Manitoba’s organic sector seeing slow but steady increase: report
OrganicBIZ An organic market garden in Manitoba. A PinP photo. Manitoba was the only Prairie province to see an increase in organic crop acres in 2019. Story here.
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A vicious circle. Global heating leads to melting ice leads to more heating.....
Nature Communications A polar bear navigates a dwindling ice pack. Photo by Andreas Weith The melting of ice in polar and mountain regions around the world could lead to an additional 0.43 °C increase in global warming in the long term, according to a study published online in Nature Communications. The loss of ice cover is known to influence air temperatures, for example through albedo changes (the amount of sunlight reflected from the Earth’s surface). Although the mechanisms that are responsible for increased warming are well understood, it isn't clear how large the contributions of different ice sheets and feedback mechanisms to global temperature changes are. Nico Wunderling and colleagues use a simplified Earth system model in combination with different CO2 concentration levels to provide such an estimate. They find an additional median warming of 0.43°C in response to the loss of all ice sheets at CO2 concentrations sim
The Government of Manitoba robs its rural citizens of their local autonomy to serve its political friends and big business. (Opinion)
by Larry Powell The Premier of Manitoba, Brian Pallister. A Gov't. photo. The lengths to which the Pallister government is going to enable the unfettered exploitation of Manitoba's resources and massive expansion of its hog industry, should now be clear for all to see. For the past few years, it’s been rolling out, at significant taxpayer expense, the truly draconian measures it’s now taking, to make this happen. While the writing has been on the wall, only now are the worst fears being realized. They expose this government’ naked contempt for the democratic rights of rural Manitobans who have the audacity to point out that these goals are misguided - that the emperor has no clothes. Late last year, the Municipality of Rosser, near Winnipeg, rejected a bid for a gravel mine (euphemistically called a limestone aggregate quarry). The politically well-connected owner of the construction company proposing the mine (who made a substantial contribution to the Conservative P
Can manmade rope bridges offer relief for the world's rarest primate - the Hainan gibbon? A new study shows encouraging results.
by Larry Powell Hainan gibbons started to use the canopy bridge 176 days after installation. Females and small juveniles were the faithful users. The Hainan gibbon (Nomascus hainanus) is described as "The world's most critically endangered primate." In fact, its numbers are said to be much lower than any other primate on Earth, with only about 30 individuals remaining for the entire species. It's found in just a single block of forest on Hainan Island, China, and nowhere else. The adult male is jet black with a hairy crest. The female is golden yellow with a black crown patch. The immature gibbon is black, regardless of gender. Like so many similar creatures, it travels through the forest canopy, tree-to-tree. But major disturbances, like roads or landslides, can produce major gaps or gorges which seriously restrict its movements. This, in turn, can make it harder for it to feed or breed, but easier to be killed by predators. Professional tree climber in action con
Siberian heatwave of 2020 'almost impossible' without climate change
world weather attribution Siberian wildfire north of the Arctic Circle. Photo by Pierre Markuse. In the first six months of 2020, Siberia experienced a period of unusually high temperatures, causing wide-scale impacts including wildfires, loss of permafrost, and an invasion of pests. Story here.