This week:

• Jode Himann, CEO of Nemalux LED Lighting Solutions, speaks with Jordan Poppenk about how LEDs (light emitting diodes) stack up against CFLs (compact florescent lightbulbs) with respect to their energy use and environmental impact.

• Scott Hansen speaks with University of Toronto graduate student Kate Galloway about environmental opera.
• Kevin Farmer compares the relative use of mercury involved in running incandescent lights and CFL lights on the grid.

The headlines in brief:

• Toronto is one of 16 cities around the world getting financing to retrofit buildings with green technology under arrangements made by the Clinton foundation;
• Toronto mayor David Miller announced a new social networking website, Zerofootprint Toronto, that will allow residents to measure their impact on the environment and reduce it;
• Ontario gave $300k to six municipalities, including Windsor, Hamilton, Peel Region, London, Quinte and Toronto to pilot recycling programs for apartments, townhouses and condos;
• New endangered species legislation in Ontario is being hailed by environmentalists as the toughest of its kind in North America;
• Endangered spotted owls in British Columbia have fallen to critical levels and BC has been advised to capture all the remaining birds;
• Arnold Schwarzenegger’s environmental adviser has joined the choir of voices suggesting that the Canadian government’s climate-change plan is inadequate;
• A group of scientists from 50 countries around the world have sent an open letter to Canada urging that its enormous Boreal forest must be protected, for the sake of the planet;
• The World Wildlife Fund expressed alarm as a Chinese delegation met with Indian officials to talk about removing a ban on trading tiger parts;
• Indian fishermen are threatening to kill hundreds of endangered whale sharks unless the government gives them fuel subsidies that it promised three years ago;
• Tension between Western and Chinese businessmen surrounding intellectual property may be hampering efforts to cut China’s greenhouse gas emissions.

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