Doug Lester honoured – St. Thomas Times-Journal – Ontario, CA

Doug Lester, president of the Otter Valley Chamber of Commerce, was honoured Thursday at a community volunteer recognition night at Vienna Community Centre.

His citation notes Lester volunteers with a number of organizations. In addition to advocating for the harbour, he organized a successful

Business Expo and worked for establishment of the community's wind interpretive centre.

via Doug Lester honoured – St. Thomas Times-Journal – Ontario, CA.

The ‘bycatch’ downed by industrial fishing – Nature, Environment – The Independent

It is estimated that 200,000 seabirds are being killed in fisheries in European waters every year, the RSPB said, with one species, the great shearwater, suffering an exceptionally high annual bycatch rate of 50,000 birds in the Spanish longline hake fishery to the west of Ireland.

Europe's rarest seabird, the Balearic shearwater, which is critically endangered with a population of just 2,000 pairs, is predicted to become extinct within 40 years if losses continue. Up to 50 individuals have been caught on hooks on a single longline.

via The ‘bycatch’ downed by industrial fishing – Nature, Environment – The Independent.

‘Organic farming may counter climate change,’ report says – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent

Organic farming can play an important role in countering climate change, a new report suggests today.

Use of organic methods means that the soil takes up much more carbon, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide to boost global warming, according to the report from the Soil Association, the organic food and farming charity.

Soil is a major store of carbon, the report says, containing three times as much as the atmosphere and five times as much as forests. About 60 per cent of this is in the form of organic matter in the soil. On average, organic farming produces 28 per cent higher levels of soil carbon compared to non-organic farming in northern Europe, according to the report, and 20 per cent higher for all countries studied (in Europe, North America and Australasia).

via ‘Organic farming may counter climate change,’ report says – Climate Change, Environment – The Independent.

Farmers ’sickened’ by sewage – Brantford Expositor – Ontario, CA

Organic growers Ella Haley and Richard Tunstall are upset that a contractor is spreading treated sewage sludge on a field near their farm, Heart's Content.

The contractor, Wessuc Inc., says the two farmers are clinging to lingering misconceptions about a product treated and released by municipalities, that is well-regulated by the Ministry of the Environment, and classified as a nutrient biosolid.

“We must sit and watch as the tractor that is injecting this sludge gets closer and closer to our property line,” Haley said Thursday while the product, which comes from Waterloo Region's sewage system was being sprayed and knifed into the ground.

“Truckload after truckload after truckload is being worked into the field. I'm sickened by the sight of it.”

via Farmers ’sickened’ by sewage – Brantford Expositor – Ontario, CA.

The Associated Press: Canadian researcher says arctic ice is thinning

The permanent Arctic sea ice that is home to the world's polar bears and usually survives the summer has all but disappeared, a Canadian researcher said Friday.University of Manitoba Arctic researcher David Barber said experts around the world believed the ice was recovering because satellite images showed it expanding, but the thick, multiyear frozen sheets have been replaced by thin ice that cannot support the weight of a polar bear.”Polar bears are being restricted to a small fringe of where this multiyear sea ice is. As we went further and further north, we saw less and less polar bears because this ice wasn't even strong enough for the polar bears to stand on,” said Barber, who just returned from an expedition to the Beaufort Sea.

via The Associated Press: Canadian researcher says arctic ice is thinning.

Santa Claus is coming to town – Tillsonburg News – Ontario, CA

The town of Port Burwell, that is.

The annual Port Burwell Santa Claus parade, hosted by the Port Burwell Recreation Society and Optimists Club, takes place Saturday Dec. 5 after 6:00 p.m.

This year, however, a group known loosely as the Glen Erie Gang, a group of Bayham business women, is organizing to keep people in Port Burwell well after the parade passes by.

They have organized story telling at the library, crafts at St. Paul’s United Church, carolling on a hay wagon that will move around the town, and a band at the Lighthouse Restaurant which will remain open later than usual to partake in the festivities.

“The idea behind Parade Night is to offer more things for people to do when they come into town for the parade,” explained one of the organizers, Bev Wagar of Vienna. “Instead of leaving right after the cookies and hot chocolate, people can enjoy Christmas-related activities and experience some of the community spirit that we all value but often don't nurture.”

According to Wagar, local businesses have been asked to remain open later on parade day and local organizations such as the Historical Society are lending their support in promoting the event.

For more information please visit the web page: www.aroundaboutbayham.com/paradenight/tabid/68/Default.aspx

via Santa Claus is coming to town – Tillsonburg News – Ontario, CA.

Foraging for foodies – thestar.com

Albert Knab, a second-generation Tillsonburg farmer and business professor, complained that his neighbours had a hard time selling their crops.

His friend, Chris McKittrick, a Toronto connoisseur of local food, complained he couldn't get enough.

They decided to do something about it and called on grocery guru Paul Knechtel for help.

via Foraging for foodies – thestar.com.

Global carbon emissions reach all-time high: Journal

A record 1.3 tonnes of carbon was pumped into the atmosphere for every person on the planet last year, according to a new report that says “drastic” reductions are needed to avoid climate disaster.

Despite the global economic downturn in 2008, total global emissions rose by 2% in 2008 and per capita emissions hit an “all-time high” of 1.3 tonnes of carbon, an international team reported in the journal Nature Geoscience on Tuesday.

Canada is among the world's worst emitters, pumping out more than 4.5 tonnes of carbon for every man, woman and child in the country, three times the per capita rate in China and 10 times the rate in India. The report's authors warn that global emissions are tracking the worst-case scenarios laid out by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and average global temperatures could eventually soar by five to six degrees Celsius.

via Global carbon emissions reach all-time high: Journal.

World Sentinel | We’re killing the oceans. Is it too late to save the seas that sustain us?

Things are worse now, he says, than he's ever seen them. Just a couple weeks ago, for instance, Skerry returned from an assignment in Mexico. “The reefs were anemic. They were highly overfished. They consisted of a lot of dead coral, from warming and bleaching. They'd also sustained heavy hurricane damage” — frequent and severe hurricanes being harbingers of climate change — “and because they're stressed already, they don't have the ability to be resilient and rebound.”

New England isn't doing too well, either, he says. “I remember in the late '70s and early '80s, I'd dive off of Rockport or Gloucester and … see these huge schools of herring and pollock. You don't see that today. You just don't see it.”

Skerry recognizes the Herculean efforts being made by the American fishing industry to comport with this country's stringent stock-rebuilding rules. But he's dismayed by some of the excessive and destructive fishing practices he's seen across the world. Among the worst, he notes, are those for catching shrimp.

“You take a net, and you scrape it along the bottom to catch shrimp. In the process, everything else — all the little stuff that lives on the bottom, the sponges and the coral and all the habitat for baby animals — you wipe all that out. To catch one pound of shrimp, we might kill 12 pounds of other animals that get thrown back into the sea [dead] as by-catch.

“If we did that on land — to catch a single deer you go through the forest and kill all the raccoons and squirrels and skunks and everything that lives there — people would be outraged. Yet you can do it in the ocean and nobody cares.”

via World Sentinel | We’re killing the oceans. Is it too late to save the seas that sustain us?.

Why honeybees are falling through the cracks – The Globe and Mail

The humble honeybee has been inextricably linked to humankind since prehistoric times. We were first drawn to this remarkable creature because of its sweet honey, which is to a bee what electricity is for humans – energy. One teaspoon of honey, about 21 grams, contains 16 grams of sugar, or 60 calories. It takes 12 bees their entire foraging lives, combined flying time of about 9,700 kilometres, to produce this much.

To understand the importance of these bees, consider that every third bite on your plate is a result of their primary role on the planet as pollinators – the most important group on Earth.

via Why honeybees are falling through the cracks – The Globe and Mail.