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For normally stoic farmers, stress of climate change can be too much to bear
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on February 28th, 2016
Toronto Star: The wind was unusually strong, and it swept across Saskatchewan farmland without warning or mercy to canola farmers who had just cut and laid out their crops to dry. Kim Keller, 31, remembers the mid-September day clearly. It was 2012, her first year working back on the family’s 4,900-hectare grain farm in Gronlid, a hamlet about 200 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon. An auto insurance adjuster for the previous six years, Keller realized after a decade away that the farm is where she yearned to...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on For normally stoic farmers, stress of climate change can be too much to bearClimate change is wreaking havoc on our mental health, experts
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on February 28th, 2016
Toronto Star: As a provincial coroner and past palliative care physician, Dr. David Ouchterlony has seen suffering and death up close, experiences that have occasionally led to brief moments of sadness. But Ouchterlony describes such emotions as “trivial” compared to the dread he feels when thoughts about climate change linger, as they often do. He worries almost obsessively about a future he won’t see. How will younger generations be affected? Why are we failing to act on the threat?
“I was completely blind...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change is wreaking havoc on our mental health, expertsParis climate agreement latest sign of trouble for Canada’s oil patch
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on December 21st, 2015
Toronto Star: When solar entrepreneur Jeremy Leggett bumped into Suncor Energy boss Steve Williams at the World Economic Forum in 2014, odds were high that tempers would flare.
The two men were among about 40 dinner guests – a mix of CEOs, pension fund managers, economists and government leaders. They had gathered in Davos, Switzerland, to talk about “short-termism” in the financial and corporate worlds and how it undermines efforts to tackle climate change.
At one point during the dinner, Leggett recalls...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Paris climate agreement latest sign of trouble for Canada’s oil patchGlobal climate deal could punish Canada
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on October 24th, 2015
Toronto Star: Prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau will face one of his first major international tests at next month’s United Nations’ meeting on climate change in Paris. In all, 25,000 delegates -- including Canada’s premiers whom Trudeau plans to bring along -- from 196 countries will make yet another attempt to draft a binding global agreement to fight man-made global warming. But the same fundamental disagreements which scuttled a similar deal in Copenhagen in 2009 and, prior to that, produced the failed...
Ottawa’s new climate plan step backward
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on May 21st, 2015
Toronto Star: In the PR trade, it’s known as “dump and run.” If you have bad news, or at least something you hope won’t get too much attention, put it out when people are looking in another direction. The Friday before a long weekend will do nicely. So it was that the Harper government chose last Friday, hours before the Victoria Day weekend, to release Canada’s new target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in advance of a crucial international climate summit set for December. And no wonder. The plan to...
Protesters Lock Themselves to Machinery at Enbridge Pipeline Site in Canada
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on December 4th, 2013
Toronto Star: Protesters locked themselves to machinery at an Enbridge Inc. construction site in north Toronto Tuesday, forcing the pipeline company to temporarily halt repair work on its aging Line 9B pipeline, which runs under foot.
About 20 protesters entered the muddy site on Pineway Blvd., north of Finch Ave., before sunrise and barricaded the entrance with wooden pallets and empty drums of drill antifreeze. Enbridge was forced to send all 31 workers on the site home for the day.
For nearly 12 hours,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Protesters Lock Themselves to Machinery at Enbridge Pipeline Site in CanadaObama’s Keystone XL Policy ‘Totally Foolish,’ Says Cheney
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on November 1st, 2013
Toronto Star: Former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney was firing on all cylinders as he spoke in Toronto on Thursday, throwing his support behind the Keystone XL pipeline, Tea Party Republicans and stepping up the fight against Al Qaeda. But he also joked not to worry — the 72-year-old, who has had six heart attacks, said he won’t be “running against anybody” in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “It’s very much in our interest to build the Keystone pipeline,” Cheney said of the controversial plan to ship oil...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Obama’s Keystone XL Policy ‘Totally Foolish,’ Says CheneyEnbridge should do more to assure pipeline safety
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on October 29th, 2013
Toronto Star: Enbridge has gone some distance in answering its pipeline critics, but not far enough. In a final submission to federal regulators, the company rejected calls for a special pressure test on an aging and controversial pipeline through the Greater Toronto Area. And it argued against having to carry $1 billion in liability insurance coverage.
By refusing those steps, Enbridge undermines public confidence in the safety of changes proposed for the pipeline that runs under communities — and across every...
Canada: New Brunswick fracking protesters seize media equipment
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on October 20th, 2013
Toronto Star: Tensions at a shale gas protest in Rexton, N.B., remained high on Saturday as a small group of protesters seized vehicles and equipment from two news agencies while others blocked a highway. Jim Haskins, news director for Global News in New Brunswick, said journalist Laura Brown was at the site of an ongoing shale gas protest around noon when about five protesters confronted another media outlet and seized a vehicle on Route 134. Haskins said Brown got into her vehicle and locked the door, but...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: New Brunswick fracking protesters seize media equipmentWhat should be done about climate change refugees?
Posted by Toronto Star: None Given on October 12th, 2013
Toronto Star: A pending court case in New Zealand involving a man from the low-lying island of Kiribati could have profound implications worldwide on the future of migration due to climate change.
The 37-year-old is seeking refugee status, but not because he is being persecuted back home, one of the definitions of a refugee. Rather, he says, flooding and rising sea levels due to climate change are making it too dangerous for him, his wife and three children to return to Kiribati. The island nation, with a population...