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Health Canada Has 100,000 New Reasons to Rethink Approval of Controversial Pesticides

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Today at 8:43  AM OTTAWA – More than 110,000 people have told Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) not to register flupyradifurone, Bayer's latest bee-killing pesticide. Over the past three weeks, Sierra Club Canada Foundation, David Suzuki Foundation and SumOfUs.org spearheaded a campaign to inform the public of the opportunity to submit formal comments to the PMRA. "We shared the facts about flupyradifurone, and the response has been incredible," said Paul Ferris, of SumOfUs.org. “Over 110,000 Canadians sent a clear message to PMRA: Protect the bees.” The PMRA proposed approving flupyradifurone in September, initiating a mandatory comment period that ended November 3, 2014. Flupyradifurone has the same “mode of action” as bee-killing neonicotinoids: both types of pesticides attack the nervous systems of insects. 

On The Importance Of Appreciating Animals

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Arianna Huffington - The Huffington Post You can tell a lot about people from their screensavers. Mine is a picture of gazelles: Details here. Pelican at  Prince Albert Nat'l. Park, CA.  P in P photo.

Here Comes The Sun

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Larry This morning  activists climbed Leduc #1, the oil Derrick that started western Canada's oil boom 70 years ago, at the Edmonton Energy Discovery Centre. They hung a banner that read :  “Go Solar: 100% Climate Safe",  sending a clear message to the Alberta government that it’s time to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy – for the sake of our climate.  They also set up a small solar panel atop the derrick, using its energy to power a sound system playing music proclaiming the power of the sun.   Help us get the message to Premier Jim Prentice, tell Alberta to go solar!

Confessions of a Former Climate Change Denier

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by Kasra Hassani - Canadian Science Writers' Association I, a scientist with a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology, was a climate change denialist. Wait, let me add, I was an effective climate change denialist: I would throw on a cloak of anecdotal evidence and biased one-sided skepticism and declare myself a skeptic. Good scientists are skeptics, right? I sallied forth and denied every piece of evidence that was presented to me, for a relatively long time.  Details here.   Photo  via  Shutterstock.

'Leaders Must act', Urges Ban, As New UN Report Warns Man's Impact on Climate May Soon Be 'Irreversible'

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UN News Centre Citing “clear and growing” human influence on the climate system, a United Nations report issued today has warned that if left unchecked, climate change will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems. Story here. Historic flooding in Manitoba,  Canada, 2011.  A premonition?

Crisis Fuelled Resurgence of Horse-Drawn Carriages in Cuba

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INTERPRESS SERVICE HAVANA, Oct 30 2014 (IPS)  -  Up and down the streets  of towns and cities in Cuba go horse-drawn carriages  with black leather tops and large back wheels,  alongside more simple carts,  operating as public transportation.  Story here.

Fossil Fuels Must End By The End of the Century - United Nations.

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CBC News AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases its 4th, final climate assessment volume. Story here. Please also read:   "Sleep-deprived UN panel adopts landmark climate report." Check out the IPCC report, here.

Task Force on Systemic Pesticides - A Must-Watch Video!

At Least One California Town Is Now Bone-Dry As Megadrought Continues

AlterNet A poor, rural community in California's agricultural belt has run out of water. Story here.

Research Suggests Our Past, Prolific Use Of The Insecticide DDT May Still Be Contributing To A Scourge Of Modern-Day Diseases Related To Obesity.

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Is a world-wide ban now the only ethical thing to do? by Larry Powell Did your parents farm In Canada in the years following World War 11 , as mine did? If so, little would they have dreamed of the health dangers lurking within the popular chemical, DDT, which they might well have been spraying on their fields. The product was applied widely (some say indiscriminately) back then to kill bugs that were consuming food crops and forests and spreading human diseases like typhus and malaria. Just as common were assurances from government and industry that “all was well.” But DDT was banned in North America in the 70’s after Rachel Carson exposed it in her book, “Silent Spring” as the culprit in massive die-offs of birds and fish and as a “definite chemical carcinogen.” DDT made a significant resurgence in the early 2000’s, however.  That’s when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization began promoting programs to control malari

Canada's Farm Protections a Remaining Hurdle to Major Trade Deal: U.S.

Winnipeg Free Press WASHINGTON - Access to Canada's tightly controlled agriculture market is among the main remaining hurdles to a historic 12-country free-trade deal, the U.S. administration said Thursday. Story here.