PLANET IN PERIL

Anita Elash - From Saturday's Globe and Mail Toronto - Anyone who has been stuck in big-city gridlock lately may find this hard to believe, but millions of Westerners are giving up their cars. Details here.

by Sam Burcher               On the 30th September 2011, the CEO’s of two British oil companies were found guilty of Ecocide at the Supreme Court in Westminster. Details here.  Sam Burcher holds an MSc in Education for Sustainability and is co-author of "Food Futures Now." Also by Sam Burcher - "Who Benefits From GM Seeds?" 

Winnipeg Free Press - 10/15/2011 It's far from perfect, but it's a start. Details here. Winnipeg traffic. PLT photo.  PLT: Keep in mind, this is the same administration (Manitoba) which has quietly "OK'd" the cockamamy, energy-indulgent "Centreport Project," which aims to connect Winnipeg via just about anywhere else on the continent via just about any means of transportation imaginable. (My question to the Government of Manitoba as to whether Centreport has undergone an Environmental Impact Assessment, has gone unanswered.) And, oh yes, the expansion of the Winnipeg airport will allow oh so many more happy vacationers to visit Aunt Martha in New Zealand so much more easily by jet planes, the worst kind of greenhouse gas producers imaginable!  

                                                    Oct.20 '11 Mike De Souza - Post Media News Former Conservative Minister Michael Chong has teamed up with the other four parties in the House of Commons on a new “climate change” caucus. Details here. Flooded cabins at the north end of Lake Manitoba, an agonizing fivce months after the high water hit. Climate change, in the words of the experts, "almost certainly" is playing a role in events such as this. The weather patterns are now "unmistakable," they say. PLT photo.

United Nations Environment Program  (UNEP)    We live, all our lives, less than 25 centimetres away from extinction. For that is the average thickness of the thin dusting of topsoil that  is all that stands between us and a barren planet, and on which  we utterly depend. About a quarter of the world's agricultural land, the United Nations reports, has already been degraded, and another 12 million hectares – an area the size of the African country of Benin is lost to farming each year. TUNZA looks at the issues surrounding this forgotten crisis. more ... PLT: I was astonished (naive?) to just learn that UNEP works with Bayer (the big German-based corporation), to "encourage young people to care for the environment." They neglect to mention that Bayer has been making farm poisons which have been killing honeybees, for years! You don't suppose Bayer has a hidden agenda here, do you? Naaaa!