This week:

• Theological correspondent, Simon Watson, speaks with Rabbi Daniel Fink concerning Jewish perspectives on the environmental crisis.
• Bruce Rosensweet speaks with host Jordan Poppenk about how his group, Artscape, is reshaping a decommissioned TTC repair yard into an eco-paradise. Click here for details on the grand opening in Toronto this comingtgm Thursday, November 20th.

The headlines in brief:

• Canada has abdicated its position as the leader of the UN Water Monitoring Program after thirty years.
• Himalayan glaciers may disappear by 2035 as a result of global warming.
• The Ontario Highway Transport Board has ruled that a popular ride sharing website is operating illegally by offering carpooling services for a fee.
• Concern for the safety of North American spruce trees has grown over the discovery of an invasive species that is now invading healthy spruce trees.
• A new feasibility study shows that the great lakes may have to be partitioned from the Missisipi River due to invasive species.
• Japan has emitted its highets levels of carbon dioxide this year.
• Experts warn that crashing world oil prices will have far reaching effects on the Canadian economy, and may have negative impacts on “green” innovation.
• Canada’s resource companies are turning to much more environmentally costly sources for resource extraction.
• Newly introduced tiny solar cells are portable and have the potential to be painted onto surfaces.
• Greenpeace is actively blocking palm oil ships from reaching Indonesia.
• Ontario now contains the two largest wind farm projects in Canada with the completion of the 200 megawatt Melanthon Ecopower Centre.
  

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This week:

• We run our very important fall fundraising drive. On the podcast version of the show, we present our national and international headlines with a rebroadcast lecture by Rex Wyler, co-founder of GreenPeace international. However, if you listen to the program regularly, please consider making a donation to help keep our community-funded resource on air, since CIUT depends on listener support both to run our facilities and to gauge interest in its programming. You can help by contributing any amount as low as $25 via this link.
• TGM team members Chris Berube, Daryn Caister, Katherine Brown, Simon Watson, Letitia Henville and Kevin Farmer join host Jordan Poppenk to discuss the program and why it’s worth supporting. We are also joined by Riversides spokesperson JP Warren.

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This week:

• We feature a lecture by Canadian academic Thomas Homer-Dixon, who presents what he describes as an update to Al Gore’s famous slideshow, An Inconvenient Truth, and brings together the scientific and geopolitical aspects of climate change. Thomas Homer-Dixon speaks at the Isabel Bader Theatre at the University of Toronto’s Victoria College.

The headlines in brief:

• The federal government has blocked a controversial toxic substance that is mined in Quebec related to asbestos from being added to a UN ban list.
• A new report by Toronto’s Auditor General has charged Toronto’s water department with giving price breaks to polluters dumping chemicals into city sewers.
• Canada’s new environment minister Jim Prentice announced that the environment will become “an economic issue” under his watch.
• New reports from British Colombia show fear that its Killer Whales may soon be extinct due to the overfishing of its feed stocks.
• Debate is growing over whether to build substantial new wind turbines in the Scarborough bluffs outside Toronto.
• The city of Toronto is preparing a waste strategy that will lead to a ban on takeout food containers and a tax on plastic bags.
• A new study shows that pesticides commonly used in Europe interfere with brain development in fetuses and young children.
• Atmospheric methane concentrations spiked in 2007 after eight years of near-zero growth.
• World population statistics show that humans are using 30% more natural resources than what is considered to be sustainable.

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This week:

• Green Life reporter Peter Stock speaks with Mairon Giovani Bastos Lima, whose home town is a mid-sized city in Brazil. On arriving in Canada to do graduate studies, Mairon was surprised by how different our food culture is. In Brazil, he says, street vendors are everywhere, selling both fresh fruit and vegetables and prepared snack food. Mairon discussed food differences between Brazil and Canada with Peter, noting that food in Brazil is so local, it’s transported in a wheelbarrow, and that differences exist in the scale of as well as big versus small-scale agriculture.
• Nicola Ross, the executive editor of Alternatives Journal, speaks with host Jordan Poppenk about the economy, a loss of public interest in environmental issues, and parallels between this trend and a similar loss of environmental public interest in the 1990’s.

The headlines in brief:

• Bisphenol A, a chemical used in baby formula and food containers, has been added to the federal government’s toxic substances list;
• Ontario environment commissioner Gord Miller released his annual report, citing air quality measurement problems and a crisis in biodiversity loss;
• Ontario’s legislature has agreed to a private members bill requiring potential home buyers to be provided with full energy ratings for properties;
• Upgraders at two of the most expensive energy projects ever proposed in Canada now face delays because of the financial crisis;
• Prime minister Stephen Harper pledged $100 million to help poor countries cope with climate change;
• Another bombing has struck and ruptured an EnCana sour gas pipeline in BC;
• American chemical company Dow AgroSciences is seeking compensation over Quebec’s ban on cosmetic pesticide use under NAFTA;
• Former BC premiers are calling for an end to the provinces moratorium on offshore drilling to prop up its economy;
  Wal-Mart has announces that it will require its supplying manufacturers to follow stricter ethical and environmental standards.
• A world shortage of pollinating insects was found not to be affecting agricultural productivity currently but is predicted to be of growing concern in years to come.

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This week:

• We deliver a post-mortem roundtable on the federal election and its implications for environmental policy in the coming years. Featured are all of the Green Majority political experts, including Kevin Farmer, Chris Berube and Danny Leskiw.
• First-time correspondent Naomi Jehlicka speaks with Kristopher Stevens, executive director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association, about Ontario’s Green Energy Act and the future of sustainable energy in Ontario.
  

The headlines in brief:

• The United Kingdom has committed itself to reducing its carbon emissions by 80% by 2050;
• The Alaskan pollock fishery may collapse due to pressure put on it by the fast-food industry;
• Kangaroos will be seriously threatened by rising temperatures that come with global warming;
• China is likely to experience a food shortage by 2030 if the current climate trends continue.

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• In the wake of an editorial in the international science journal Nature describing current Canadian federal policy as “war on science”, 120 climate scientists signed an unprecedented political letter urging Canadians to vote strategically against the federal Conservative Party. A lead author on that letter, University of Victoria climatologist Dr. Andrew Weaver, speaks with host Jordan Poppenk about how the fight for message has damaged the field of environmental science – and indeed science more generally – culminating in the muzzling of scientists at Canada’s foremost environmental agency, Environment Canada, the disbanding of Canada’s science advisor to the Prime Minister and termination of climate research funding.
• Political correspondent Danny Leskiw speaks with Green Party spokesperson John Bennett about the Green Party’s environmental platform for the 2008 election.

The headlines in brief:

• A report from the University of Toronto warns that new projects to help the Albertan tar sands will have a serious detrimental effect on the Great Lakes;
• In a speech this week, one of Ontario’s experts on agriculture policy warned that new developments could eat up all of the sustainable farm land in the GTA within five years.
• Alberta’s auditor general has spoken out against the province’s climate change initiatives, claiming they are not based on available data;
• Scientists now estimate a global sea rise of one metre this century.
• An international study reports that one quarter of land mammals and one third of marine mammals face the threat of extinction immediately.
• A United Nations food agency has called for the immediate review of
  global biofuel subsidies and policies.

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This week, we probe the nuances of environmental thinking in Canadian politics by speaking to two experts about how faith and money are affecting the environmental vote:

• Simon Watson speaks with Dr. Stephen Bede Scharper, Professor of religion and ecology at the University of Toronto, about “political theology” and the interaction between faith and the environment in the current Canadian and American federal elections.
• Ecological Economics professor Dr. Peter Victor of York University speaks with host Jordan Poppenk about the environmental politics of growth and his book, Managing Without Growth: Slower By Design, Not Disaster.
• Jordan and Pundit Kevin Farmer speak about the strategic environmental vote and discuss the website, voteforenvironment.com.

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This week:

• As part two in a special series on the Canadian federal elections, green pundit Kevin Farmer and host Jordan Poppenk review the environmental platforms of the major political parties. This week, we speak in depth about the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party of Canada.
• We feature a discussion with environmentalist David Suzuki from earlier this year about the environment in Canadian federal politics. A number of his predictions have already come true, including the environment falling off the top of the agenda in light of the financial scare and the political strategies of the major political parties (originally aired April 26, 2008).

Headlines in brief:

• The former head of Canada’s nuclear safety watchdog has resigned from the board of directors after more public clashes with the government;
• A U.S.-Canada compact banning water diversions in the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River has been signed by the U.S. House of Representatives;
• A CBC report reveals Quebec’s Environment Ministry knew for 5 years that a Pratt & Whitney plant was dumping sewage into the St. Laurence;
• BC Premier Gordon Campbell is facing intense opposition from municipalities over the province’s unpopular carbon tax;
• Liberal leader Stephane Dion announced that a federal Liberal carbon tax would be harmonized with the existent BC tax to avoid double payment;
• A new poll finds that Canadians are equally trusting of Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion on environmental policy.
• Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe has called for a high-speed train between Quebec City and Montreal;
• Montreal has unveiled an ambitious self-service bicycle system named Bixi involving 2400 bikes at 300 stations.

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This week:

• As part one in a special series on the Canadian federal elections, green pundit Kevin Farmer and host Jordan Poppenk review the environmental platforms of the major political parties. This week, we speak in depth about the New Democratic Party and the Green Party of Canada.
• As en epilogue to last week’s tar sands episode, we pursue two often overlooked tar sands projects: refining and pipeline construction. Natural Resources Defence Council spokesman Josh Mogerman speaks with host Jordan Poppenk about the impact of refinery retoolings in the US that are intended to accept product from the Canadian tar sands. We also replay a discussion with Stephen Hazel from the Sierra Club of Canada about the impact of the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline.

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This week:

• Any policy discussion comes straight back to the tar sands, Canada’s economic jewel - and environmental nightmare. On today’s episode, to give you the backstory on this troubling topic, we dedicate the program to a profile of Canada’s tar sands. We feature two of the most insightful speakers to have spoken on this program about Canada’s oil dilemma: one, a young activist, who describes his physical journey through Athabasca; the other, a Calgary journalist, who delivers a Canadian addendum to Al Gore’s famous slideshow.

 Headlines in brief:

• The Canadian election campaign has begun and the major parties have unveiled their environmental priorities;
• Hundreds of birds have been killed following a spill by Harvey Energy Trust, a Calgary-based oil firm;
• Ottawa has pleaded guilty for failing to notify the Ministry of Environment of a massive sewage spill in 2006;
• Ottawa has tabled a new plan for a light rail system connecting the city’s east end to the downtown core;
• A new report by the Ontario government suggests widespread clear-cutting old-growth forests in the Temagami region is a possibility;
• Business leaders, environmentalists, academics and four former prime ministers are demanding the country do more to tackle climate change;
• The world’s first “clean coal” plant has opened in Germany;
• A UN study has documented $300 billion in combined global spending on energy subsidies, or nearly 1 percent of global GDP, that are inhibiting energy conservation and clean energy development.
  

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