PLANET IN PERIL

Manitoba Co-Operator   A sodden farm field near Neepawa, Manitoba.  Larry Powell PinP photo. Farm leaders from Manitoba and Saskatchewan hope a new lobby group of stakeholders from both provinces can bring some long-term solutions to excess water problems that have led to billions of dollars in damages. Story here. Related:  "Manitoba makes $1M available to compensate farmers flooded last summer."

The World Bank Flood refugees in Manitoba. Climate change is a fundamental threat to development in our lifetime. If we do not confront climate change, we will not end poverty. The sooner we act, the better chance we have of addressing it at a lower cost. Story here.

The New York Times - Andrew Nikiforuk An intact bit of  Boreal forest in Ontario. Larry Powell PinP photo. ENVIRONMENTALISTS typically fret about the prospect of adding monstrous new amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, and for good reason. Less attention is paid to the vast stretches of boreal forest already laid bare by tar sands development. In this opinion piece in the New York Times, preeminent Canadian journalist Andrew Nikiforuk poses this disturbing question…. how much more must we lose? Story here.

                                       International Institute for Sustainable Development               Experimental Lakes Area wraps first research season under new management A (pristine?) lake in Manitoba, Canada. Larry Powell PinP photo. OTTAWA & WINNIPEG – What’s in our lake water? As we learned this year, increasingly the answer includes flame retardants and anti-microbial nanosilvers from our clothes and baby products, synthetic estrogen and other hormones from flushed pharmaceuticals, and mercury from coal plants. 

Care2Petitions Jumbo Glacier Resorts is planning to build a 5500 bed ski resort with hopes to attract between 2000 and 3000 tourists per day. Although Jumbo Glacier Resorts has stated they examined the affects its resort will have on the area Grizzly Bear population and determined there will be little impact; they are using scientific data that is over 15 years old!  PLEASE CLICK  here to sign !

Washington Post A dam  which supplies water to 45 percent of Sao Paulo. (Getty Images)  ATIBAIA, Brazil — Seen from a micro-light aircraft, flying low near this small town in Brazil’s interior, the scale of the water crisis blighting São Paulo, a megalopolis 40 miles away, was frighteningly clear. Four of the five reservoirs in an interlinked system that supplies 6.5 million people, more than a third of its metropolitan population, were vividly depleted. Caked red banks of exposed earth showed just how low the water levels had fallen.   Story here.

OpEdNews - Chris Hedges A feedlot near Dauphin, Manitoba, CA. PinP photo. My attitude toward becoming a vegan was similar to Augustine's attitude toward becoming celibate -- "God grant me abstinence, but not yet." But with animal agriculture as the leading cause of species extinction, water pollution, ocean dead zones and habitat destruction , and with the death spiral of the ecosystem ever more pronounced, becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species.  Details here. Related  "Overgrowth."

ThinkProgress With the debate still raging over Keystone XL, the company behind the pipeline is already hard at work promoting a PR strategy for its larger and entirely Canadian pipeline, Story here.

THE HILL The president of a South Dakota-based Native American tribe says it will be an “act of war” if Congress authorizes construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Details here.

Sustainable Pulse A disposal site for pesticide containers in Manitoba, Canada. Larry Powell PinP photo. The World’s Largest Study on GMO and Pesticide Safety has been launched by Factor GMO in London, UK. Story here. Related: CBC TV SCIENCE |  Pesticide poses DDT-like threat -  Neonicotinoid pesticides may be killing off bees and affecting our air, water and food chain.