This week:

• Any policy discussion comes straight back to the tar sands, Canada’s economic jewel - and environmental nightmare. On today’s episode, to give you the backstory on this troubling topic, we dedicate the program to a profile of Canada’s tar sands. We feature two of the most insightful speakers to have spoken on this program about Canada’s oil dilemma: one, a young activist, who describes his physical journey through Athabasca; the other, a Calgary journalist, who delivers a Canadian addendum to Al Gore’s famous slideshow.

 Headlines in brief:

• The Canadian election campaign has begun and the major parties have unveiled their environmental priorities;
• Hundreds of birds have been killed following a spill by Harvey Energy Trust, a Calgary-based oil firm;
• Ottawa has pleaded guilty for failing to notify the Ministry of Environment of a massive sewage spill in 2006;
• Ottawa has tabled a new plan for a light rail system connecting the city’s east end to the downtown core;
• A new report by the Ontario government suggests widespread clear-cutting old-growth forests in the Temagami region is a possibility;
• Business leaders, environmentalists, academics and four former prime ministers are demanding the country do more to tackle climate change;
• The world’s first “clean coal” plant has opened in Germany;
• A UN study has documented $300 billion in combined global spending on energy subsidies, or nearly 1 percent of global GDP, that are inhibiting energy conservation and clean energy development.
  

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