SPECIAL INVITATION Join a Global Conversation

Dear Friend,

On March 25, State of the Planet 2010 will bring together the world's most influential and innovative thinkers and leaders in a wide range of fields—from many academic disciplines to media, government, policy and business spheres—to tackle critical issues facing the world. This year’s conference is the result of a partnership between the Earth Institute, The Economist and Ericsson.

State of the Planet 2010 will focus on four important challenges: climate change, poverty, economic recovery and international systems. Speakers will include President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa of Mexico; UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute; Matthew Bishop, American business editor and New York bureau chief at The Economist; and Hans Vestberg, president and CEO of Ericsson.

Around the world, people will be able to participate via webcast and interactive elements. And at event sites in Beijing, New Delhi, London and Nairobi, speakers and attendees will be directly linked to the international debate, moderated from New York.

As part of the Earth Institute community, we invite you to submit a question to be answered at State of the Planet. Just email it to sop@ei.columbia.edu. Selected questions will be addressed at the event.

To view the event program and list of speakers, register for the New York event, or watch the webcast on March 25, visit stateoftheplanet.org. And please don’t forget to forward this email and invite your friends.

Regards,
The Earth Institute

Tap Water Contaminant 'Castrates' Frogs

By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY - Mar 1 - 2010

Exposed: Chevron's Cover-up of Gross Environmental Abuses in Ecuador

AlterNet / By Cameron Scott - Mar 8 2010

Chevron claims it's not...

Melting Arctic Could Cost $2.4 Trillion by 2050 - Report

Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada - 02/05/2010

The Pew Environment Group today released a report that...

Primates on Brink of Extinction

National Geographic - A recent report, Primates in Peril: The World's 25 most Endangered Primates 2008-2010, shows staggering estimates that half of all primate species in the world are...

Facing Threat of Empty Oceans

Winnipeg Free Press - By: Gwynne Dyer - 10/03/2010

Everybody in the business knows that the Atlantic population of bluefin...

900 lb Bluefin

Fresh Evidence Global Warming is Man-Made

John von Radowitz - The Scotland Herald - 4 Mar 2010

Climate scientists hit back...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Might there soon be too many "brushfires" like these for even our shrill gang of climate-deniers to put out? I certainly hope so! l.p.


Crabeater seals.
Courtesy of Coolantarctica

Monsanto to Enforce Bt Corn Refuge Rules

MB Co-Operator -Staff - 3/2/2010

Monsanto Canada plans to give corn growers one warning...

EDITOR'S NOTE: As far as I'm concerned, farmers who accept this kind of bullshit deserve everything they get! l.p.

Our Brave New World of Globalization - Food and Water Drive an African Land Grab

John Vidal - guardian.co.uk - the Observer - 7 Mar. 201

An Observer investigation reveals...

Inside a greenhouse at a Saudi-financed farm in Ethiopia.
Courtesy of guardian.co.uk

EDITOR'S NOTE: Governments and corporate land-grabbers are spreading like a cancer around the world. Please also read here.

A Somber "Global Warning" for Manitoba

by Larry Powell

An environmental think-tank is warning that Manitoba faces more frequent and severe droughts and floods, due to climate change.The Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), singles out Lake Winnipeg, already besieged by a number of environmental problems, as being particularly vulnerable to further damage as a result of these changes.

Lk. Winnipeg photo - Greenpeace

It's believed to be the first time such a research group has so clearly spelled out a link between global warming and such obvious consequences as the massive and frequent flooding which has occurred on the Red River over the past century or so.

The Institute has done what it calls "a prairie-wide cumulative stress analysis" of prairie water resources. It finds a significant part of southern Manitoba, including much of the Red River Valley, suffers from a high demand for water, a high risk of damage to water quality and, despite the catastrophic flooding events, an actual shortage of supply!

And, even with more frequent ands severe rainstorms, the IISD predicts problems for agriculture due to increasing drought and negative water quality impacts.

This, it explains, is because these irregular and extreme storms will produce heavy nutrient loads and longer periods of low flow in streams and rivers. (Nutrients such as phosphorous have, for years, been lending to huge growths of algae in Lake Winnipeg. The algae, in turn, clog the lake and rob it of oxygen, harming fish life.)

 

The Vermillion River in 

Dauphin, MB. 

A PinP photo

Increasing problems brought on by climate change will also bring increasing tension over the widespread practice by farmers of digging drainage ditches on their land to get rid of excess water. It says such drainage conflicts with the idea of adapting to climate change by storing runoff water for use later.

In an interview with the Winnipeg Free Press, the Institute's lead researcher on the project, Dr. Hank Venema, said, "It's in the agricultural industry's best interests not to do this, given the nature of climate-change projections.

"But those guys are under extreme pressures to squeeze profits out of increasingly small margins," he told the paper.

The Institute is also critical of short-term measures like government money for drainage projects, flood protection and even disaster assistance after flooding, when it might have been better used for long-term management and governance of watersheds.

The study suggests there should be a major shift away from what it calls our present "hard path" approach to water management. This places the emphasis on big, expensive water projects, which are centrally managed, to meet whatever the demand might be.

The Institute calls instead for a "soft path" philosophy, which would develop more evenly distributed, relatively small-scale energy sources. Usually, conserving and carefully managing the demand side play significant roles in "soft-path" systems.

Despite this gloomy and uncertain era of climate change we are now living through, the Institute sounds this note of optimism in its summary.

"We propose that Manitoba is now on the cusp of a new era of water policy (the Adaptation Era), where the nature of climate change impacts makes the rationale for reintegrating across the land-water divide obvious. Increased awareness that climate change exacerbates Lake Winnipeg eutrophication will reinforce high-level political commitment to an integrated response." l.p.

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PLEASE ALSO READ: "It's Climate Change, Stupid!" here

EDITOR'S NOTE: The IISD has, I believe, produced a valuable report here. Let's hope the government is listening. My only regret is that the Institute seems to emphasize "adaptation" (to climate change) to the exclusion of "mitigation." (i.e. aggressive steps to reduce the production of greenhouse gases which have, after all, been the cause of these problems, in the first place.) Surely, only through a combination of the former and the latter can we provide future generations with a more secure, sustainable and livable world. l.p.

Foodborne Illness Costs US $152 Billion Annually: Study

March 3, 2010 by Reuters - by Christopher Doering
WASHINGTON - Foodborne illnesses cost...