More Oil Spilled From American Trains in 2013 Than in Previous 4 Decades, Federal Data Show

McClatchy Washington Bureau

A Canadian National freight, as seen from a Via Rail passenger train, parked on a siding. These "close encounters" are a common occurrence in Canada, where passenger trains need to yield the right-of-way to the freights. (PLT movie.)

More crude oil was spilled in U.S. rail incidents last year than was spilled in the nearly four decades since the federal government began collecting data on such spills, an analysis of the data shows. Details here.

Sochi Residents Blame Games for Ecological Damage

(Reuters) - The first warning of the problems that eventually swept away Irina Vorochkova's house near Russia's Olympic city of Sochi came when the garden began shifting, then the ground slid away downhill towards a river. Details here.

The Insurance Industry Licks its Wounds in the Wake of Catastrophic Storm Damage in the Year Just Passed

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Earth set a new record for billion-dollar weather disasters in 2013. Full story here.

Southern Alberta, summer, 2013.

Alberta Leads the Country in "Exploiting" Natural Places

iPolitics

While this may not come as a shock to Neil Young, who’s compared the oil sands to Hiroshima, a national study suggests that Alberta has disturbed more natural landscape than any other province. The analysis by Global Forest Watch adds that Wild Rose Country also has two of the three areas in Canada where the rate of disturbance is the highest. Those disruptions included everything from roads to seismic lines to clearcuts to croplands. “This is a simple monitoring analysis that should be done and could very easily be done by the feds,” the report’s author Peter Lee said Monday. “(But) they’re not doing it.”

It's Hitting the Fan Over Sewage in Manitoba (Again)

Winnipeg Free Press

Opponents outraged as St. Clement's lagoon OK'd. Details here.

Related: 

• The Rural Municipality of Shell River, Manitoba, Scraps Plans for a New Sewage Lagoon at a Controversial Location
• "Born of the Stump"

Born of the Stump - by John Fefchak

Preamble by Larry Powell

This article sprouts from the fertile mind of John Fefchak, a writer from Virden, Manitoba and a regular contributor to this blog. (It's a refinement of a piece he did, which appeared here some time ago.) I believe you'll find it both funny and provocative. In it, he speaks of modern-day policy-makers forsaking their God-given duty to care for Planet Earth. Instead, they have turned their backs on ancient biblical teachings and  abandoned their sacred duty as stewards of our water resources, from which all life springs.

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jessie, and a branch shall grow out of his roots." Isaiah 11:1-10 

by John Fefchak 

INTRODUCTION….THE AGREEMENT.

Before there was anything, there was GOD, a few angels and huge swirling globs of rocks and water with no place to go. 

The angels asked GOD: "Why don't you clean up this mess"?

So GOD collected rocks from the huge swirling glob and put them together in clumps and said, "Some of these clumps of rocks will be planets and some will be stars and some of these rocks will be…just rocks".

Neil Young Responds to Criticism From Prime Minister’s Office Over Native Rights and Oilsands Issue

That Eric Alper

Canadian musician Neil Young has responded to a statement issued by Prime Minister Harper’s office following comments Young made about the Alberta oilsands and the federal government. Full story here.