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This week:

• Simon Watson speaks with Peter Timmerman from York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies about how buddhism has an impact on an environmental ethic.
• Sapna Sharma talks to London director Rob Stewart about his award-winning film Sharkwater, which was released for viewing in theatres today.

The headlines in brief:

• Canada’s Conservative government avoided a forced early election after an opposition party agreed to support a budget that pledges $3.8 billion worth of previously-announced environment measures;
• Toronto officials announced a $6 billion dollar plan to build an ambitious light rapid transit network that would include seven rail lines crisscrossing the city;
• Ontario is introducing $18-million in spending legislation to protect the province’s endangered animals over four years;
• Ontario and federal governments would clean up four of the 15 most polluted sites by 2010 under a proposed agreement;
• Environment Minister John Baird indicated that Canadian companies will not be allowed to participate in international emissions trading even if they use their own money;
• This was the second-warmest winter on record in Canada and the warmest winter on average worldwide;
• Documents turned over by the Bush administration suggest a concerted While-House-led effort to mislead the public about global warming, according to the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform;
• A hydroelectric project in Iceland will generate green energy, but has flooded and transformed a huge tract of volcanic wilderness and ruined fishing downriver;
• A study by the American National Cancer Institute highlights the continuing importance of nature as a source of new drugs, noting that 70 percent of all new US drugs in the past 25 years have come from nature;
• Warming temperatures since 1981 have caused annual losses of about five billion dollars for six major cereal crops, according to a new study.

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