This week:

• Kevin Farmer returns from vacation to join Jordan Poppenk for a “summer summary” of the season’s top ten news stories. The categories and winners are, in no particular order:
• Best-fought action by a community group: Community Monitoring Committee on Site 41 (Tiny Township).
• Most influential science: A study from Environment Canada that provided the first confirmation that global warming is already affecting world’s rainfall patterns.
• Biggest canary in the coal mine: Fires and flooding in Greece
• Most underrated environmental news story: Tainted pet food scandal
• Most unlikely environmental cheerleader: Pope Benedict
• Most brazen propaganda: unprecedented spending of $1.2 million of public funds by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) on the promotion of nuclear power.
• Most colourful urban incident: Alberta industrial-gas-in-the-dump-truck accident.
• Best legislation: Toronto City Council’s bill to double the city’s tree canopy by 2050 ($1 million has already been allocated).
• Worst environmental message: David Suzuki’s commercial about changing light bulbs.

The headlines in brief:

• The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board was the subject of a report from the province’s privacy commissioner indicating the regulator spied on landowners opposing its development plans;
• The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) met in Winnipeg this Wednesday to talk about air and water quality;
• According to a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, development of the biofuel industry is pushing up food prices and damaging the environment;
• Parties to the 1987 Montreal Protocol will gather again in Montreal next week to hasten a ban on the use of hydrochlorofluorocarbons and protect the ozone layer;
• According to a new poll, half of Canadian adults indicate that they would give up 10 percent of their salary for a greener environment;
• The World Conservation Union has released its Red List of Threatened Species for 2007, showing that the rate of biodiversity loss is increasing.
• A district court in the US state of Vermont upheld a state law that
• called for major reductions in the amount of carbon dioxide released
• by road vehicles.
• The former head of an oil field services company said that he gave money to former Alaska House Speaker Pete Kott to help keep him in office and advocate for the construction of a natural gas pipeline.
• Cyprus is seeking to reduce household energy consumption by distributing free energy-saving lightbulbs.

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