Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers

theguardian

Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years, with serious implications for all life on Earth, scientists say. Story here.

A purple martin with a dragonfly. 
PinP photo.

Wildfire forces evacuation of southwestern Saskatchewan communities

CBCnews

Evacuation orders have been issued for towns of Leader, Burstall and Liebenthal. Story here.

It’s Time to Ban Bee-Killing Pesticides

EcoWatch - by David Suzuki
The Canadian government is banning plastic microbeads in toiletries. Although designed to clean us, they're polluting the environment, putting the health of fish, wildlife and people at risk. Manufacturers and consumers ushered plastic microbeads into the marketplace, but when we learned of their dangers, we moved to phase them out. Story here.

RELATED: Tainted honey spells more trouble for bees. Are we losing the battle to save them?

There are toxic secrets in Canada's Chemical Valley

|NATIONAL OBSERVER

Ron Plain will most likely be dead in 24 months. In November 2016, his doctors diagnosed him with a rare form of cancer…Story here.

The Labouratory

The Guardian - George Monbiot

We are still living in the long 20th Century. We are stuck with its redundant technologies: the internal combustion engine; thermal power plants; factory farms. We are stuck with its redundant politics: unfair electoral systems; their capture by funders and lobbyists; the failure to temper representation with real participation. Story here.

Worrying new research finds that the ocean is cutting through a key Antarctic ice shelf

The Washington Post

A new scientific study has found that warm ocean water is carving an enormous channel into the underside of one of the key floating ice shelves of West Antarctica, the most vulnerable sector of the enormous ice continent. Story here.

"Bill 24 Stinks!" Manitoba Green Party Leader - James Beddome.

Winnipeg Free Press

WINNIPEG - Green Party leader James Beddome wasn't the least bit subtle Wednesday about what he thinks of the Pallister government's red tape reduction bill.

"This bill stinks!" 


Beddome declared to a rally on the steps of the Manitoba legislature.

"It's part of a Conservative agenda that tells us all regulation is bad," Beddome said. "Government efficiency means don't do our homework; if there's no data, there's no problem." Environmental activists led by the Wilderness Committee and Hog Watch Manitoba protested Bill 24, an omnibus bill going to public hearings sometime later this month, warning that within its reductions to regulations were changes that would allow the expansion of industrial hog barns that would further jeopardize the health of Lake Winnipeg.

Speakers could not agree on how many sets of regulations are threatened by red tape reduction - 12, 14, and 15 were all cited

- but did agree that lifting the former NDP government's moratorium on hog barn expansion will produce more toxins that will eventually wash into Lake Winnipeg.

"We're not opposed to raising pigs in Manitoba," said Hog Watch head Vicki Burns, but it must be done humanely and without harming the environment.

"We haven't seen the improvements in Lake Winnipeg we need to see," said Eric Reder, campaign coordinator for Wilderness Manitoba.

NDP environment critic Rob Altemeyer accused Premier Brian Pallister of copying Stephen Harper's playbook, by packing so many issues into an omnibus bill in hopes some would slip by unnoticed.

Tainted honey spells more trouble for bees. Are we losing the battle to save them?

 by Larry Powell

Three out of every four samples of honey tested in a global survey released this week, were tainted with neonicotinoids, the world's most widely-used insecticide.

A five-member Swiss research team tested almost two hundred honey samples from every continent except Antarctica (including several remote islands), for the five main compounds in the "neonic family" of pesticides (acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, and thiamethoxam).

At least one of those compounds was found in 75% of all samples tested. (Fourty-five percent contained two or more, while ten percent showed traces of four or five.)

The levels detected were considered too low to pose a risk to people who actually eat honey. But, for adult bees, honey is their only food in winter and when flowers aren't blooming. While "neonics" may not always kill the pollinators outright, they've been shown to have "sub-lethal effects," which probably damage the way they grow,learn, fend off disease, navigate and reproduce.

The test results show that "neonics" are now used everywhere, and that bees, probably including thousands of wild varieties, as well, are exposed to the toxins in their food, worldwide. 

"Neonics are suspected of being a key factor for a global decline not just in honeybees," states the report, "but in pollinators, generally. And, despite some recent efforts to decrease their use - the contamination (documented in this latest research), confirms the inundation of bees and their environments with these pesticides." 

And while "neonic" levels in the honey are considered low for human consumption, the research paper also hints - that may not be the end of the story. 

"There are increasing concerns about the impact of these systemic pesticides, not only on...honey bees ....but also on...humans."

Other research has already documented harm "neonics" are also doing to insect-eating birds such as swallows, either by poisoning them directly or depriving them of the bugs they normally eat.

Another study demonstrates negative effects on the rare Japanese crested ibis. It was found to have better breeding success when "neonics" were removed from its environment.

In Canada,three kinds of "neonics" have been detected in our waterways at levels considered harmful to important food sources for fish, birds and other animals, such as midges and mayflies.

Researchers hope a total ban such as the one France will soon introduce, may reverse "neonic" readings there, over time. But, despite a partial moratorium imposed by the EU a few years ago, readings in Europe were still among the highest.  

The report warns that "pesticide cocktails," where more than one "neonic" compound may be used at once,  "may increase harm" even more.

The researchers, headed by Edward Mitchell of the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, call on authorities to tell the public more about how many pesticides are being used in their areas, and to make that information easier for scientists to interpret and understand.

Reaction to the research study from other experts in the field, has been swift and, in some cases, angry.

Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex (r.) laments, "Despite repeated warnings from scientists that they are impacting the bees, butterflies, aquatic insects and more...few governments have listened.                                                                     "We would expect to find them in honey. Entire landscapes all over the world are now permeated with highly potent neurotoxins, undoubtedly contributing to the global collapse of biodiversity.

"Some of us have been pointing this out for years. It is hard not to feel a sense of deja vu: Rachel Carson was saying the same things more than 50 years ago, but we seem not to have learned any lessons. It is high time that we developed a global regulatory system for pesticides, to prevent such catastrophes being repeated over and over again."

Meanwhile, Chris Connolly of the University of Dundee,  Scotland (l.), calls these latest findings “Alarming and sobering." He says "neonics" are being overused, unnecessarily and ought to be "heavily restricted." 

Dr. Connolly fears, while the chemical may not kill bees outright, it might "hinder their ability to forage on, and pollinate, our crops”

It's been said that one out of every three spoons full of food we put in our mouths are made possible by pollinators.

This latest research was published in the journal, "Science" on Thursday.

RELATED: "Glyphosate found in Canadian food."

Lessons learned from Manitoba's Flood of the Century

The Red River Valley Echo

MORRIS - They were at the forefront of one of Manitoba’s worst natural disasters, and 20 years later, municipal officials and provincial experts gathered in Morris to share their perspective of what became known as “The Flood of the Century”. Story here.

Crash in sea-turtle births stumps ecologists

Nature|News

Leading suspect — climate change — doesn’t fully explain what is happening to leatherback turtles in the US Virgin Islands. Story here.

Little leatherbacks leave their nest in Aruba.
Photo by Elise Peterson

Canada's federal government failing to put climate plan into action, environmental watchdog finds

CBCnews

Commissioner Julie Gelfand says stronger leadership needed to move beyond ‘endless planning mode.’ Story here.

PinP photo.