This week: TGM’s green news pundits put their heads together for a 2008 year-in-review. News director Chris Berube, green pundit Kevin Farmer and host Jordan Poppenk discuss Canada’s top 10 environmental stories of 2008 and their implications for 2009. These stories, in no particular order, include:

• Agriculture (science turns against biofuel, rising food prices, export bans);
• A report that 20% of the world’s coral have already died;
• Global economic collapse and deflation of the green ethic;
• The re-election of Stephen Harper as Canada’s Prime Minister;
• Tipping points of feedback cycles (arctic total melt date pushed up to 2015, global warming exceeds IPCC’s most pessimistic projections);
• International carbon markets and their role in climate negotiations;
• Alberta’s tar sands and fallout from 500 duck deaths;
• The election of Barrack Obama as US President;
• Carbon taxes in public policy.
• Water (bulk shipments to Spain, the Great Lakes Water Pact, Canada withdraws from the UN Water Monitoring Program)

The headlines in brief:

• Ontario energy regulators say the province is well on track for its goal of shutting down all its coal fired power plants by 2014.
• Ottawa quietly passed several new regulations concerning the controversial annual seal hunt to avoid an EU ban on seal products from Canada.
• Quebec officials are still trying to clean up a gas leak caused by a train derailment in Villeroy.
• The Don Valley River, one of Toronto’s largest, may soon by filled with raw human sewage after a break in the sewage pipe.
• Carbon-absorbing cement has been engineered by researchers in the UK.
• Next year is expected to be one of the top-five warmest on record.

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This week:

We feature two of Toronto’s Gore-trained Inconvenient messengers, Steven Davis-Mendelow, an aerospace engineer at Bombardier’s Downsview plant, and his son Sammy Davis-Mendelow. Called Lighting the world: Hope and promise in the age of global warming, the talk was held December 6 at Darchei Noam, the Reconstructionist synagogue of Toronto.

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This week:

• We feature a special presentation by Ross Gelbspan, retired journalist, activist and author of Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis. Gelbspan speaks at the University of Toronto about the forces at play over the effort to win the public over on global warming.
• News Director Chris Berube fills in as host.

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This week:

• If you’ve done any grocery shopping lately, or even just flipped through the ads in any glossy magazine, you’ll know that the green bandwagon is getting pretty crowded - everyone, it seems, is pushing some type of green product or service. But are they all legitimate? Often, we the consumers are being Greenwashed - sold an environmental bill of goods. Green Life correspondent and resident skeptic Peter Stock reports.
• We feature Pat Mooney, Director of ETC group to discuss the relationship between food, technology and fuel. Originally aired May 9, 2008.
• Listener Doug Telek points out, with respect to last week’s Tiny Township feature, that there is a discussion paper open for public consultation on waste diversion in Ontario: Toward a zero waste future:Review of Ontario’s Waste Diversion Act, 2002. Comments on the paper are welcomed until January 15, 2009 and should be addressed to Alena Grunwald.

Headlines in brief:

• The Canadian delegation has been accused of obstruction at the UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland.
• Statistics Canada found that, while Canadians are more environmentally conscious, household emissions have increased by 13%.
• A new report released this week shows that far higher than expected amounts of toxic sludge from Albertan tar sands tailing ponds are leaking into the local groundwater.
• A new 400 megawatt power plant is being built over citizen concerns in the York region of northern Ontario.
• International representative are continuing negotiations to present a post-Kyoto climate reduction framework this week.
• New research finds that chemicals are causing fewer men to be born.
• The UN estimates that the world’s consumption of oil will drop this year for the first time since 1983.

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This week:

• Green pundit Kevin Farmer, news director Chris Berube and host Jordan Poppenk discuss the prospect for a green economic stimulus package in Canada.
• Steve Ogden of the Stop Site 41 project speaks to Jordan on the steps of Ontario’s parliament regarding a rally to protect the drinking water in Tiny Township from a landfill that is under construction. Ogden speaks following a five day walk to the provincial capital. The site upon which the  dump would be constructed contains the cleanest aquifer ever discovered, with water so pure it equates to Arctic ice core samples taken from snows deposited 10,000 years ago.
• We feature a talk by Dr. Doug McDonald, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Environment and author of Business and Environmental Politics in Canada, a book about how business reacts to environmental regulatory pressure. This lecture was originally aired on May 16, 2008.

The headlines in brief:

• A commercial ship has passed through the Northwest Passage for the first time in history after a total recession of ice in the passage.
• New Toronto bylaws passed this week include a five cent plastic bag fee for retailers.
• A new report finds that salmon stocks in BC are on the brink of collapse after federal mismanagement.
• The Pembina Institute predicts that further tar sands development could imperil nearly 160 million birds through habitat destruction in the next fifty years.
• Brazil aims to reduce deforestation of the Amazon by 70% over the next twenty years.
• New studies find that climate change could seriously impact food supplies on the Pacific Islands.
• Mexico plans to reduce carbon emissions through new carbon trading plans for industry.

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This week:

• Joanna Dafoe, a spokesperson for the Sierra Youth Coalition, speaks with correspondent Naomi Jehlicka about the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, an initiative targeting climate neutrality for North American Universities. Some Canadidan Universities have signed on to this initiative, and others - including the University of Toronto - are currently deciding whether they, too, should be involved with the agreement.
• Green Life correspondent Peter Stock browses the supermarket isles with Tegen Renner, a student at the University of Waterloo, while discussing her thesis project about organic labeling, consumer choices, and what it means to be “organic”.

The headlines in brief:

• British Colombia has joined California in a court challenge against the US Environmental Protection Agency over the dismissal of vehicle emission standards.
• The City of Toronto will be charging consumers five cents for every plastic bag used in grocery purchases; it will also be banning biodegradable bags.
• The province of Alberta is planning to clear cut large sections of forest outside of Banff park to combat the pine beetle epidemic.
• New studies released by a coalition of international researchers have revealed that global nature conservation standards as drastically inadequate.
• Approximately one third of China’s Yellow River has been declared as too polluted for industrial, agricultural, or domestic use.
• Global warming is predicted to cause a malaria epidemic in Australia and Pacific Islands.
• New studies show oceans are becoming increasingly acidic at a rate much faster than expected.

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This week:

Commuters have had something to smile about at the pumps in recent weeks, with gas prices slashed to nearly half of their pre-crash levels, but what does this mean for Canada’s alternative energy producers?

• We speak with Andreas Marouhos, Director of the University of Toronto’s Blue Sky Solar Racing team, about the coming fortunes of alternative energy in light of economic troubles, home uses of solar, and recent technological advances.
• Andreas recommends websites to help find companies that will install solar, government renewable energy grants, and alternative ways to cut your energy bills:
• Canadian Solar Industry Association
• ecoAction (Government of Canada)
• Office of Energy Efficiency (Department of Natural Resources)
• Andrew Nikiforuk, Calgary journalist and author of the new book Tar Sands, speaks with host Jordan Poppenk about the opportunities for debate about the project as well as the impact of crashing oil prices on the dirty side of energy production.

The headlines in brief:

• Environmental groups are calling for investment in sustainable energy technologies to stimulate economic growth.
• British Colombia fish farmers are seeking approval for massive expansions to offshore farms despite worries that current farms damage the local ecology.
• Ontario’s environment minister attended an international summit on climate change in California and has committed the province to the Western Climate Initiative.
• The Quebec town of Hampstead has banned woodstoves over pollution concerns.
• Three popular pesticides have been restricted in the US west coasts to protect populations of salmon.
• A new study shows that forests in the American west have been devastated by bark beetles.

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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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