Hesitance to Link Some Weather Events to Climate Change 'No Longer Appropriate'

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climate

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Baton Rouge in Aug. USDA photo

Fast study showed climate change's influence on Louisiana's devastating floods. The method is being used to more quickly assess some types of extreme weather. Story here.

The Monsanto–Bayer Tie-Up is Just One of Seven Mega-Mergers That Threaten Seeds, Food Security

etc

              GROUP

Organic hemp seed. PinP photo.

Policymakers could still block the agri biz mergers; peasants and farmers will continue the fight for seeds and rights. Story here.

Media Silent as Two States Declare State of Emergency Due to Pipeline Spill

Nation of Change

A major fuel pipeline ruptured this week in Shelby County, Alabama, prompting both Alabama and Georgia to declare state emergencies. Yet, other than local media outlets, the mainstream media has been curiously silent about the situation. Story here.

Technoparc: A Unique Wetland Area of Montreal - Home to Over 80 Nesting Species of Birds Faces an Uncertain Future

Sierra Club Canada

Wildlife similar to this Great Blue Heron inhabit "Technoparc." 

PinP photo

Imagine a wetland area that is home to over 80 nesting species including herons, raptors, songbirds and ducks. Then imagine it in the middle of a Technoparc on the Island of Montreal, a few miles west of downtown and just east of the Trudeau Airport. Story here.

Be Afraid. Writer Warns of the Possible Rise of "Trumpism" Right Here in Canada.

by Larry Powell

I hope we Canadians are resisting feelings of superiority while watching the horror show unfold before our eyes that is the U.S. election. If we haven’t done it ourselves, I’m sure we’ve seen others wag their fingers or click their tongues at that pitiful excuse for a  “Commander-in-Chief,” Donald Trump. And rightly so. But make no mistake, he has his supporters right here in Canada, too. I just read a letter-to-the-editor from a fellow Manitoban, for example, which loudly proclaims “I think we desperately need a Donald Trump here in Canada!” 

Odd, isn’t it? Those words are eerily similar to these. “I think Donald Trump would be best for the job.” Who said that? That was the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S.

Beating the drum, as Trump does, for a wall on the US-Mexico border and a ban on Muslims, he wears his racism on his sleeve like a badge of honour. How this hateful, lying demagogue can attract supporters here in my country, or anywhere for that matter, leaves me truly gobsmacked.

Trump is immune to evidence, facts or truth. Up 'til today, at least, he has clung to the lie he helped manufacture, that President Obama is a Muslim who was not even born in the ‘States. After sowing those toxic seeds (fuelled, no doubt by the fact that Obama is black) and unleashing the kind of harm only such conspiracy theories can do, he's had a death-bed repentance. Yes, Obama was US-born, Donald proclaims! I guess, just because Trump has now said it, Obama is finally qualified to carry on in his post! But Trump followed up immediately by launching another bald-faced lie: that Hillary Clinton had started the whole, ugly "birther" controversy. This man does not know when to quit. He is pathological.

And Canada, of course, once “belonged to the U.S” and ought to be returned! Trump actually said that? He sure did!

He has also labelled the now well-founded science of manmade climate change as a hoax, having been “created by & for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” He actually promises to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, the last bastion shielding the American people, their health and their environment, from unbridled destruction by soulless corporations bent on mining and polluting the Earth (and its oceans) to death.

While Trump may have dreamed up his own personal, perverted brand of climate denial, he has plenty of company right here in my country, too. Trust me, that denial, in one form or another, runs deep. It’s even ingrained to some degree in our educational, journalistic and faith communities.  

Not many may come out publicly, as that letter-writer did, to proclaim their support for this “wart on the rump of history.” But I fear they still privately share way too many of his dangerous, misguided beliefs. 

Please don’t let another Donald Trump slither into a position of power in Canada. If we do, we should all be afraid. Very afraid.

Obama Administration: Dakota Pipeline 'Will Not Go Forward At This Time'

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climate

news

Brushing aside a fresh court ruling, three federal agencies said they are withholding a permit on a portion of the project near Sioux Land. Story here.

Polar Bears Losing Crucial Sea Ice: Study

theguardian

Life-sustaining sea ice needed for hunting, resting and breeding is declining in all 19 regions of the Arctic inhabited by the species.  Story here.

Ansgar Walk