Sunday, September 1, 2013

Bayer Sues EC for Saving Bees

Sum of Us
Larry,
Wow. Bayer has just sued the European Commission to overturn a ban on the pesticides that are killing millions of bees around the world. A huge public push won this landmark ban only months ago -- and we can't sit back and let Big Pesticide overturn it while the bees vanish.
Bayer and Syngenta, two of the world's largest chemical corporations, claim that the ban is "unjustified" and "disproportionate." But clear scientific evidence shows their products are behind the massive bee die-off that puts our entire food chain in peril. 
Just last month, 37 million bees were discovered dead on a single Canadian farm. And unless we act now, the bees will keep dying. We have to show Bayer now that we won't tolerate it putting its profits ahead of our planet's health. If this giant corporation manages to bully Europe into submission, it would spell disaster for the bees.

New Studies Show The Oceans Are Acidifying at the Fastest Rate in 300 Million Years. Should We Be Concerned?

Washington Post

The results, published this week in Nature Climate Change, aren’t exactly encouraging: “Our analysis demonstrates that the groups studied - corals, molluscs, echinoderms, crustaceans and fishes - are all impacted negatively, albeit differently, even by moderate acidification.” Details here.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

American Authorities Work to Ensure There is no "Lac-Mégantic Disaster" on Their Doorstep

Bloomberg News - U.S. rail-safety regulators began a “Bakken blitz” of inspections of crude oil tank cars this week as they seek to prevent a railroad disaster in the U.S. similar to July’s fatal inferno in Quebec. Full story here.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Canada Becomes an Environmental Pariah on the International Stage Once Again!

Winnipeg Free Press - by Gwynne Dyer
In 2007, oil drillers found a reservoir of an estimated 846 million barrels of heavy crude in Yasuni National Park, in Ecuador's part of the Amazon. But the park is home to two indigenous tribes that have so far succeeded in living in voluntary isolation -- and it is listed by UNESCO as a world biosphere reserve. A single hectare of Yasuni contains more species of trees than all of North America. Details here.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Climate Name Change (Video)

Rising Ocean Acidity Will Only Worsen Global Warming

Nature News
The slow and inexorable increase in the oceans’ acidity as they soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere could itself have an effect on climate and amplify global warming, according to a new study. Details here.

A Mexican beach. PLT photo.

Lytton, BC under evacuation threat again, as hundreds of wildfires burn across Canada

Canada's National Observer This week marks the four-year anniversary of a deadly wildfire that destroyed the British Columbia village of...