business partner "Genesus?" (i.e. that government has no business interfering in the affairs of commerce?)
The Pork Council already has the backing of the corporate media in the province. That is no surprise.
What is, is the U of M's apparent willingness to risk its reputation as a place of intellectual, independent thought!
Then there's the endless argument over "sustainable development." (That which meets the needs of the present without compromising future generations.)
Listening to the Pork Council, you'd think they are as sustainable as can be.
Never mind that you and I are paying out millions in endless government subsidies so the industry can carry on. (Manitoba just recently announced about $20m dollars would go toward upgrading water treatement systems at two hog slaughtering plants in the province. Not to mention government aid to help slaughter excess hogs plus an unknown amount to help the industry "cope" with the continuing hog barn bans.)
Its sometimes said that, if the industry had to pay for the true social costs of its operations, it would go broke. Interestingly, while it bristles at suggestions of government regulation, it is not so proud as to refuse the corporate welfare so lavishly bestowed upon it by the public purse.

Larry Powell - Roblin MB
(Powell represented "Citizens for Family Farms" in a submission to the CEC one year ago.)

A Testament to Failure (Letter)

The Failed Strawboard Plant at Elie MB.

A tiny fraction of the massive straw piles at the plant. 

now rotting and surely rat-infested. PinP photos.

(Published in the Manitoba CoOperator - Jan. '08)

Dear Editor,

Regarding your recent story about the demise of the strawboard plant at Elie; my heart sinks every time I drive by that site.

It is a testament to the failure of so many things that society ought to be supporting; not relegating to the garbage dump.

Instead of being dismantled and sold to the highest bidder, the plant could still be up and running, diverting waste straw into a valuable building product.

Rather than being gutted, it could still be providing a market for farmers to sell what is an otherwise useless, not to mention dangerous product.

Instead, we can look forward to a future where irresponsible farmers continue to burn their stubble with impunity.

In the process, people unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place, including kids with asthma, will be left to their own devices to cope with the choking smoke.

Motorists will continue to run into each other due to reduced visibility caused by stubble-burning.

Last fall, I was treated to quite a spectacle as I was driving into the outskirts of Winnipeg from the west.

PinP photo.

Racing along the edge of a huge stubble field near the highway, was a farmer on an ATV (similar to the one above), burning his excess straw.

He had ingeniously rigged his vehicle with a propane tank and a boom. It was creating a long trail of fire behind him, ensuring the entire field would be ignited. On the far side of the same field, smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the air.

That night, the street outside the home where we stayed in the city, was enveloped in smoke. 

The next morning, newscasts were filled with reports of traffic snarls and a major accident in the city which critically injured a truck driver; all thanks to stubble smoke!

There was a day when governments who claim to be "social democrats" (like our present one), would have nationalized the plant and operated it as a crown corporation, like Manitoba Hydro.

Instead of requiring that our gasoline contain the questionable fuel additive, ethanol, for example, why not mandate the use of environmentally-friendly strawboard in new construction?

But I guess solutions like that are beyond the reach of our collective political intellect.

Instead, we can look forward to the continued rape of our forests, not to mention untold millions of additional taxpayer dollars being squandered on things like gambling casinos and sports bubbles in Winnipeg!

Larry Powell
Roblin MB

LETTER TO THE EDITOR - Fall 2006

Dear Editor,

It was a day in late July. A spray plane swooped low, dumping its payload of Lorsban onto a canola field in the Swan Valley, to control an infestation of Bertha army worms.
Nearby, the owner of a small acreage and her son were outside doing chores.
The woman says her son got a dose of what she calls the “direct drift.” According to the woman, both became “instantly nauseous with burning eyes.” Her husband developed the same symptoms, even ‘though he didn’t arrive home ‘till about 20 minutes after the incident.
They’re all are okay now, but she says she suffered from a low-grade headache for about three weeks afterward. (And she doesn’t normally get headaches.)

She even noticed one of her miniature horses became unusually listless right after the incident.
She says they now wonder whether they should even keep grazing the animals on the grass that has also been sprayed.

No one can seem to help them with advice.

The woman claims agricultural authorities were warning farmers before crops were in the ground not to plant canola, because the army worms would be severe this year. Much of that advice seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

The woman says when she turned to the local agricultural office for advice after her exposure, they “Didn’t do dick.” On the contrary, she was even met with hostility there!
And therein lies the saddest part of the tale; the arrogance of the powers-that-be that Big Agriculture can do no wrong. A virtual flood of complaints like this, albeit circumstantial, get shunted off as if they were coming from cranks or people who have nothing better to do.
Even reputable medical authorities who say there’s increasing evidence of serious, long-term effects from such chemical exposure are ignored.

So, are the people whose stories I have tried to document in these letters all cranks?
If they are, there must be a lot of them. The Aviation Control Centre in Winnipeg has apparently received more than 600 complaints this year about spray planes violating or ignoring regulations on buffer zones that are supposed to control where they spray and where they do not.

Is it now finally time to do something? You be the judge.

Larry Powell
Roblin MB