This week:

• Dr. Joshua Hjartarson speaks with environmental law correspondent Naomi Jehlicka about federalism and how it impacts on which level of government bears responsibility for enacting environmental law and legislation.
• Recent science correspondent Sapna Sharma returns to speak with Adam Jeziorski, the author of a recent Science report examining the impacts of calcium declines on freshwater lakes and their food webs.

The headlines in brief:

• Two leaks were found last year in the Chalk River nuclear reactor used to produce medical isotopes;
• Environmentalists have largely panned the federal budget for not providing enough new funding for renewable energy and public transit;
• The federal government announced that it will be relaxing rules that mandate environmental assessment of new building projects;
• The EU is proposing the creation of a transatlantic carbon trading scheme with the United States;
• California is cracking down on the environmental impact of television sets;
• Forests in the western regions of North America are dying twice as fast as they were a few decades ago due to global warming.

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This week:

• TGM correspondent Danny Leskiw speaks with Canadian academic Thomas Homer Dixon about his research and the link between violence and environmental stress.
• Host Jordan Poppenk speaks with Greenpeace Canada Director Bruce Cox about what’s needed to put the environment back on the public agenda in light of global financial troubles.
• Green pundit Kevin Farmer speaks with Jordan about environmental assessments and the growth economy.

The headlines in brief:

• Enbridge Canada has shelved its plan to build a pipeline that would bring tar sands oil to Ontario.
• The federal government is planning to cut the requirement for environmental assessments on most building projects.
• Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff praised the necessity of the tar sands in a speech this week.
• Environment Minister Jim Prentice is may face a federal court after telling mining companies not to publish pollution reports.
• New laws are being passed in Delhi to outlaw the use of plastic bags.
• President Barack Obama has put a stop to many of George Bush’s last minute attempts to cut environmental regulations.

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(Photo credit Pierre Gazzola, CC)

This week:

• We feature journalist and military historian Gwynne Dyer, who speaks with host Jordan Poppenk about his recent book Climate Wars. In the book, he examines scenarios planned by the pentagon in a post-climate change world and explores how a changing climate could be the root of deadly international conflict.
• Green pundit Kevin Farmer, National Newscaster Daryn Caister and Jordan discuss Dyer’s book and emerging issues in food security.

The headlines in brief:

• Given warmer temperatures, the Journal Science predicts a “perpetual food crisis” will be a reality by 2050;
• Ontario has taken the first step towards embracing electric cars with the opening of a battery recharging station pilot project;
• The conservative government has been repositioning itself this week to adjust to the new US position on climate change policies;
• Police are investigating a suspected firebombing of an ex-oil executive’s home in Edmonton and considering the possibility of eco-terrorism;
• Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher whose ideas fuel the modern environmental movement, died Monday.

- Photo credit: Alex Nursall -

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This week:

• American author and journalist Ross Gelbspan speaks with host Jordan Poppenk about feedback cycles, how they relate to global warming, how close we are to tripping them, and ideas about how the environmental movement might respond.
• Jordan hosts an in-house panel discussion with green pundit Kevin Farmer and student activist Joanna Dafoe about the meaning of mitigation and what such tipping points might mean for the environmental movement.
• We welcome guest newsreader Dylan Jervis, who hopes to report for us on future science topics.

The headlines in brief:

• A fourth bombing incident has struck EnCana’s pipeline in Northeastern B.C.;
• Carbon tax could be a key issue in the upcoming B.C. provincial election, with a majority in opposition to the existing tax;
• Changes to the Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and the U.S. are now in effect;
• President Bush will protect vast areas of the Pacific Ocean islands, reefs, surface waters and sea floor;
• Coral growth off the coast of Australia has fallen to its lowest ratein 400 years.

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This week: TGM’s green news pundits put their heads together for a 2008 year-in-review. News director Chris Berube, green pundit Kevin Farmer and host Jordan Poppenk discuss Canada’s top 10 environmental stories of 2008 and their implications for 2009. These stories, in no particular order, include:

• Agriculture (science turns against biofuel, rising food prices, export bans);
• A report that 20% of the world’s coral have already died;
• Global economic collapse and deflation of the green ethic;
• The re-election of Stephen Harper as Canada’s Prime Minister;
• Tipping points of feedback cycles (arctic total melt date pushed up to 2015, global warming exceeds IPCC’s most pessimistic projections);
• International carbon markets and their role in climate negotiations;
• Alberta’s tar sands and fallout from 500 duck deaths;
• The election of Barrack Obama as US President;
• Carbon taxes in public policy.
• Water (bulk shipments to Spain, the Great Lakes Water Pact, Canada withdraws from the UN Water Monitoring Program)

The headlines in brief:

• Ontario energy regulators say the province is well on track for its goal of shutting down all its coal fired power plants by 2014.
• Ottawa quietly passed several new regulations concerning the controversial annual seal hunt to avoid an EU ban on seal products from Canada.
• Quebec officials are still trying to clean up a gas leak caused by a train derailment in Villeroy.
• The Don Valley River, one of Toronto’s largest, may soon by filled with raw human sewage after a break in the sewage pipe.
• Carbon-absorbing cement has been engineered by researchers in the UK.
• Next year is expected to be one of the top-five warmest on record.

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