This week:

• Host Jordan Poppenk speaks with Patrick Bond, a leading international environmentalist who is touring Canada with the to promote his book, Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society: Negative Returns on South African Investments. His book pans global climate trading regimes, including the system described in vague terms by the federal government last week.
• We profile several student environmental festivals at the University of Toronto and speak with Ige Egal, a co-director of the 2008 Victoria College Environmental Festival.

The headlines in brief:

• According to a major federal study, climate change is already affecting every region of Canada;
• $50,000 was paid to choreograph the study’s release, but the study was instead quietly posted online;
• Canadian National Railway is facing federal charges alleging a train derailment in 2005 of 800,000 litres of oil destroyed bird and fish habitat;
• Legislation is being revived that would slow down big trucks on Ontario roads;
• Parents of children with head lice are being urged to avoid treatments containing the pesticide lindane;
• The Montreal Climate Exchange will begin trading carbon futures as of May 30, subject to regulatory approval;
• Sarnia residents were advised by police to close their windows and stay indoors for a few hours last Friday following a benzene vapour leak at Imperial Oil;
• Vancouver company Green Island Energy are planning a system to convert municipal waste into energy on Vancouver Island before the end of next year;
• The United Nations Water for Life Decade Foundation declared that Canada will soon be facing more demand for fresh water than supply;
• Observers at the United Nations conference in Geneva are accusing the Canadian federal government of stalling talks to make access to water a ‘basic human right’;
• The earth has experienced its coldest start of a year in more than a decade. But scientists are warning that these cold months might not indicate an overall cooler 2008;
• The recent cold weather hasn’t prevented an unprecedented loss in older Arctic ice;
• New data from the United Nations Environment Program suggests that glaciers are melting faster than ever.

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