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.

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