Posts

A "Goldilocks World" for Disease? Climate Change Threatens to Make Things "Just Right" for a Dangerous Bug in Even More of Canada!

Image
by Larry Powell The culprit is the common wood tick (D. variabilis), also known as the American dog tick. Its range already sprawls across central and eastern North American, from the Gulf of Mexico to southern Canada. It carries diseases that make both people and animals sick. These include the human ailments of Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever and a parasitic disease that kills domesticated cats. The common wood tick,  also American dog tick. (Dermacentor variabilis)  Benjamin Smith - USA. But the present range of the ticks may be nothing compared to what the future might hold.   A Canadian research paper just published in  ScienceDirect , predicts climate change could actually shrink the southern reaches of the tick’s range. But overall, the news is not good. The climate could well become “just right” for the bug, in an area of this continent that is, by 2070, larger by half than it is now! This could include a northward expansion in Canada.  The

Oil may be Canada's past, but we cannot let it be our future

Image
David Suzuki - The Guardian Pipes loaded on a train in Manitoba. A  PinP  photo.  There's a lot of fear around abandoning an industry that has been an economic driver for decades - yet the rest of the world is moving on. More here.

Underreporting of toxic waste at American hog farms prompts inquiry

Image
The Guardian Testing of 55 North Carolina lagoons showed large discrepancies in levels of key pollutants compared to what was self-reported. More here. Hog lagoons in Iowa.  Photo credit - USDA

Japan kills pregnant whales in the name of "research," Video. (Viewer discretion advised.)

Image

In Hogs We Trust - Part V

Image
                 This is hardly the first body of research pointing to the hazards of red meat consumption. As the respected Worldwatch Institute concluded some years ago, "The amount of meat in people’s diets has an impact on human health. Eaten in moderation, meat is an important source of iron, zinc, and three vitamins. But a diet high in red and processed meats can lead to a host of health problems, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer." So our ruling politicians can hardly plead ignorant of the downsides. And now, even less so. This newest study, the most comprehensive of its kind yet, takes a step beyond past findings."Most strikingly, impacts of (even) the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change." The research concludes that meat and dairy provide only18% of the calories and 37% of the protein we consume. Yet they require 83%

International organizations slam Trudeau for pipeline support

Image
ricochet  One of the many protests against the Kinder Morgan pipeline in Vancouver. Photo by  William Chen. Groups say prime minister’s stance on tar sands negates attempt to position Canada as a global climate leader. Story here.

Special Investigation: How the common agricultural policy promotes pollution - the View From Europe.

The Ecologist. Almost a trillion Euros in taxpayers' money is handed to EU farmers as part of the Common Agricultural Policy. The money is supposed to leverage environmental practices. But an international team of investigative journalists, today publishing with THE ECOLOGIST, has found the cash actually feeds significant pollution. More here.