Friday, July 4, 2014

Critics Say More Needs to be Done to Prevent Another (Canadian) Lac-Megantic Disaster

Canadian Press

OTTAWA – Periodic flurries of federal regulation, rule-making and reassurance followed the rail disaster last July that killed 47 people, destroyed dozens of buildings and contaminated waterways in a small Quebec town. Details here.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Can You Say "Climate Change?"

by Larry Powell
A sodden farm field near Neepawa, Manitoba.
Another "severe weather event," this one a doozy, has just blown through my neck of the woods. Deluges of rain over a huge area of the Canadian prairies, driven by strong winds, have brought flooding, property damage and washed-out roads to scores of communities in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It left power outages, dangling live wires, trees on top of cars, evacuations (including at least one hospital and one care home), flooded basements (including my brother's in Regina) and human misery, galore. Ditches and roads turned into rivers and farm fields into rice paddies. They were all part of a package deal included in slow-moving electrical storms that lasted for an agonizing three days or so, from west of Regina through to eastern Manitoba.

The storms were made all the worse due to the extremely wet spring which preceded them. Already sodden ground left few places for the water to go.
Waters of the Whitemud River touch the bridge at Neepawa. 
A friend who lives near the southwestern Manitoba town of Virden, John Fefchak writes, "We are fine where we live, but the town of Virden, it's a disaster. In all my years (and there's been quite a few), I have never been witness to such flooding. There was huge flooding in 1969, and guess, where they allowed the most recent housing development. It's called 'Seventh Heaven,' right in the same place. Too bad people don't pay attention or heed warnings.  Mother Nature will smack you every time! All those residents were evacuated yesterday!"

John adds, "Our little prairie creek, (the one the province allows arsenic into) is now a raging, white rapids river, spilling into the swollen Assiniboine about 3 miles downstream. 

"Just for the record, we have had 4.6 inches of rain in the past 2 days, and for the month of June…..nearly 11 inches. Our yearly average has been 14 inches. Our car dealership, Mainline Motors, is flooded out."
More crop spraying is being done from the air because fields are too wet 
for ground applicators. I spotted this crop-duster just west 
of Neepawa this morning. (P in P photos.)
And it all happened, yet again, without anyone bothering to utter the dreaded phrase, "climate change." The closest I saw was on TV when a meteorologist (no not a climate scientist, but one who tells you what the weather will be tomorrow), was asked if this was part of the broader "trend" (which I took to mean "climate change). She answered, predictably, "You can't definitely connect any single incident to....the....trend."

How in hell can humanity be expected to do something about this defining environmental crisis of our time when we can't even utter the words?

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Manitoba Crop Report

Manitoba Co-Operator

Many areas of Manitoba received significant amounts of rainfall over the weekend, adding to the rainfall already received over the past few weeks. Full story here.

Monday, June 30, 2014

Half of Emperor Penguins Could be 'Wiped Out by End of the Century' Due to Melting Sea Ice

The Independent 

Global warming is melting sea ice so fast that more than half of Antarctica’s population of Emperor penguins are set to be wiped out by the end of the century, according to alarming new research saying they should be listed as an endangered species. Details here.

The Next Breadbasket


National Geographic Magazine
She never saw the big tractor coming. First it plowed up her banana trees. Then her corn. Then her beans, sweet potatoes, cassava. Within a few, dusty minutes the one-acre plot near Xai-Xai, Mozambique, which had fed Flora Chirime and her five children for years, was consumed by a Chinese corporation building a 50,000-acre farm, a green-and-brown checkerboard of fields covering a broad stretch of the Limpopo River Delta. Details here.

Saturday, June 28, 2014

"P in P" Promotes Canada's Chief Bee-Killer (CBK) - Ted Menzies, to CHIEF BIRD KILLER (CB&BK), as Well!

by Larry Powell
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
Menzies (above) was a Conservative MP for about 10 years before being appointed early this year as President and CEO (AKA CBK) of Croplife Canada, an industry organization representing chemical giants like Bayer. Bayer makes "Neonicotinoids," the world's worst family of bee-killing pesticides. CropLife is in the midst of a major lobbying and public relations campaign to prevent Canada from adopting a ban on the pesticides, action the European Union took more than a year ago.

Dear old Ted will be based in Ottawa, where lobbying his old government buddies will come easy. This will help ensure that both the already fat bottom lines of the "Agri-Biz" corporations he now represents and the slaughter of our precious pollinators will continue! 

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club Canada Foundation has asked the Ethics Commissioner to examine Menzies' appointment under the Conflict of Interest Act.

According to John Bennett, National Program Director of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation, “A cabinet minister went directly to the board room of CropLife, the pesticide industry’s lobbying arm. We are advised that this could constitute a conflict of interest under the Act and should be investigated.” 

Please also read: "New Studies Show Farm Chemicals Are Affecting More Than Bees. Bird Populations are Declining, Too." 

New Tests Find Bee-Killing Pesticides in Over Half of “Bee-Friendly” Plants From Garden Centers Across U.S. and Canada

Friends of the Earth
Washington, D.C. – Many “bee-friendly” home garden plants sold at Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walmart have been pre-treated with pesticides shown to kill bees, according to a study released today by Friends of the Earth and allies. Details here.
PLT photo.

Related: Meet Canada's Chief Bee-Killer (CBK) - Ted Menzies


Health Canada probes claim that government officials helped pesticide company overturn a ban

CANADA'S                                                                                                                                ...