PLANET IN PERIL

Margaret Munro,  Ottawa Citizen Mar 30 VANCOUVER — The death toll from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill goes far beyond the animal corpses washing ashore, says a report that warns that whale and dolphin deaths may be 50 times higher than believed. Read more:  This explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform sparked the nightmare. PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Some time back, I posted this article with some trepidation. Was it over the top? You decide! l.p.

Joshua S Hill - PlanetSave Mar 29-11 Russia’s boreal forest, the largest continuous expanse in the world, is undergoing a large-scale shift in vegetation types as a direct result of the warming climate. Details here.

AlterNet/by Scott Thill - Mar 29'11 Lester Brown (l.) talks about whether our civilization can survive the mounting global stresses of rising pollution, starvation,  food prices, water shortages and failed states. Details here.

Dear Editor, I am disappointed that a largely discredited individual like Tim Ball (r.) was afforded close to a full page in the March 15th Roblin Review ("People need to understand plants need C02"),  in which to air his negative views about climate change. The book, "Climate Cover Up - the crusade to deny global warming," describes Ball this way. "There are few 'skeptical scientists' with as little experience and as much ambition as the Canadian geography professor, Dr. Timothy Ball. Never a climate scientist, per se, Dr. Ball quit his position at the University of Winnipeg in 1995, ending an academic career that featured a lifetime output of just four peer-reviewed journal articles, none of which addressed atmospheric science." Dr. Ball is actually being sued by a Canadian climate scientist, Andrew Weaver, for libel. Dr. Weaver is a leading author with the Nobel-prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. A

by Larry Powell I'd like to correct several statements in a recent article by Cam Dahl of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy that are either misleading, inaccurate, or both. In it, he insisted that Canada's current system of food regulation is "efficient, science-based and safe." Sadly, history tells us something quite different. Almost five years ago, a bright, dedicated young graduate student at the University of Manitoba, Jennifer Magoon, (above)  found statistically significant links between the amount of farm pesticides used in certain regions of this province and the incidence of several health problems in infants. These included severe birth disorders including spina bifida, Down syndrome, cleft palate, lower birth weights, respiratory distress and jaundice. There were eye disorders, too, including retinal degeneration and cataracts. Magoon's findings were based on health records of tens of thousands of people living in rural Manitoba. Her res

Shellee Tyler Mar 24'11 - Planetsave Thousands of endangered penguins have been coated with oil after a cargo ship ran aground and broke up on a remote British South Atlantic territory, officials and conservationists said Tuesday. Details here.

Planet Save - Mar 24 '11 Worldwide, high crude oil prices, increasing extreme weather events, population growth and economic development of poorer countries, crop-based biofuels, political conflict and unrest in the Middle East, and slowing crop yield growth are all factors contributing to rising food prices. Details here.

Joshua S Hill - PlanetSave Mar '11 Despite a large majority of scientists with intimate knowledge of the planet’s climate agreeing that climate change is real and human-induced, the public still persists in distrusting the majority at the hands of a few wayward sceptics. Details here.

23 Mar'11 - United Nations VIENTIANE – For the first time in Lao PDR, close to 1,000 primary school children will receive a healthy and balanced school lunch prepared from foods bought at their local market. Details here. A Canadian farmers'  market. l.p. photo

Mar 24'11 Manitoba Co-Operator The person believed to be Canada's second-ever case of the type of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease transmitted by BSE-infected beef is seen as unlikely to have picked it up in this country. Details here.