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  • Pull the Plug on Site C Dam

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    by Andrea Morison

    The Peace River Valley in northeastern BC is under serious threat due to the proposed mega-Site C dam.  Promoters of this project neglect to consider the long-term consequences that would result from it. With global warming eradicating traditional food-producing land and with ecosystem fragmentation, particularly in northeastern BC, it is evident that a project of this magnitude must not be allowed to proceed.

  • The Price of Oil - Tar Sands' Impact on Global Agricultural Production

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    by Karen Wristen

    The impacts unchecked climate change could have on global food security might accurately be described as apocalyptic. As detailed in the most recent assessment by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, these include dramatic increases in drought, famine, flooding and disease, as well as equally dramatic losses in biodiversity.

  • Protecting Marine Species

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    mako sharkby Jeff Hutchings
    PHOTO CREDIT: Bill Fisher

    What do Atlantic cod and BC’s canary rockfish have in common with the burrowing owl and Vancouver Island marmot? They have all declined by more than 80 or 90%. And they are all considered to be at increased risk of extinction by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). COSEWIC is the national science body, arms-length from government, responsible for advising the federal Minister of the Environment on species at risk.

    Despite similar declines, these species part company when it...

  • Environmental Science Axed by Harper 2012-2013

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    Compiled by Joyce Nelson

    Fisheries & Oceans
    Discontinued: Species-at-Risk Program, Ocean Contaminants & Marine Toxicology Program, Habitat Management, Experimental Lakes Area (Northern Ontario), DFO Marine Science Libraries, Centre for Offshore Oil & Gas Energy Research
     

  • Harper's War on Science

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    by Joyce Nelson

    Canada’s Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, agreed at the end of March to launch an investigation into the extensive muzzling of federally-funded scientists at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and other federal agencies. Her decision comes after a February 20th complaint formally filed by Democracy Watch in partnership with the Environmental Law Clinic of the University of Victoria, which called for a full investigation and was accompanied by a 128-page report, Muzzling Civil Servants: A Threat to Democracy.

    That report documents systematic silencing since 2007 of

  • The Canada Foundation for Innovation - War on Science

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    Excerpt from Joyce Nelson's WS article, "Harper's War on Science"

    Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, has consistently defended the Harper government from accusations of a War on Science by emphasizing the $5.5 billion that the Feds have provided to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), including another $225 million to the CFI in Economic Action Plan 2013 released on March 21.   

    The CFI – the key decision-maker for all science funding in

  • Save Ocean Science - Fighting the War on Science

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    save ocean science, harper's war on scienceby Susan MacVittie

    Photo credit: John Gardner, Timothy Foulkes

    When residents in St. Andrews, New Brunswick heard that the federal government was going to close the St. Andrews Biological Station (SABS) Library, discontinue the Contaminants and Toxicology (CT) program, and reduce the Habitat program as part of its cost cutting measures, they formed Save Ocean Science (SOS) to raise awareness about the impact of lost jobs and lost science.

    Since 1908, the SABS Library has provided resources to

  • Canada's New Foreign Aid Supports Mining

    by Miranda Holmes

    March 22 is World Water Day, established by the UN as a day to contemplate the importance of access to water for life on earth. Just like every other day of the year., on World Water Day, nearly 2000 children around the world will die from diarrhea caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation.

    It is almost impossible to overstate the difference access to clean water can make to an impoverished community.

  • Corn on the Border - NAFTA & Food in Mexico

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    by Dawn Paley

    Even in the quiet of late afternoon, the market down the street from my apartment in Mexico City is a hive of activity. Dozens of butchers cut up all kinds of meat and make sausages. Women display whole chickens, and offer to prepare them according to what a passing customer desires. There’s homemade ice cream for sale across from a fish stand, and a tortilla stand that always seems to have a line-up. I buy my vegetables from a man who stands at the top of a pyramid of lettuces, tomatoes, avocados, carrots, potatoes, and whatever happens to be in season. While heweighs and bags the veggies I select, he often talks about how good Mexican food is, but how so many people don’t eat the healthy and tasty things he offers for sale. Before I started working on this story, I assumed he was just talking up his business.

  • Enbridge PR - Hill + Knowlton, & Peter Kent

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    Enbridgeby Joyce Nelson

    Enbridge public relations (PR)advisor Hill + Knowlton Strategies (H+K) has become the butt of jokes because of those wildly distorting animation maps for the Northern Gateway pipeline/tanker route and its bungled handling of Enbridge’s 2010 Kalamazoo disaster. But while TV viewers laugh at the tagline – “It’s more than a pipeline, it’s our path to the future” – H+K is ably earning its multimillion-dollar fees from Enbridge and other energy clients through its skill in government relations alone.

    Government Relations
    Michael Coates, Canadian CEO and Chair of H+K, is reportedly well-regarded by the Harper government, having

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"This is it. It's done!" was the message in Alaska in 2008, 19 years after the Exxon Valdes oil spill.  Dave Janka, who runs Auklet Charters in Prince William Sound, ran his boat over to Smith Island to snap this photo.  Dave says, "It's far from done!"

W.L.M. (Bill) Wilson writes: 'Attached is my rewrite of Anne Feeney’s “Have You Been To Jail for Justice”. Anne granted permission to do non-profit performances of this Enbridge version.' Video by Ester Strijbos.