Thursday, October 4, 2012

Why Lake Winnipeg's Degredation is a Prairie-Wide Environmental Calamity



by Jim Harding
Industrial-agricultural contaminants and Regina’s poorly treated sewage are degrading the Qu’Appelle Valley lake chain. This is a microcosm of a much larger…Full story here.

Please also read, Lake Winnipeg Predicament a Human Creation, (a letter to the editor by John Fefchak).

THE END OF GROWTH – first in a series

by Jim Harding
In 1972 the book Limits to Growth was published. This year, forty years later, the book The End of Growth came out. Full story here.

At Last. Someone Gets to the "Bottom" of Climate Change!

by Danny Dimwit

ROBLIN, MB: 

Wow! Sure has been windy lately, huh?

We had two big trees blow down right beside our own house near Roblin late one night back in July. The top 8 or 10 feet of 6 others were ripped off and came crashing down at the same time.

I even had a heart attack after cleaning up the mess in my yard. (Needed open-heart surgery - bypasses, the whole 9 yards!)

(Later, I talked to a lady who had a bit of a heart attack, too, while cleaning up a campground near Portage, further to the east. She said a big wind kind of like a tornado had passed through!)

The storm at our place (I think they called it a plow wind), damaged our sun porch, buckled our garage door and damaged our car. Cost a couple of thou to fix.

As bad as it was, other poor souls in our neck of the woods also suffered damage from the wind which could have been even worse. We saw trees down everywhere, including some on top of houses and trailers in Roblin. Did you?

Word is, folks were even taking food to the dump because their power was out for so long, it spoiled.

Lately, those damn grassfires whipped by the wind, have even been burning houses and forcing folks out of their homes south of the Peg. They've been without power for days now!

A couple of years ago, and last year, too, I guess, we sure did have a lot of flooding. Our farmers couldn't grow crops on millions of acres because of it, apparently. Now, this year, it's drought. Yields weren't what they'd hoped for earlier. Apparently crop diseases that are usually rare, were more common 'kuz of the lack of rain.

I've heard that some folks who lived along the lakes still aren't even back home, yet. Bummer!

But this is nothing new, is it? We get bad weather all the time, don't we?

And those people who call themselves "experts," with the government and the universities, telling us that we, you and me, are behind this "athro por jenik," or whatever, change in our weather! What a bunch of pointy-heads!

I only got my high school, but I talk to folks in the coffee shop! They may not have fancy degrees, but they know things! And they say this weird weather is natural. It's just part of natural shifts in weather patterns, sun flares, the tilt of the earth, 'n such...things we got no control over. Apparently there even used to be a big lake covering a lot of the province. So there! That proves it!

And that fella, Tim Ball, he knows. He was a professor once. And he goes around telling farmers they better hope for more global warming! The pointy-heads claim they get their information from satellites, weather stations, models they make using computers, observatories on mountains, tree rings and ice-cores. Not sure where Tim gets his from. But I just know he's out there in the arctic and in the deserts, gathering the proof he needs for what he says!

And those pictures you see in the news of polar bears swimming up north and all the ice melting….that's just those pointy-heads, doctoring the photos so they can get more research money. They must be doing something crooked, kuz Tim says the planet is actually cooling down, not heating up!

They try to tell us the bad storms are worse and happening more than they used to. What a crock!

I remember, when I was a kid, back in the 40s and 50s.....well, OK, I don't remember almost getting killed in my house, or houses burning, or so many crops being wiped out, or floods destroying so many cabins, communities being evacuated or highways caving in quite like this. 

OK, maybe not.

But the warm weather! Hey, so what if it is getting hotter out there!  Those warnings from the pointy-heads that our kids may face a planet unfit to live in when they grow up, is just more blather! After all, you can always crank up the A/C in your car. That's what I do!

I say, if this is global warming, bring it on!
======
PLT: The facts of this tale, we know to be true, unlike the name we have ascribed to the "author." The scarey part is, the conclusions Danny draws are disturbingly similar to real opinions one hears all too often on the street!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Wildfires Prompt Manitoba to Clamp Travel Restrictions on Southeastern Area

Government of Manitoba News Release.

Hot, dry conditions and high winds are driving grass and brush fires in several areas including fires near the communities of St. Malo, Richer, Milner Ridge and Vita.
For latest conditions, check here.
Firefighters battle a raging brush fire that is threatening 
homes in Winnipeg.  WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) 
                FIRE UPDATE
New Travel Restrictions Introduced

The Office of the Fire Commissioner, Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship, and the Manitoba Emergency Measures Organization continue to support municipalities and fire departments with fires in southeast Manitoba.

Hot, dry conditions and high winds are driving grass and brush fires in several areas including fires near the communities of St. Malo, Richer, Milner Ridge and Vita.  Non-essential personnel are asked to avoid these areas as conditions are changing quickly.

Municipal and provincial staff are also working with the municipalities of Grahamdale and St. Laurent to address fires.

The community of Vita issued an evacuation order earlier today.  Area residents are being directed to a reception centre in Steinbach.  The bridge west of the community has burned and there is no access from the west on PR 201.

Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship is providing three water bombers to address the fires near Vita and Richer.  Two water bombers from Ontario are also providing assistance.

The department is also introducing backcountry travel restrictions in the eastern region effective immediately.  This includes the area east of PR 302 to the Ontario border and south of the TransCanada Highway to the U.S. border.  Backcountry travel is now allowed by permit only.

Monday, October 1, 2012

2012 US Drought: Pick Your Poison

By Brian Bienkowski The Daily Climate

As harvest season gets underway, farmers find drought-stressed crops are susceptible to toxins and contaminants, further reducing yields. Details here.

By Charles Abbott WASHINGTON

Global Fisheries Approaching Collapse

                                         Planetsave
A new report by the Sustainable Fisheries Group (SFG) has confirmed the suspicions held by many researchers that the thousands of fisheries that there isn’t much data on, that’s nearly 80 percent of the world’s fisheries, are in steep decline but could potentially recover to a degree if they are properly managed. Full story here.


Photo credit:  Ecology Action Centre.

Pipeline Whistleblower: Cracks in The System

By Andrew Nikiforuk, Today, TheTyee.ca

An insider ties poor weld inspections to rising rate of ruptures. Part two of a Tyee investigation. Full story here.