Farmers Seek Environmental Assessment of GM Alfalfa From Ontario Government

National Farmers Union

Two farmers have formally asked the Ontario government to carry out an environmental assessment of genetically modified (GM) alfalfa before the seed is sold in the province. Today, they launched an application under Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights, the first ever request relating to the issue of GM crops.

Do Canadians Care About The Environment?

Huffington Post

When you consider the way regulations are enforced against  tar sands companies in Canada compared to the 'States, it makes you wonder! Details here.

(Right) The tar sands at night. 24 hours a day, the tar sands eat into the most carbon-rich forect ecosystem on the planet. Storing almost twice as much carbon per hectare as tropical rainforests, the boreal forest is the planet's greatest terrestrial carbon storehouse. To the industry, these diverse and ecologically significant forests and wetlands are referred to as "overburden," the forest to be stripped & the wetlands dredged & replaced by mines & tailings ponds so vas they can be seen from outer space. Photo credit - Huffington Post

Suzuki & Rubin Pose a Necessary Question - "Is Endless Growth Possible or Even Desirable?"

CBC Radio Podcast - "Ideas." (54 mins)

Please listen to this riveting podcast here.

Canada’s Boreal Forests are the ‘Amazon of the North’: Report

Globe and Mail

As resource companies look to northern forests in search of untapped minerals and energy, scientists and conservancy groups say too little heed is being paid to the environmental wealth created by Canada’s boreal regions. Full story here.

Due to Global Warming, End Is Virtually Certain for New York City, Boston, Miami, Holland

Huffington Post

A new article in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS) reports that, because of carbon emissions that are virtually certain, sea levels are now set to rise anywhere from around 8 inches to 7 feet within 100 years, and around 5 yards to 10 yards within 2,000 years. Details here.

Are we on the Right Course in Combatting Insect-Borne Disease? - an editorial

PLT

My heart goes out to the Brandon man struggling to get his life back after contracting debilitating West Nile virus from an infected mosquito. Public comments by his sister, including the inference that we should be more diligent in spraying for the West Nile mosquito, are understandable. 

However, they do raise some questions for me. 

The first is, does the City of Brandon not spray for the such mosquitoes now? (There is no mention of this in the news stories I have seen.) If it does, this begs the question, is malathion as effective as it is cracked up to be for this purpose? (Malathion, by the way is an organophosphate - a member of the same family of insecticides which killed some 20 children at a school in India recently.) 

The National Round Table on Environment and Economy (a valuable think-tank now defunct thanks to the Harper wrecking crew) warned a couple of years ago about the increase in "vector-borne" diseases (ones carried by insects) due to climate change. Sadly, this warning and others similar to it have gone unheeded by government, industry and members of the public themselves. 

We do nothing to counter the ravages of climate change (like curbing our consumption of fossil fuels), yet we cling to band-aid solutions like spray programs which may be worse than questionable. They may actually be counter-productive. How do we know, for example, whether they are not actually reducing the numbers of dragon-flies, a natural enemy of the mosquitoes?  As long as we cling to "quick-fixes" like mosquito-spray programs, the further we push back effective, long-term solutions into the dim-&-distant future.

It's Just "Nature"

PLT: Just watching the news tonight. According to CTV, the latest, terrible storms, this time in Ontario & Quebec, are due to "nature." All the damage from high winds - trees crushing cars, damaging houses, knocking out power for up to a million people and killing a woman in Quebec, was just because of "nature." So is the heat wave now plaguing the maritimes, apparently. The only mention of global warming came in a promo for some stupid movie involving sharks flying through the air. With this kind of negligence, deceit and ignorance rampant in our mass media concerning the most serious environmental problem facing our planet today, God help us all. 

It's not nature, media! It's climate change! This is what it looks like! And we are to blame! 

Get used to it! Step up! Tell it like it is, you bozos!!!

P.S. CTV is not alone in its malfeasance. While most media are now mentioning the term "climate change" more than they used to, they might as well not. Without the added, necessary explanation that the reason much of this is happening is our excessive burning of fossil fuels which emits greenhouse gases which causes global warming which spawns much of these extreme weather events, it's useless.