PLANET IN PERIL

Letter to the Editor Virden Empire-Advance May 3, 2018 01:57 PM Rural people could wake up one morning to find a factory hog barn next door, and there will be nothing they can say or do about it if the hog industry gets its way and the Pallister government passes Bill 19,  The Planning Amendment Act . Bill 19 gives local councils and planning districts the “choice” to get rid of the mandatory conditional use approval process for large livestock operations, along with all the legal protections the public currently has. In so choosing, municipalities give away the ability to set conditions such as requiring manure storage covers and shelterbelts to attempt to control odour and require development agreements to make the hog factory pay for road building and maintenance, instead of taxpayers. All municipalities will have to review their zoning by-laws and decide within one year if they want to control large factory hog and poultry operations, cattle and sheep feedlots on be

The Winnipeg Free Press The union that represents Winnipeg Transit staff says city hall is missing out on an opportunity to access loans and grants to electrify the transit fleet. Story here.

The Washington Post A wood tic - Manitoba, CA. PinP photo. The warmer weather of spring and summer means the start of tick and mosquito season and the diseases they transmit,  including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, West Nile  and Zika. More here.

NATIONAL OBSERVER The Irving Oil Refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. Photo by  Cusack5239 Sarnia’s Imperial Oil refinery emitted 10 times more fine particulate matter, seven times more carbon monoxide and 49 times more sulphur dioxide than the Detroit plant. More here.

The Guardian Logging in Australia. Photo by  Peter Campbell Tree-felling helped trigger ‘hidden collapse’ of mountain ash forests, ecologists say. More here.

BirdLife INTERNATIONAL A White-crowned sparrow. Photo by  Wolfgang Wander The 2018 State of the World’s Birds report, which provides a comprehensive look at the health of bird populations globally, has found that the extinction crisis has spread so far that even some well-known species are now in danger. More here.

The  Guardian British and US scientists are to examine the risk of the Thwaites glacier collapsing, which is already responsible for a 4% sea-level rise. More here. Thwaites Glacier. European Space Agency

Expectant Moms spend their pregnancies in heartless, confining steel crates. PLEASE SIGN!

Common Dreams Bumble bees forage on chives in an organic garden in Manitoba, CA. PinP photo. "Authorizing neonicotinoids during a quarter of a century was a mistake and led to an environmental disaster. Today's vote is historic." More here.

WHAT WILL BILL 19 MEAN FOR RURAL MANITOBA?  Photo - Mercy for Animals, Canada. It is a series of changes to allow two hog processing corporations Maple Leaf and HyLife Foods, to increase their shareholder profits at the expense of rural homeowners, taxpayers, family farms, degraded air, environment, water quality and pig welfare. Why Bill 19? The Manitoba Department of Agriculture advised the Pallister cabinet in a 2017 internal brief that 285 more new barns were needed to “ensure an adequate supply of hogs to the Maple Leaf and HyLife Food slaughter facilities.” And, that “public conflict,” “public pressure” and the locally controlled conditional use approval process are in the way of “growth of the industry.” How will Bill 19 help the hog industry expand? Bill 19 will silence the public. It will allow municipal leaders to get rid of conditional use hearings and Provincial Technical Reviews for factory hog barns. If local politicians take this route, the P

EcoWatch  North Polar flight with Air Berlin: Pole overflight (Photographer: Basti, Editor: Hedwig) Scientists found record levels of  microplastics  in  Arctic   sea ice , a study published Tuesday in  Nature Communications  revealed. More here.