Company Behind Gas Rig Explosion in Louisiana Was Sued for Degrading Coast

DESMOG

Clovelly Oil is not quite a household name, as far as oil and natural gas companies go, though it recently gained attention when its oil and natural gas storage rig exploded on October 15 in Louisiana. Story here.

Wind, warm water revved up melting Antarctic glaciers - NASA study.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labortory
An influx of warm water into the bay where they're located are likely behind a speedup in the movement of Antarctic glaciers. Details here.

Air Pollution Kills 9 Million, Costs $5 Trillion Per Year

EcoWatch

Wildfires like this can send harmful air particles continent-wide. Wikimedia Commons.

"For decades, pollution and its harmful effects on people's health, the environment, and the planet have been neglected both by Governments and the international development agenda. Yet, pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and death in the world today, responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths." Story here.

RELATED: Please watch my TV newscast, below, which aired some months ago. A segment contained within it references the severe cost of pollution on the world's population.

How Big Water Projects Helped Trigger Africa’s Migrant Crisis

YaleEnvironment360

Major dam and irrigation projects are drying up the wetlands that sustain life in the arid Sahel region of Africa. The result has been a wave of environmental refugees, as thousands of people flee, many on boats to Europe.  Story here.
Egypt's Aswan High Dam. 
Photo by Hajor.

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.