Posts

Greenhouse Gas Reduction Called Threat to Oil Industry

CBC Alberta freedom of information document shows industry looking for weak regulations. Details here.

Global Treaty on Mercury Pollution Gets Boost from United States

United Nations Environment Program The United States has strengthened the international effort to bring down emissions and releases of a notorious heavy metal after simultaneously signing and ratifying the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Details here.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reached New Highs In 2012: WMO

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Huffington Post Atmospheric volumes of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change hit a new record in 2012, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Wednesday. Details here. Please also read:  Greenhouse Gases in Atmosphere Reach Record High, Says UN Agency

Moratorium on Fracking Announced by Newfoundland Government

St. John's Telegram Reviews, public consultations needed before policy developed, minister says. Full story here.

A Global Ban on Left-Wing Politics?

That’s what the new rules being smuggled into trade agreements are delivering. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 5th November 2013 Remember that referendum about whether we should create a single market with the United States? You know, the one that asked whether corporations should have the power to strike down our laws? No, I don’t either. Mind you, I spent ten minutes looking for my watch the other day, before I realised I was wearing it. Forgetting about the referendum is another sign of ageing. Because there must have been one, mustn’t there? After all that agonising over whether or not we should stay in the European Union(1), the government wouldn’t cede our sovereignty to some shadowy, undemocratic body without consulting us.  Would it?

A Century of Scientific Discovery That Brought Life and Death

The Guardian It's 100 years since Fritz Haber found a way to synthesise ammonia – helping to feed billions but also to kill millions, and contributing to the pollution of the planet… Details here.

Climate Change Report Predicts Warming Will Only Make Human Ills Worse

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Huffington Post Many of the ills of the modern world — starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease — are likely to worsen as the world warms from man-made climate change... Full story here. Floodwater blocks access to a rural home near  Yorkton, Saskatchewan, CA - 2011. PLT photo

Canadians Head to Parliament Hill to Lobby for Carbon Fee and Dividend

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Citizens Climate Lobby.  In mid-November, as climate leaders gather in Warsaw, Poland for the 19th meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, citizens from across Canada will be lobbying for Carbon Fee and Dividend on Parliament Hill. Full story here. Storm clouds near Regina. PLT photo

Help Save The Bees

We are writing to ask you to send an email to Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency calling for a ban on neonicotinoids pesticides.  You may have seen media reports over the summer describing the critical situation of beekeepers. It is estimated that 40% of the bees in Ontario and Quebec were killed in 2012 and early reports from 2013 are looking just as bad. So bad in fact the Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency has posted this statement: “(we’ve)   determined that current agricultural practices related to the use of neonicotinoid treated corn and soybean seed are affecting the environment due to their impacts on bees and other pollinators”.  PMRA went on to invite public comment on the use of neonicotinoids and we are passing the invitation on to you, please let them know what you think! Just  click here , fill in the form and click “send”.

Reader Finds Me Disgusting

My  letter to the Editor, "Have our Servants Become Our Masters? - Why Fossil Fuels are No Longer Our Friends," published in The Roblin Review earlier this month, seems to have hit a nerve.  It led to a follow-up letter from a reader in the north, published the following week in the same paper. He accuses me of being out to kill Canadian jobs and finds my letter a "disgusting piece of drivel" in the way I insult Mr. Harper and the oil patch. Please read my response to that letter, below!   Larry ====== Dear Editor, I'm glad that John Titanich has seen fit to respond in the Review to my earlier letter about fossil fuels and why they are no longer our friends. After all, public debate is the bedrock of a healthy democracy.  Mind you,  John did get a tad personal. But that comes with the territory, I guess. As for his suggestion you can't be an environmentalist if you drive anything more modern than an ox-cart, well, I've heard th

Argentina Is Using More Pesticide Than Ever Before. And Now It Has Cancer Clusters.

Mother Jones In Chaco , birth defects quadrupled in the decade after biotechnology dramatically expanded farming in Argentina. Details here.