PLANET IN PERIL

CBC News Azure Sustainable Fuels Corporation's processing facility planned for near Portage la Prairie, Man. Story here.

Journal:  Nature Climate warming is causing a decrease in snowfall and increase in rainfall at high altitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, and is predicted to increase the risk of extreme rainfall, suggests a study published in  Nature .  The intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation events is expected to increase as global warming continues to affect the planet. Of particular concern are extremes in rainfall, which often cause more damage than similar snowfall events due to their instantaneous runoff, increasing the risk of floods, which can cause infrastructure damage and landslides. Precisely how increases in global temperature will affect extreme rainfall events remains unclear.  To assess how climate change might be driving a shift in precipitation patterns, Mohammed Ombadi and colleagues combined data from climate observations from between 1950 and 2019 with future projections, up to 2100, taken from Earth system models. Their results suggest that warming is causing an incr

Hog Watch Manitoba - June 23rd, 2023.      Hog Watch Manitoba, a non-profit, advocacy group,  says it believes a recent claim by Manitoba Pork about how much water it is using, needs more proof.            In a newspaper ad, the industry organization declares, “Hog farms today require 40% less water per kilogram of pork produced, compared to fifty years ago.”          Larry Powell of Hog Watch says this doesn’t tell the whole story.        "Even if consumption per unit has gone down, what does it matter when that figure is surely being eclipsed by rising animal numbers? There are well over three times as many pigs on Manitoba farms now as there were half-a-century ago.      "Not only that, the use of slurry, which has been spread on vast farm fields in this province for decades, is more than 80% water. It's been on the increase since the nineties.      " A University of Manitoba study concluded that pigs produced  346 thousand tonnes of dry manure in 2007 alone.  Sinc

  Please read  this related article from more than a decade ago.

  Letter to the editor. "The entire pork industry in Manitoba is facing a difficult time. That includes the hog farmers as well as the processors," GM Cam Dahl of MB Pork told the Brandon Sun, 17 June,2023.   Without the benefit of taxpayers’ dollars (read: government support), the Manitoba hog industry (not farming) would have collapsed many years ago.  Born and raised on a farm, I appreciate the proper raising and care of swine. Pigs produced in a factory-type situation however, live in conditions that are far removed from achieving humane animal stewardship status.  Bad ideas and poor operating principles are very costly for the animals, our environment and society.  It was some 24 years ago that the Filmon Progressive Conservative government unfurled the red carpet and opened Pandora’s box for the hog Industry to come into Manitoba. Now, since being elected in 2016, the Pallister and Stefanson regimes—through their Red Tape Reduction Act—have taken the cue to further expa

Xaletto® The future-oriented straw bedding concept PureLine products Pig production on straw that meets the animals’ needs and is still profitable – is that possible? Yes! With the sustainable and animal-friendly Xaletto ®  straw bedding concept, both piglet rearing and pig finishing are profitable, either in closed houses or in ventilated barns with open-air run. Xaletto ®  is the result of a collaboration between Big Dutchman, the feed producer Bröring and an experienced farmer. Prerequisites for the success of the Xaletto ®  concept include: a well-adjusted ventilation concept an ideal feeding concept optimal water management labour-saving straw management

  Nature Communications                                                 Photo by Patrick Kelley   The Arctic could be sea-ice-free during the month of September as early as the 2030s even under a low emissions scenario — about one decade earlier than previously projected — suggests a study   published in  Nature Communications .