PLANET IN PERIL

Food & Agriculture Organization Weather and Black Sea tensions push prices to ten-month highs. Details here. Blight, spawned by torrential rain, destroyed  this & many other "backyard"  tomato crops in western Canada  a few years ago. PLT photo.

RSN   reader supported news In a landmark report to Alberta’s energy regulator, a panel of experts has concluded that odors from a controversial tar sands processing plant are linked to human health impacts. Full story here.

CBC News Deal launches 'fresh new chapter' in life of research station near Kenora in northwestern Ontario.  Details here.   Dear Larry, I’m delighted to share some good news with you! It was  announced yesterday  that a final agreement  was made to transfer operation of the Experimental  Lakes Area (ELA) to the International Institute for  Sustainable Development (IISD). We applaud the  IISD and the Governments of Ontario and Manitoba  for creating a new home for the ELA.

CLIMATE PROGRESS The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its second of four planned reports examining the state of climate science. This one summarizes what the scientific literature says about “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability” (big PDF here ). As with every recent IPCC report, it is super-cautious to a fault and yet still incredibly alarming. Details here.

Huffington Post Climate change has already left its mark "on all continents and across the oceans ", damaging food crops, spreading disease, and melting glaciers , according to the leaked text of a blockbuster UN climate science report due out on Monday. Details here.   Full report here. PLT photo.

Dear Editor, After reading the letter-to-the-editor from Robert Sopuck, (Conservative MP for Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette) in  The Roblin Review   back in January (Canada-Eu agreement will bring jobs to the riding) (*see below), one would think there are no "downsides" to free trade, at all!  How convenient that he and Prime Minister Harper are leaving out the parts that aren't as flattering. Free trade agreements have, for years, been chipping away at the ability of sovereign nations to make laws that protect our health and environment. Far from protecting us, such deals hand over more and more power to giant, ruthless and unelected corporations to sue nations like Canada, if our laws interfere with their own "rights" to make a profit.  As long ago as the 1990s, an American outfit called Ethyl Corp. made off with $19 million of Canadian taxpayers' money under provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Ethyl Co

Huffington Post  Disasters such as floods in Europe, winter storms in the U.S. and typhoons in Asia cost insurance companies $45 billion in 2013, a leading Swiss firm said Wednesday. Details here.

Please also read:   Are Canada's Pesticide Regulators on the Take? Canadian Authorities Refuse to Protect Precious Pollinators From Known Toxins. Is Something Crooked Going on Here?      Stop Stalling on Action to Protect Bees, Environmental Groups Tell Canadian Minister. 

Ottawa – Four major environmental organizations have written to Health Minister Rona Ambrose asking her to stop stalling on taking action on pesticides suspected of killing bees, and that lack critical toxicity data. Clothianidin, one of the neonicotinoid pesticides suspected of killing bees, remains on the market despite the lack of valid scientific studies to support assessment of environmental hazards to bees. Scientific studies investigating the pesticide’s chronic toxicity to bees have been requested since 2004 by Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) from certain Clothianidin registration-holders, and since 2008-2009 from other companies whose registrations were renewed by PMRA in July 2013 and that sparked a notice of objection in September 2013 by the environmental groups.

World Health Organization In new estimates released today, WHO reports that in 2012 around 7 million people died - one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution exposure. This finding more than doubles previous estimates and confirms that air pollution is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk. Reducing air pollution could save millions of lives. Details here. Photo credit - Google Images.

Canadian Press The Ontario Beekeepers Association says it can't endorse the final report from the Bee Health Working Group. Details here.