PLANET IN PERIL

PHYS ORG Tricoloured Bumble bees - Bombus ternarius - forage on chives in an organic garden in Manitoba. Circa 2000. A PinP photo. When you were young, were you the type of child who would scour open fields looking for bumble bees? Today, it is much harder for kids to spot them, since bumble bees are drastically declining in North America and in Europe.    More here. RELATED: Plight of the Humble Bee -  Canadian regulators refuse to protect a priceless pollinator from a known toxin. Recent research contradicts a claim by the chemical giant, Bayer, that its newest bug-killer is safe for bees.

Tim Flannery  for the Guardian Bushfires spire from Yuraygir National Park, Australia. Photo by European Space Agency. In the face of the climate disaster it helped create, the Australian government has given us only lies and denial.   Story here.

PHYS ORG High Alpine Tundra in Noatak National Preserve, Alaska.  U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service New research techniques are being adopted by scientists tackling the most visible impact of climate change—the so-called greening of Arctic regions. STORY HERE.  

by Larry Powell A conventional farm in Manitoba. A  PinP  photo. "You're tilling too much!" That was Ray Archuleta's blunt message to about 50 people at a meeting this week in the small, farming community of Shoal Lake, Manitoba. The brilliant, affable Archuleta operates a small ranch in Missouri. His partner. Gabe Brown, whose "down home" personality has apparently earned him the monicker, "Farmer Brown," runs a big, mixed operation in North Dakota. Both men are on the same mission - convince as many farmers as they can to move away from conventional production. That's how countless producers in Canada, the U.S. and developed countries around the world, have, for decades, practised this predominant style of agriculture. They rely on heavy and expensive "inputs" of fertilizers, pesticides, machinery and "mono-crops," all designed to produce the highest yields possible.  Ray Archuleta conducts a  "slake t

RELATED: "In Hogs We Trust" Part 1  Could the Manitoba government’s return to a deregulated hog industry actually contribute to a world health crisis?

Eco Watch Fires around Ft. MacMurray, Alberta, Canada in 2016. Satellite photo by NASA Earth Observatory. New York City  isn't known  for having the cleanest air, but researchers traced recent  air pollution  spikes there to two surprising sources —  fires  hundreds of miles away in Canada and the southeastern U.S. Story here.