Alberta Says Farm Weather Disaster up to $589M in Crop Hail Insurance Payouts

By: The Canadian Press

EDMONTON - Extreme weather has prompted Alberta to declare this year an agricultural economic disaster, paving the way for up to $589 million in crop and hail insurance payments to producers. Story here.

Freedom Isn't Free, Someone Had to Pay For it.

Remembrance Day - a Poem Submitted by John Fefchak,  a Veteran.  (CWO retired) Virden, MB (below).   ======== He was getting old and paunchy And his hair was falling fast, And he sat around the Legion, Telling stories of the past.

Union of Federal Scientists, Professionals to Campaign Against Harper Tories

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - The union representing scientists and other professionals in the federal public service is abandoning its tradition of neutrality in elections to actively campaign against Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Details here.

Go Figger

The Next Steps for an Organic Planet Are Yours To Take

by

Mark 'Coach' Smallwood - 

CommonDreams

 I walked 160 miles to promote regenerative organic agriculture that can save our soil and reverse global warming. Here's what comes next. Story here.

This Week in "The Fraser Institute is Embarrassing Itself" News

PRESSPROGRESS

Too busy to keep up to speed on the Fraser Institute's problems this week? Here's a review of everything that has gone wrong for Canada's "data driven"right-wing think tank -- all from just this past week. Story here.

Island of Maui Defies Monsanto, Passes Ban on GMO Farming

Bloomberg

The measure puts a temporary moratorium on the farming of genetically modified crops in Maui County. Story here.

Health Canada Has 100,000 New Reasons to Rethink Approval of Controversial Pesticides

Today at 8:43 AM

OTTAWA – More than 110,000 people have told Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) not to register flupyradifurone, Bayer's latest bee-killing pesticide. Over the past three weeks, Sierra Club Canada Foundation, David Suzuki Foundation and SumOfUs.org spearheaded a campaign to inform the public of the opportunity to submit formal comments to the PMRA. "We shared the facts about flupyradifurone, and the response has been incredible," said Paul Ferris, of SumOfUs.org. “Over 110,000 Canadians sent a clear message to PMRA: Protect the bees.” The PMRA proposed approving flupyradifurone in September, initiating a mandatory comment period that ended November 3, 2014. Flupyradifurone has the same “mode of action” as bee-killing neonicotinoids: both types of pesticides attack the nervous systems of insects.

On The Importance Of Appreciating Animals

Arianna Huffington - The Huffington Post

You can tell a lot about people from their screensavers. Mine is a picture of gazelles: Details here.

Pelican at Prince Albert Nat'l. Park, CA. P in P photo.

Here Comes The Sun

Larry This morning activists climbed Leduc #1, the oil Derrick that started western Canada's oil boom 70 years ago, at the Edmonton Energy Discovery Centre. They hung a banner that read: “Go Solar: 100% Climate Safe", sending a clear message to the Alberta government that it’s time to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy – for the sake of our climate.  They also set up a small solar panel atop the derrick, using its energy to power a sound system playing music proclaiming the power of the sun. Help us get the message to Premier Jim Prentice, tell Alberta to go solar!

Confessions of a Former Climate Change Denier

by Kasra Hassani - Canadian Science Writers' Association

I, a scientist with a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology, was a climate change denialist. Wait, let me add, I was an effective climate change denialist: I would throw on a cloak of anecdotal evidence and biased one-sided skepticism and declare myself a skeptic. Good scientists are skeptics, right? I sallied forth and denied every piece of evidence that was presented to me, for a relatively long time. Details here.

 Photo via 

Shutterstock.