PLANET IN PERIL

Manitoba’s “war on weeds” comes complete with powerful herbicides, questionable spraying practices and collateral damage.  by  Larry Powell Leafy Spurge. Photo Credit;  Idaho Weed Awareness Committee Many governments in North America believe, a good way to ensure successful food production, is to help farmers keep plants out of their fields which can cut into their yields and their profits. To achieve this, potent weedkillers, some with unsettling safety records, are often pressed into service  to destroy these "weeds" in ditches before they can spread to adjacent fields and food crops.  For most lawmakers, this must seem a natural extension of a chemical system of agriculture which has come to dominate the developed - and, increasingly - the developing world, as well. As a result, those who might have liked to chose a different path,  are being increasingly marginalized.  Manitoba is no exception.  According to  an official statement  from the province, "Noxio

by David Neufeld Do you pay attention to which pesticides your municipality is using on your local public land – parks, ditches, etc.? This is the time to perk up and speak up. And to share this with your friends. A disposal site for pesticide containers in Manitoba. PLT photo Every spring our municipalities publish Public Notices on Pesticides – telling us which insecticides, herbicides and rodenticides they plan on using this summer. The notices are appearing in local papers now – as they do every spring around this time. Some names you’ll recognise – like Malathion, but mostly you won’t know what they’re talking about. Therein lies the problem. Manitoba Conservation gives us 15 days from the date of notice to comment on specific pesticide programs and specific products being used. Of course they don’t give us any links to information on the products - and - they make it difficult for us to comment by only giving us a postal address in the notices. There’s mounting ind

International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) A PinP photo. WINNIPEG: In 2013, the City of Winnipeg and IISD embarked on a project to turn locally harvested cattail ( Typha ) and native prairie grasses into pellets to burn in a pellet stove located at the Living Prairie Museum, a facility run by the City. This video documents the process of harvesting, processing, pelletizing and burning the plant materials.

CBC News A multimillion-dollar plan to help save Lake Winnipeg by reducing the blue-green algae poisoning the lake was announced Wednesday by the Manitoba government. Details here. Related: Dangerous Ditches.  Manitoba’s “war on weeds” comes complete with powerful herbicides, questionable spraying practices and collateral damage. Scum on Lake Winnipeg. PLT photo.

Mother Jones Here's why you might consider replacing that romaine salad with dandelion greens. Full story here. Please also read; Dangerous Ditches -  Manitoba’s “war on weeds” comes complete with powerful herbicides, questionable spraying practices and collateral damage.

Los Angeles Times With monarch butterfly populations rapidly dwindling, a conservation organization on Monday asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement tougher rules for the weed killer glyphosate — Details here. Please also read:   " Field of Nightmares -  Ottawa continues to embrace the widespread use of Roundup on Canadian farms by letting corporate seduction trump scientific evidence." "Dangerous Ditches -   Manitoba’s “war on weeds” comes complete with powerful herbicides, questionable spraying practices and collateral damage."

Manitoba Co-Operator P in P photo. New weed spotters’ workshops are designed to educate public and raise awareness. Story here. Related: "Dangerous Ditches.   Manitoba’s 'war on weeds' comes complete with powerful herbicides, questionable spraying practices and collateral damage."

I wrote this story almost three years ago. I am re-posting it because a flood similar to the "one-in-300 year-kind" we had in 2011 - in Manitoba - is happening again THREE YEARS LATER! I continue to be struck by how little things change. So-called leaders (and ordinary people) remain in a stupor - an unexplained state of mass delusion and denial - approaching our climate crisis from every direction but a rational one.  A number of scenarios outlined below have now changed, but the general sentiment remains. ============ by Larry Powell If a shrink were to examine the brains of North America's political leaders, what do you suppose she would find? What parts of what lobes would be addressing the cataclysmic changes our planet's climate is undergoing? Are the neurons of these leaders' brains actually transmitting, making them aware that Earth is going through a monumental crisis that needs their immediate attention? Or are they somehow

Dear Editor, Remember when school would start and your teacher would ask you how you spent your summer vacation? While school is now a dim and distant memory for me, last summer is anything but. I spent about ten days of it, flat on my back in the Regina General Hospital, after a near-death experience.  It all started on a dark and stormy night in late June. Like many other folks living in a huge area of the eastern prairies, we suffered property damage in the thousands when a dangerous "plow wind" of well over 100kph struck about midnight, while we were in bed.  (Sadly, it was consistent with what our top scientists have been warning us about for decades: That the climate we humans are changing by our addiction to fossil fuels, is bringing "weather events" which have become way more severe and frequent than they once were.)  The wind buckled our garage door (above), damaged our car inside, blew the tops off several of the spruce trees in our shelter belt

I wrote this story almost three years ago. I am re-posting it because, with the return of a "300 year-flood" like we had in 2011 - THREE YEARS AGO in Manitoba - I continue to be struck by how little things change. So-called rational leaders (and ordinary people) remain in a stupor - an unexplained state of mass delusion and denial - approaching our climate crisis from every direction but the right one.  ============ by Larry Powell If a shrink were to examine the brains of North America's political leaders, what do you suppose she would find? What parts of what lobes would be addressing the cataclysmic changes our planet's climate is undergoing? Are the neurons of these leaders' brains actually transmitting, making them aware that Earth is going through a monumental crisis that needs their immediate attention? Or are they somehow "shorting out," as if each leader was sticking a hairpin in a light socket? Here are just a