And it begins — as is the tradition — with a German Chancellor.
This is not a holiday ceremony, but thousands of German farmers driving tractors to Berlin in protest of new policies. https://t.co/7OJs7vSLtF
— Frank Mitloehner (@GHGGuru) November 27, 2019
Green Police: Missouri Farmer Is 5th to Get Prison Term for Organic Fraud
What did socialists use before candles? Electricity!
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SET TO ANNOUNCE WEDNESDAY IT IS STRIPPING CALIFORNIA OF ABILITY TO SET ITS OWN VEHICLE EMISSIONS RULES
“Psst! Wanna buy a box of straws? Getcher sixty piece picnic cutlery here!”
Ottawa to ban single-use plastics as early as 2021: government source. Plastic straws, drink stirrers, plates, cutlery, plastic bags all on the list. PM, environment minister to announce plan in separate locations on Monday. https://t.co/Y3fLJNKEnm
— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) June 9, 2019
Fragging wing-nuts.
Rachel Carson was an American hero. In the early 1960s, she was the first to warn that a pesticide called DDT could accumulate in the environment, the first to show that it could harm fish, birds, and other wildlife, the first to warn that its overuse would render it ineffective, and the first to predict that more natural means of pest control – like bacteria that killed mosquito larvae – should be used instead.
Unfortunately, the PBS documentary neglected to mention that in her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, Carson had made one critical mistake – and it cost millions of people their lives.
Most cities and towns in the west were founded and thrived on the essential industries of logging, mining, ranching, and energy production. Somewhere along the way, the environmental industry decided those must be stopped. In a clever semantic twist, they were dubbed “extractive industries.” It sounds noble to produce food, energy, and resources needed for a prosperous society. But “extraction” sounds like pure evil – like pulling a tooth from Mother Nature. A majority of Americans who live in urban cities, not involved in those businesses, have become convinced, supporting a range of policies constricting grazing, mining, oil and gas production, and logging.
Western communities that object have been called myopic, lectured that their lifestyles are “unsustainable,” and assured that tourism would fill the gap. In fact, the “green” jobs created by preserving and protecting the “last great places” would be better. Tourists come in droves to see pristine woods, not logged forests, we were told. And the price of stopping active forest management has been over 100 million acres of national forests burned in the last 20 years.
Yet when the crowds of tourists come, bringing all that money with them, creating clogged hotels, restaurants, and roads, the same environmental industry reacts by demanding that we close these great places to tourists. If nothing else, the contradiction reveals the true agenda of people who just don’t like people. There are just too many, they think.
The circumstances surrounding the appointment of anti-Alberta oil activist Ed Whittingham to the Alberta Energy Regulator are even more troubling than initially believed.
Whittingham, the former executive director of the Pembina Institute from 2011 to 2017, was appointed to the five-year, part-time, quasi-judicial AER board on Feb. 12 by Alberta Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd.
As a board member, Whittingham is one of the bosses of the AER’s interim president and CEO, Gordon Lambert. The problem with that is Whittingham and Lambert are co-founders and business partners of Academy for Sustainable Innovation (ASI).
If that sounds overly cosy, it is.
And your driving, and your diet…
Compostable bags, cups and cutlery are designed to be even more environmentally friendly than their standard biodegradable counterparts. Like biodegradables, they are capable of breaking down into the soil, but compostables have the added benefit of releasing valuable nutrients into the soil when they decompose. Such nutrients can aid the growth of plants and other wildlife, making compostables the plastics of choice for environmental advocates.
Compostable use in the U.S. is rising dramatically, with the number of certified products climbing 80 percent in less than four years.
However, to properly break down, compostable products typically need to undergo high temperatures and moisture. Such conditions require placement in special industrial facilities. While a growing number of programs offer compostable disposal sites, a lack of proper labeling and public unawareness is resulting in many people simply throwing away their compostables in the trash, where they end up in landfills and fail to decompose.
Missouri farmer charged in organic fraud. But I repeat myself.
A Missouri farmer and businessman ripped off consumers nationwide by falsely marketing more than $140 million worth of corn, soybeans and wheat as certified organic grains, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The long-running fraud scheme outlined in court documents by prosecutors in Iowa is one of the largest uncovered in the fast-growing organic farming industry. The victims included food companies and their customers who paid higher prices because they thought they were buying grains that had been grown using environmentally sustainable practices.
They can pay higher prices or they can pay lower prices, but they’re not paying for “environmentally sustainable practices”.
h/t Ken (Kulak)
General Motors will soon be announcing that it is closing all operations in Oshawa, affecting approximately 2,500 jobs, sources tell CTV News Toronto.
More to come…
Yes, more to come.
The Supreme Court of Canada has finally catapulted this country into the modern age of securities regulation — a decision that could have direct implications for the federal government’s major policy initiatives on gender diversity and the environment.
The top court’s green light for a unified, pan-Canadian securities regulator to govern the country’s financial industry ends an 80-year struggle between the provinces and the federal government. […]
The groundbreaking decision on the centralized securities regulator could also help fast-track the federal Liberal government’s major policy initiatives on the environment and gender diversity.
h/t Grumps – “You WILL be green. You WILL be gender balanced. You WILL definitely want to do business somewhere else 🙁 “
We need a new country.
Update.
https://twitter.com/TheLastRefuge2/status/1066839433251614720
Monsanto’s German owners insisted Saturday that the weed killer Roundup was “safe”, rejecting a California jury’s decision to order the chemical giant to pay nearly $290 million for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that the product might cause cancer.
While observers predicted thousands of potential future claims against the company in the wake of Monsanto’s defeat, Bayer — which recently acquired the US giant — said the California ruling went against scientific evidence.
“On the basis of scientific conclusions, the views of worldwide regulatory authorities and the decades-long practical experience with glyphosate use, Bayer is convinced that glyphosate is safe and does not cause cancer,” the company said in a statement.
It said other court proceedings with other juries might “arrive at different conclusions” than the jury which ruled in the California lawsuit, the first to accuse glyphosate of causing cancer.
The World Wildlife Fund and Ocean Conservancy both provided ebullient quotes for Starbucks’ press releases. Liberal magazine The New Republic praised the move as an “environmental milestone.” Slate hailed the Starbucks straw ban as evidence of as a victory for a bona fide anti-straw movement, one that would hopefully lead to bans of more things plastic in years to come.
Yet missing from this fanfare was the inconvenient fact that by ditching plastic straws, Starbucks will actually be increasing its plastic use. As it turns out, the new nitro lids that Starbucks is leaning on to replace straws are made up of more plastic than the company’s current lid/straw combination.
“The people who were so fervent about ousting Pruitt may now be in a ‘be careful what you wish for’ situation.“
But I repeat myself.
@bigbluegaru — “So, let me get this correct, she is going to fly around the country (ironic) to show us what plastic is?“