Long Overdue Canada's Boreal Caribou Strategy Released

Manitoba Wildlands
"...almost all the Alberta herds — most of which are in the same region as the oilsands — are very unlikely to survive."

A July 28, 2011 Federal Court decision forced the Federal Minister of the Environment, Peter Kent to revisit his March 2011 decision to refuse emergency protections for woodland caribou in Alberta affected by oil sands development. The Canadian Government was given until September 1, 2011 to implement a draft recovery strategy for woodland caribou. 

Senate Recommendations on a Grey Seal Cull: the Good, the Bad, the Outrageous

International Fund for Animal Welfare


The Canadian Senate, our Senate, has just released its report on the “management” of grey seal populations on Canada’s East Coast and recommends spending millions in taxpayer dollars on an “experiment” that is so incredibly flawed that, whatever the result, it will be entirely unreliable.  Details here.

Photograph: Joe Cornish/NTPL

Winnipeg Busted for Illegal Poop Discharge

Government of Manitoba

Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship advises charges have been laid against the City of Winnipeg under the Environment Act as a result of the city’s South End Water Pollution Control Centre releasing a large amount of partially treated sewage into the Red River over a prolonged period of time.  Details here.

"Sandy," AKA "Frankenstorm" Lashes the East Coast

New York Times: Hurricane Sandy, now battering the Bahamas, is expected to head up the East Coast over the weekend and possibly collide with a winter blast, producing what weather forecasters fear could be a historic and potentially devastating storm for a large swath of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic early next week. Details here.

CARL JUSTE / TRIBUNE MEDIA / MCT

Residents find higher ground as the water level continues to rise in Leogane, Haiti, Friday. Leogane has endured five consecutive days of rain due to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

PLT: The deafening silence emanating from the US campaign trail about climate change can only be further evidence of the disconnect between politicians and power on the one hand, and reality and science on the other. How many "Frankenstorms" will we have to endure before they remove their heads from their a...., er I mean, the sand and start telling it like it is?
Please also read: "IT'S GLOBAL WARMING, STUPID!"

Canadian Canola Production - a Riches-to-Rags Tale?

Manitoba Co-Operator - Commodity News Service Canada

A healthy canola field. PLT photo

 Canadian canola exports during the 2012-13 crop year were expected to come in at a record-high level -- but smaller-than-anticipated production is now predicted to dim those prospects. Full story here.

PLT: Crop production stories, chalk-full of numbers such as this one, are both important and interesting, I'm sure. But, as a consumer with an environmental conscience, I am frequently disappointed at the lack of context in such stories in the overall scheme of things. For example, in my own rural area, coffee-talk is rife with reports of a rare canola disease this year which, I am told, is a fungus spread by an insect which thrives in warm weather. That bug was apparently carried from the south where record heat and drought enabled it to thrive. I THINK the disease is called Aster Yellows (Phytoplasma) (l).  It was, this year, worse than it has ever been and shattered the hopes many farmers had harboured earlier in the season, for bumper crops. (At least one farmer told me he believes it cut his expected yields by almost one-half.) Yet little of this seems to reach the public airwaves.

So just when are the media going to begin telling you, the farmer, the truth about what climate change is doing to you and the world's food supply, and how you, with your ever-larger, fuel-guzzling, greenhouse-gas-producing machines, may be contributing to it, yourself?

Italy's Earthquake Case Reeks of Hypocrisy

Puzzling, isn't it?

Several scientists in Italy were recently tried, convicted and sentenced on criminal charges for failing to predict the unpredictable - a tragic and deadly earthquake there a few years ago.

I didn't realize governments were all that interested in what scientists have to say, anyway. After all, leading climatologists the world over have been warning for decades that our planet is headed for a crisis due to human-caused climate change - a science that has accumulated years of painstaking data and meteorological records to back its findings. Nevertheless, such warnings have been systematically ignored by Presidents, Prime Ministers and governments everywhere.

If it was possible to bring a class action against political leaders the world over (beginning with Canada's Stephen Harper) I'd be leading the charge.

Think about it. A few hundred people died in the earthquake - a disaster, to be sure. But millions have died by now due to the catastrophic effects of climate change and millions more will, in future, thanks to the kind of ongoing criminal negligence being practised at the political level.  PLT

Help Malala - She Deserves the Nobel Prize!

 P l e a s e  sign the petition, here!

Ash Cloud

By George Monbiot, the Guardian
How conservatism turned into an orgy of destruction. Details here.

PLT: Sounds like Canadian-style corporatism is metastasizing!

Climate Scientist Sues for Defamation

The Daily Climate

Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann sues National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute for 'maliciously' attacking his personal reputation. Details here.
PLT: At left is Michael Mann's now-famous "hockey stick graph" which has drawn the anger, vitriol and even threats from many climate cranks. Mann and other scientists constructed the graph to show global patterns of annual surface temperature. Despite evidence that the graph is an accurate portrayal, the cranks continue to spew their hatred at this distinguished man.

MONARCH BUTTERFLIES Seeking Sanctuary

Xerces Society
Across North America, monarch butterflies are leaving their summer breeding grounds and making their epic journey to spend the winter in Mexico or along California's coast. Unfortunately, all is not well in the monarch world. Details here.

Farm Runoff is Speeding Demise of Protective Coastal Areas -- Study

ClimateWire:

PLT photo
Pollution from agricultural production degrades coastal salt marshes more quickly than previously thought, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Details here.