PLANET IN PERIL

TECH TIMES A "crop-duster" sprays a crop near Neepawa, Manitoba. PinP photo. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), reveals that the malathion insecticide and glyphosate herbicide are potentially carcinogenic. Story here. Related: " Field of Nightmares.  Ottawa continues to embrace the widespread use of Roundup on Canadian farms by letting corporate seduction trump scientific evidence."

by Larry Powell PinP  has learned that, years before “fracking” was blamed for a significant earthquake in northern Alberta early this year, a whole series of somewhat smaller quakes was happening in the Horn River Basin of northeastern BC, where fracking reached a peak some four years ago.  Researchers  representing the Geological Survey of Canada and the BC Oil and Gas Commission   reviewed seismographs from the area from 2002 to 2011. They conclude there is a “high likelihood of a physical relationship” between the quakes and the fracking. They detected only 24 local quakes in the Basin in ’02 and ’03,  before fracking began.  But, by 2011,  when fracking peaked,  that number had jumped to 131. And so had the magnitude - from 2.9 (on the Richter scale)  before fracking,  to 3.6  afterward. Then this past January, Alberta’s energy regulator blamed fracking for an earthquake in the northern part of that province, near Fox Creek.  According to the CBC,  it was “ of 4.4 m

CBC News A World Health Organization agency says that the insecticide is 'probably carcinogenic' to humans. Story here.

National Journal New data show how climate change is rapidly-changing the polar region. Story here.

UN News Centre The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO ) today called for emergency support for farmers in Vanuatu, where the vast majority of crops have been destroyed by Tropical Cyclone Pam. Story here.

Common Dreams 'For leaders of low-lying island atolls, the hazards of global warming...is a catastrophe that impinges on our rights—and our survival,' says Pacific Island leader. Story here.

Mother Jones For decades, it's been thought that low, regular doses of antibiotics help livestock grow big—thus increasing meat producers' profits. So common is the practice of lacing farm animals' feed with the drugs that an astonishing four-fifths of all antibiotics in the United States now go to livestock. Story here.

Produced by SongbirdSOS Productions Inc.    The full show will be aired on CBC TV's The Nature of Things on March 19 at 8pm.

A well-known Canadian climate-denialist, Tim Ball (above), appears on a list of about 24 people asked to block the release of a new documentary film. The award-winning website, Inside Climate News, has exposed secret e-mails from another denialist, Fred Singer, an American. In them, Singer seeks advice from a group of pundits and scientists, including Ball, on how to keep the film “Merchants of Doubt,” from being shown to the public. The film shows how these individuals go about trying to convince government and the public that climate science is not real and that human activity is not the driving force behind climate change. Ball argues on his blog, for example, that water vapour, not carbon dioxide, is the most important greenhouse gas. It is not known whether Ball supplied the kind of advice to Singer that he asked for.  Singer has ties to both the fossil fuel and tobacco industries. 

UN News Centre The United Nations announced today that it is taking all necessary steps to respond to the catastrophic impacts of a devastating tropical cyclone that affected most of Vanuatu over the past two days. Story here.