This week:

• Theological correspondent Simon Watson brings a prominent aboriginal voice to TGM: we’re very pleased to feature Native American poet, literary critic, activist and novelist Dr. Paula Gunn Allen. In part one of the program, she speaks with Simon Watson about the ways in which nature permeates her literary work. In part two of the program, Allen presents a reading of her poetry.
• Kevin Farmer and Jordan Poppenk speak about the pledge voiced by the Federal Conservatives this week that no formal withdrawal will be made from the Kyoto protocol, even though Canada has rejected its targets.

The headlines in brief:

• The Montreal Metropolitan Community has pitched a one billion dollar waste-management plan to the Quebec government that would eliminate as much GHG as by taking 200,000 vehicles off the road;
• Budget woes threatening Toronto’s Green Plan were relieved when Toronto city council voted to endorse Mayor David Miller’s controversial new taxes;
• A federal report has warned of ballooning billion-dollar economic losses due to climate change and smog in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Windsor;
• The Quebec Liberal cabinet approved construction of the $840-million Rabaska liquefied natural gas port in Levis;
• Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner has announced a 10 cent to $1 surcharge on all new paint purchases to fund a provincial waste management strategy;
• The Alberta government has ordered the village of Boyle, northeast of Edmonton, to immediately cut down on its water consumption;
• Canada’s biggest energy company, EnCana Corporation, faces environmental charges after installing a gas pipeline in a southeastern Alberta wildlife area without a permit;
• Environment Minister John Baird said this week Canada will not formally withdraw from the Kyoto protocol;
• A major UN report says that environmental degradation is affecting the health, wealth and well-being of people around the world;
• Scientists say that the California wildfires are difficult to blame on climate change, but that evidence suggests forest fires will be more common in the future.

You can download the show here (right click, save as…), or listen in the player ** Note: player will close if you surf away from the page**

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This week:

• We dedicate today’s episode to a feature keynote lecture delivered by Senior Environment Canada Climatologist David Phillips. Phillips answers the question “Is Our Weather Getting Worse?” in this 45 minute lecture about weather, climate, and the relationship between the two.

The headlines in brief:

• In the throne speech delivered by the Federal Conservatives on Wednesday, the Kyoto protocol was declared dead to Canada;
• Specific initiatives under the Conservative national water strategy have not been specified seven months after their announcement;
• Metro Vancouver has fallen under scrutiny lately for its handling of a private prosecution regarding illegal pollution from its Lions Gate sewage treatment plant;
• The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has detected a number of trees in the Toronto area infested with the Asian long-horned beetle;
• In an effort to save a dwindling and endangered population of mountain caribou the British Columbia government has agreed to put nearly 400,000 new hectares of forest off limits to logging and road building;Environment Canada has concluded that it cannot determine the exact cause of two incidents of fish kills after testing several samples in PEI;
• Staff from Quebec’s environment ministry have decided to close the Cantley solid-waste landfill site;
• A new report indicates North America’s biggest industrial polluters are reducing their output of toxic emissions, but their efforts are being undermined by higher levels of pollution from smaller companies;
• The environment has come out on top of another study measuring public attitudes.

You can download the show here (right click, save as…), or listen in the player ** Note: player will close if you surf away from the page**

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This week:

• To help celebrate our one-year anniversary, newly reelected Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has sent TGM a stack of boxes, each containing environmental pledges for the next four years. Jordan Poppenk and Kevin Farmer unwrap the I.O.U.s and discuss the key provincial environmental election promises that will be worth following.
• Kalin Stacey, who completed a 1,300km through the Alberta tar sands with a team of students from the Sierra Youth Coalition, describes what he and his colleagues learned from their journey, and what they achieved along the way.
  

The headlines in brief:

• The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada released a report removing the peregrine falcon and the sea otter from the endangered list, but added another 36 species;
• Ottawa will begin curbside organics collection in green bins starting in 2009;
• A conference in Halifax has convened to review what to do about thousands of tonnes of munitions that have been dumped into the world’s oceans over the past six decades;
• Two thirds of the 3,000 respondents in an Alberta survey said they favour limits to the province’s economic growth;
• Owners of small- and medium-sized enterprises across Canada are buying into the notion that growing the economy and protecting the environment can be done at the same time;
• The Federal Government announced a funding injection for Via Rail worth nearly $700 million over the next five years;
• The Commitment to Development index puts Canada at the bottom of 21 wealthy nations when it comes to its environmental policies.

You can download the show here (right click, save as…), or listen in the player ** Note: player will close if you surf away from the page**

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This week:

• We continue our focus on the October 10th Ontario Elections with part two of The Environment Bosses, Ontario’s first cross-section of environment critics and Ministers from the various provincial parties. In this second episode, Jordan Poppenk interviews Ontario Environment Minister Laurel Broten, Liberal MPP and the woman who has had the final word over key environmental decisions in Ontario over the past four years. Also on the program is Green Party of Ontario leader Frank de Jong, who speaks about the Green aspirations and environmental philosophy. PC Environment Critic Laurie Scott declined to participate in this series.

The headlines in brief:

• A University of British Columbia study claims pollution is killing 25,000 Canadians a year and is costing the health care system more than $9 billion;
• Alberta has rolled out a policy to curb toxic emissions and limit water use in an area northeast of Edmonton where at least eight large oil upgraders are planned;
• Northern aboriginal leaders are demanding answers from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government about cuts at Environment Canada;
• B.C. premier Gordon Campbell promised legislation to reduce B.C.’s greenhouse-gas emissions 33 per cent below current levels by 2020
• Geography researchers at Queen’s University observed large-scale landslides transform a Acrtic permafrost valley in a matter of hours;
• Canada’s top business leaders have endorsed a document that acknowledges global climate change is a reality and calls for potentially painful government intervention;
• Recently revised figures from Envionment Canada indicate Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions remained constant from 2004 to 2005 at 747 million tonnes, likely as a result of the warm winter;
• The World Conservation Union said that the polar bear was likely to be assigned ‘endangered’ status in the near future;
• The Phillippines has tightened laws that protect the country’s largest coral reef;
• This year’s arctic sea ice pack was the smallest since satellite assessments began in the 1970s.

You can download the show here (right click, save as…), or listen in the player ** Note: player will close if you surf away from the page**

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.