News roundup, 12 June 2026

- The US military attacked another Palau-flagged tanker, the Settebello, in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday, two days after a similar attack, in the name of enforcing its blockade of Iranian ports. This time, three crew members, all Indian nationals, were killed. Trump says, though, that he's cancelled further strikes in anticipation of a ceasefire; we'll have to see how seriously that can be taken.

- Following Tuesday night's storm in southern Manitoba, some people are raising concerns that the emergency alerts sent to cellphones about severe weather such as tornadoes could have a "cry wolf" effect if too many people outside the danger zone get alerts. The alerts are sent based on connection to a cellphone tower in the affected area, but sometimes that means further away than expected (according to someone in this Reddit thread, cellphones can sometimes connect to a tower much further away than normal). Some people report getting as many as 20 alerts that night; meanwhile only a single tornado is confirmed, and that was over 30 km from Winnipeg where many people got these alerts. Environment Canada say that they are working on a more targeted system.

- This week's storms are also expected to have a devastating effect on agriculture in parts of Manitoba. The storms follow a late planting season, meaning that the plants haven't grown long enough to be as resilient against flooding as in a normal season.

- Authorities in Nova Scotia are using civil forfeiture laws, more often used against drug traffickers, to seize equipment from the site of an illegal landfill on the outskirts of Halifax. The owner of one of the pieces of equipment seized claims that he had nothing to do with the operation and was just leasing the land, however documents filed in the provincial supreme court include drone footage showing the equipment being loaded with topsoil adjacent to one of the dumping locations.

- A group of independent musicians, songwriters, and producers are suing Google for copyright infringement, alleging that the company's AI music generator Lyria 3 was trained on their works without permission. Google has filed a motion to dismiss, saying that the artists agreed to this under the terms of service when they uploaded their material to YouTube.

- The SpaceX IPO being launched today is expected to make Elon Musk the world's first trillionaire. 

News roundup, 20 May 2026

- An Israeli legal organization, Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center), is threatening legal action against the Canadian Museum for Human Rights over plans to host an exhibit on the Nakba, the mass expulsion of Palestinians when Israel was formed in 1948. The exhibit isn't scheduled to open for months, but the organization has vowed to "seek instructions to pursue all available legal remedies" if the museum goes ahead with it. The legal basis for this seems rather tenuous, but several pro-Israel organizations are angry that they weren't consulted about the matter. I have to wonder if they'd be calling for Russia to be consulted over an exhibit about the Holodomor.

- Andy Burnham, the chief challenger to Keir Starmer's leadership, says that he will not pursue readmission to the EU if he becomes prime minister. This is in contrast to another potential challenger, Wes Streeting, who says he would like to see the UK rejoin. Some in this Reddit thread feel betrayed by Burnham's stance, but one poster made a very good point:

Tbh supporting the EU at this point is not a valid policy and is purely performative. You can say that you would want to join the EU, but it’s currently off the table.

With a Reform premiership likely, you would just be wasting 3 years unless there was significant evidence to show rejoining the EU could win you the election.

The EU know this and won’t bother negotiating.

I suspect that this is Burnham's reasoning. Can't really fault it, unfortunately.

- Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who had challenged Trump on the Epstein files, was defeated in his primary yesterday by Trump-backed candidate Ed Gallrein, demonstrating the uncanny grip that the orange monster still has on his sheeple. Meanwhile in Louisiana, Republican senator Bill Cassidy suffered the same fate.

- Experienced farmers develop an intimate knowledge of seasonal patterns that help them to optimize their business. However, farmers in many parts of the world are finding that those patterns are breaking down, thanks to climate change. And it is expected that for each additional 1°C for the average temperature, the average available food supply will decrease by about 120 calories per person per day. Of course this will not be equally distributed; the rich countries will experience inflation in food prices while poor countries face starvation. As I've said before, this also poses a conundrum for the left - the old argument that there's enough food for everyone and it just needs to be distributed properly is soon going to become obsolete, and I fear that a lot of leftists are going to be in denial about this fact.

- On the more positive side, it seems that Trump and Netanyahu's reckless attack on Iran is doing what generations of activists couldn't do - pushing the world towards renewable energy. It's enough to make a person wish that Cheney and Rumsfeld had succeeded in convincing Bush to attack Iran back in the noughties - that way the shift to green energy would have happened two decades earlier and so maybe climate change wouldn't be as bad as it's going to be.

News roundup, 8 Sept 2025

- The agriculture sector in both Canada and the US is taking a beating due to the ongoing trade dispute with China. In the US, corn and soybean prices have collapsed; in Canada there's a similar situation with canola. In both countries, governments are trying to pick up the slack by incentivizing more biofuel production. Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe is calling for the removal of tariffs on Chinese EVs as these tariffs are widely seen as being part of the reason China has sanctioned our canola in the first place. I hate to agree with Moe on anything, but he's right about this. Unfortunately there's no way in hell that the federal government will throw auto workers under the bus.

- Suicide is now the number one cause of death in the EU for people between the ages of 15 and 29, accounting for nearly 19% of all deaths in that age group. This represents a reversal of a previous downward trend for suicide.

- Air Canada's flight attendants have rejected the latest wage offer from their employer. The union argues that even with the increase offered, flight attendants would still effectively be making less than the minimum wage for federally regulated industries.

- A consumer advocacy group in Australia has found that 16 out of 20 brands of sunscreen don't provide the level of protection claimed on the label. This in the country with the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world.

- Former Winnipeg Blue Bombers running back Willard Reaves is running for the leadership of the Manitoba Liberal Party. I guess he figures that if Obby Khan can lead a party, so can he.

- In France, the government led by prime minister François Bayrou is expected to lose a non-confidence vote. Bayrou had called the vote himself, hoping to "shock" politicians into getting their act together, but it doesn't seem to be working. Meanwhile the bleating masses are lining up behind Jordan Bardella, leader of the far-right National Rally, because he seems like "someone you could get a drink with". You'd hope that a democracy could choose its leaders based on something more substantial than that, but I guess not.

- Erin Patterson, who poisoned several of her husband's relatives with death cap mushrooms, killing three, has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 33 years.

News roundup, 21 July 2025

- A Virgin Airlines Boeing 737 was on final descent towards Hobart when a fire broke out in one of the overhead bins. The fire was extinguished by flight attendants and nobody was hurt; a lithium ion battery is suspected of being the cause.

- In addition to the wildfire crisis currently facing Manitoba, the dry conditions are causing problems for agriculture in parts of the province. The Interlake is in a state of severe drought, with the rural municipalities of Coldwell and St. Laurent taking the worst hit. Numerous events have been cancelled due to the smoke and associated health concerns; not surprisingly, the Morris Stampede was not among them.

- A network of AI-driven MAGA-boosting chatbots has become divided over the Epstein issue. The bots were apparently created in a couple of batches last year, and were designed to react favourably to pro-Trump messaging on social media - but they don't know how to handle this situation. Whether this will blow over before the midterms next year remains to be seen.

- The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the parent organization of NPR and PBS, has been hit with $500 million per year in funding cuts; this is expected to hit rural communities hardest as the urban stations will have a better chance of securing funding from donors. The result, of course, is that rural listeners and viewers will have even more of a media echo chamber than they already do.

- Danielle Smith is demanding that the municipality of Jasper apologize for a report that the town commissioned into the wildfire that devastated the community last year. Smith is apparently upset that the report criticizes her government for not getting involved sooner in the effort to fight the fire.

- Trump is threatening to intervene to stop the construction of a new stadium for the Washington Commanders (formerly known as the Redskins) unless the team reverts to the old name. 

News roundup, 13 June 2025

- All but one of the 242 people aboard the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner that crashed in Ahmedabad have died. The survivor, a 40 year old man, was injured and dazed but walked away from the wreckage and up to an ambulance that took him to a hospital. In addition to most of the other passengers, at least five people on the ground are believed to have died when the aircraft slammed into the dining area of a medical college. One Canadian, a Mississauga dentist, is known to have been on the plane.

- California Senator Alex Padilla was dragged out of a press conference and handcuffed after attempting to ask a question of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

- Wab Kinew is now hinting at using emergency powers to force hotels to make rooms available for wildfire evacuees. 

- Cycling activists in Winnipeg made a makeshift separated bike lane on Wellington Crescent last Friday, one year to the day after cyclist Rob Jenner was killed by a speeding vehicle at that location. City staff quickly removed it, with Coun. Janice Lukes claiming that it posed a hazard; advocates are unimpressed with the contrast between how fast it was removed and how slowly the city is moving to create one properly.

- Two BC MLAs who were elected as Conservatives have formed a new party, One BC, apparently because the BC Conservatives aren't extreme enough for their liking.

- Environmentalists on both sides of the Canada-US border are concerned about two gigantic dairy projects moving forward in North Dakota, with a total of 37,500 head of cattle.

- A San Francisco-based robotics company has developed a countertop robot that it claims can make up to 100 pizzas an hour.

News roundup, 20 Nov 2024

- A severe storm, with winds up to 160 km/h hit the coast of BC last night, causing widespread disruption and power outages but no deaths or injuries so far in that province, though south of the border in Seattle a woman died when a tree fell on a homeless encampment.

- The Kinew government has presented their throne speech, outlining their priorities for the new legislative session. These include maintaining the Manitoba Hydro rate freeze, the elimination of restrictive covenants that limit competition for grocery stores, and new measures for healthcare, including over 100 new beds and strategies for cutting ER wait times. The rate freeze has raised some eyebrows due to the financial status of Hydro and the need for the renewal and expansion of electrical infrastructure.

- Josh Guenter, the Tory MLA for Borderlands, seemingly couldn't help himself when the opportunity came to make a dog whistle about the presumed ethnicity of the trucker who killed two people near Altona last week. He has apologized for this, but he has a long history of rightwing populism (e.g. his support for the trucker convoy in 2022, which got him in trouble back then but not enough to keep him out of the good graces of the party leadership for long).

- The Danish government plans to convert 10% of the country's farmland back into forest. They also plan to tax livestock farmers for the emissions from their animals. A good start, but some bigger countries need to start doing this. And there's doubtless going to be a lot of populist pushback.

- The US Department of Justice hopes to do some "trust-busting" before Donald Trump takes power; they plan to ask a judge to order Google to sell off the Chrome web browser and impose restrictions on other aspects of the company's business. Google claims that this will harm consumers (but then of course they would).

- Winnipeg city council is debating a proposal to tinker with zoning and enable some of the parking lots around malls to be converted into housing. It's a step in the right direction, at least.

- The City of Winnipeg may be only four to six years away from having no capacity to further expand sewage treatment, meaning that no new residential or commercial developments could be approved. Construction on a new facility with more biosolids capacity needs to start immediately if this is to be avoided.

- Police were called to the campus of the University of Manitoba after a man was spotted with a knife; police say there is no further threat to the public despite not making any arrests. Some students are alarmed and confused by the lack of clarity about the situation.

- The Slender-billed Curlew, a shorebird that was once fairly widespread in Eurasia, has been declared extinct after all attempts to find one since 1995 failed.

- A Russian ballet star who had criticized Vladimir Putin has died after falling from his fifth floor apartment. It's awfully strange how careless those Putin critics are around windows.

News roundup, 28 Oct 2024

- Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko has warned Russia that any attempt to annex his country would lead to war. Belarus has until now been seen as a pretty reliable ally for Russia, but there are suspicions that the annexation of the country is part of Putin's long-term plans. Others scoff at this; some in this Reddit thread think this is just a show for the West, or else Lukashenko trying to keep a door to the West open in case Russia's ambitions in Ukraine are thwarted.

- Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, speaking as the warmup act for a Donald Trump rally in Georgia, gave a rather graphic metaphor for what he hopes a second Trump presidency would mean for America:

“If you allow your hormone-addled 15-year-old daughter to slam the door and give you the finger, you’re going to get more of it,” Carlson said. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home.” At this point the crowd erupted into raucous cheers.

“Dad comes home and he’s pissed,” Carlson continues. “He’s not vengeful, he loves his children. Disobedient as they may be, he loves them … And when Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No, it’s not. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl, and it has to be this way.”

Clearly this struck a chord with the crowd. Later, when Trump came on stage, they screamed “Daddy’s home” and “Daddy Don”. Sigmund Freud almost rose from his grave.

It's becoming more and more apparent that close to half of the American population is, to put it kindly, not of sound mind.

- The Washington Post has announced that they will not endorse any candidate for president this year, for the first time since 1988. Reportedly the editorial page editor, David Shipley, had approved an endorsement of Harris, but it was shot down by "management" (presumably meaning Jeff Bezos). The move sparked resignations from the board; the same thing also happened at the Los Angeles Times. This has led to speculation that management is scared of what Trump might do to them if he does win the presidency - or at least insufficiently scared of what he might do to other people.

- New Flyer Industries is significantly expanding their production of electric transit buses. This will enable some buses to be completely assembled at the Winnipeg plant; until now only the shells of the buses have been manufactured here, while the mechanicals have been added at a plant in Alabama. One hopes that some of these buses can be put to use on our own streets...

- A final seat count for BC's election last week is still pending as some 22,000 absentee ballots await counting.

- The robotics industry is now producing farm equipment that can harvest crops autonomously. This will help deal with the shortage of farm labour; it will probably also hasten the depopulation (and resulting decline in political influence) of rural areas.

- Chris Alexander, who served as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration under Stephen Harper, has accused Postmedia reporter David Pugliese of having been a Russian asset since the 1980s. The allegation was made during Alexander's testimony before the House of Commons standing committee on public safety and national security on Thursday.

- A private member's bill introduced to the Ontario legislature by Liberal MPP Karen McCrimmon aimed to facilitate the conversion of vacant office space into housing. Unfortunately the government has shot the bill down; whether this is just the knee-jerk reaction of a government that doesn't want anything done that they can't take credit for, or whether they have a deeper opposition to the idea, is not clear. I could see Doug Ford not relishing an expansion of housing in the inner city, though, as such housing tends to be occupied by people less inclined to vote for his party. Not to mention, a disproportionate amount of Ford's base comes from people who work jobs that can't be done remotely, and some of those people are downright resentful of people who are able to do so.

News roundup, 8 July 2024

 - French voters in the second round of parliamentary elections have largely rejected the far right; Marine Le Pen's National Rally came third after the left alliance and Macron's centrists. The party's parliamentary leader Jordan Bardella, who hoped to become prime minister, declared that "alliances of dishonor" were responsible for the outcome; perhaps he's learned something from the late Jacques Parizeau. Building a viable coalition may take some time; they don't have a lot of experience with hung parliaments there.

- Joe Biden says he's still not quitting. Unless something happens soon, the Democrats are going to be stuck with him for the fall. This is ungood.

- California has imposed permanent restrictions on water utilities across the state, requiring the utilities to reduce their total consumption by around 40%. How the goal is to be met is up to the individual utilities. There are also efforts by the WWF to encourage other places to grow the crops that California has traditionally supplied. Meanwhile in Florida, where the citrus industry has been decimated by disease, efforts are being made to get farmers to grow pongamia trees, potentially a valuable source of biofuel. Getting farmers to switch away from crops they've been growing for years isn't easy, but it's going to be increasingly necessary in the coming years.

- Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to fraud in connection to the 737 Max disasters in 2018 and 2019, following revelations that the company violated a settlement related to the accidents.

- Solar power is growing so fast that it may be the biggest source of energy on the planet in a decade or so. Growth that experts had predicted could take 20 years happened in only 6. And various industries, notably data centres, are moving to "behind the meter" projects that produce electricity in their own microgrids without having to worry about such matters as feed-in tariffs.

- Canada's new anti-greenwashing law is already spooking energy companies into removing claims from their websites about how environmentally friendly they are, even as they try to claim that the sites they've taken down aren't greenwashing.

- 21 species are being removed from the US Endangered Species list; unfortunately the reason is that they are thought to be extinct.

- Ukraine's largest pediatric facility was severely damaged in a Russian missile strike. At least two people were killed there, in addition to 34 others killed in strikes in other locations.

News roundup, 27 June 2024

- The  American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent nearly $15 million to ensure that New York Democratic member of Congress Jamaal Bowman was defeated in a primary. They succeeded.

- Denmark may become the first country in the world to apply carbon taxes to livestock emissions, beginning in 2030. By way of compensation, farmers will be able to an income tax deduction and will be able to access funding to change their operations to reduce their emissions. New Zealand had similar plans, but the new rightwing government there scrapped them earlier this month.

- Climate activists in Germany are taking the government to court for failing to take adequate action on climate change, after one of the coalition partners, the neoliberal Free Democrats, managed to get proposed legislation watered down.

- A wax sculpture of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC has partially melted due to the ongoing heatwave. Given that many of the people who fiercely resist climate action also would probably like to undo Lincoln's signature achievement, there's something symbolic about this.

- North Carolina's Democratic governor Roy Cooper has vetoed a bill that would outlaw wearing a mask in public in most cases; unfortunately the Republicans will probably be able to override the veto. The ostensible justification for the bill is as an anti-crime measure; Cooper says he vetoed the bill partly because of insufficient protection for medical users, but mostly because of a campaign finance provision tacked onto it. More alarming is that relatively liberal New York State is considering similar legislation, largely because of allegations that over-zealous pro-Palestinian protesters are using them. Even without actual bans, many people across the US report harassment and discrimination over mask wearing.

- The first ever sample return mission from the far side of the Moon has been successful as China's Chang’e 6 spacecraft landed successfully in Inner Mongolia.

- Prosecutors have recommended against charging the bus driver in last year's disastrous crash near Carberry, Manitoba that killed 17 people. Apparently the driver suffered a severe brain injury in the accident and is likely never going to be in any condition to be interviewed by police. I guess the survivors, and families of the dead, can take comfort in the fact that he's already effectively serving a life sentence.

- A house in Transcona was destroyed in an explosion yesterday that also severely damaged neighbouring homes; however nobody appears to have been injured; neighbours believe the sole resident of the house was not home at the time.

News roundup, 6 May 2024

- Three men, all Indian citizens, have been arrested in connection with the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey last year. Police are investigating links with three other homicides as well, including the death of an 11 year old boy in Edmonton.

- The Israeli government has shut down all of Al Jazeera's operations in the country and raided its offices. They accuse the broadcaster of "incitement" and "working with Hamas", which the broadcaster denies. Notably, the BBC was not allowed to film the raid. The UN's Human Rights office as well as the Committee to Protect Journalists are condemning the decision. In other Israel news, many Bedouin citizens of that country are unable to build bomb shelters to protect themselves from Hamas-launched missiles - because even though they live in villages that predate the founding of Israel, the communities have never been officially recognized, and thus do not have the ability to issue building permits. So the Israeli state considers any shelters they build to be unauthorized structures, and demolishes them. Then they cry a few crocodile tears at best, or smile smugly at worst, when Bedouin citizens die in the attacks. Meanwhile the Globe and Mail's Marsha Lederman warns supporters of both sides of the confllict against reducing the matter to simple slogans.

- It's increasingly apparent that one of the biggest barriers to effective climate action is the agricultural sector. In the European Union, rioting farmers have been doing their damnedest to undermine efforts to make Europe a leader in sustainable agriculture. No wonder farmers have been downgraded, in the minds of a lot of people, from "salt of the Earth" to "necessary evil". On a related note, Florida governor Ron DeSantis has just signed a bill outlawing the sale of cultured meat in the state. He also  spouted conspiracy nonsense about the supposed global elite's plans to force everyone to eat it, even as he signed legislation taking away his own citizens' freedom to eat it if they so choose.

- A federal appeals court in the US has ruled that a lawsuit by an organization called Our Children’s Trust on behalf of 21 young Americans lacks standing and must be dismissed by the US district judge hearing the case. The judges who made the ruling are Trump appointees, but this was an "emergency" petition filed by the Biden administration's Justice Department, who claimed that the government could be "irreparably harmed" if it were forced to waste resources litigating the case.

- The Manitoba government will be using funds from an out-of-court settlement with the tobacco companies to pay for the building of a new headquarters for CancerCare.

- Following the report of a woman being punched in a Winnipeg grocery store by an employee who suspected her of shoplifting, other members of the community say that this is not the first time something like this has happened at that store - nor even the second.

- Use of the "Community Connections" service in the lobby of Winnipeg's Millennium library are on the increase, even as the city prepares to shut it down so that Evan Duncan's constituents don't have to look at poor people when they use the library.

- In something worthy of the Piranha Brothers, a man in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland suffered potentially life-altering injuries after having his hands nailed to a fence. This has apparently happened before; there have been no official statements regarding responsibilty but many locals suspect Loyalist paramilitaries.

News roundup, 2 April 2024

- A bill recently passed by Florida's legislature, and now awaiting Governor Ron DeSantis' signature, will ban offshore wind turbines in state waters, and will furthermore purge virtually all references to climate change from existing legislation. On the other coast, the city of Berkeley, California has agreed to repeal its recent ban on natural gas for new builds, following a court decision. Oh, and despite their constant bleating about "freedom" and "liberty", Republicans in numerous states want to take away people's freedom to buy and sell lab-grown meat. There has been the odd bit of good news too (such as the closure of the last two coal plants in the New England states) but on balance the situation is not looking good, and Gwynne Dyer is probably right in saying that we will need to resort to geoengineering, with all the risks that entails, in order to keep temperatures within acceptable limits. Or maybe someone should just release Captain Trips and hope that the survivors build a better civilization than the one we have now.

- A federal appeal court has cancelled a ban on takeout containers contaminated with PFAS (the so-called "forever chemicals"). Interestingly, the court did not deny the health concerns about these chemicals, but ruled that the EPA did not have the authority to use the legislation they did.

- The European Union subsidizes farms based on area cultivated, which means that livestock farms get far more subsidies than crop farms do. More than 80% of the subsidies in the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) program went to make meat cheaper.

- Judge Aileen Cannon, who is scheduled to hear Trump's criminal trial for retaining classified national security documents, has apparently still not decided when the hearing will happen, almost certainly meaning that he will not be tried in this case before this fall's election. According to Wikipedia this judge was appointed in 2020 by Trump, but I guess we're supposed to assume that this is a coincidence.

- The lower house of France's parliament has passed a bill that imposes penalties on the manufacturers of "fast fashion".

- Doctors working in Gaza are accusing Israeli snipers of deliberately targeting young children.

News roundup, 15 Jan 2024

- A new poll suggests that Joe Biden has a four point lead over Donald Trump in Michigan.

- Historian Ian Lustick comments that Israel has never ended hostilities with the Palestinians on its own, but only when pressured to do so from outside (most often the US), and doesn't expect anything different this time. Unfortunately the prospects for this in the near future are not good, especially now that the Biden administration is preoccupied with the election campaign. This doesn't bode well for Palestinians in the near future, nor even for Israelis - most recently, two of the hostages taken in October have been killed (whether by Hamas or by an Israeli airstrike is being disputed), and terrorist attacks continue as well.

- As mentioned a few days back, placing a tax on soft drinks is effective in reducing the consumption of said drinks. Boulder is going a step further - they are using the revenue to provide low-income folks with coupons to buy more nutritious food. So you have a carrot (literally) in addition to a stick.

- Speaking of taxes, even fiscal conservatives see the need to raise property taxes in Toronto. TVO's Steve Lafleur points out that even with the increase Toronto's property taxes will be among the lowest in the region, and that municipalities tend to run a pretty tight ship anyway, so there's not a lot of "fat" to trim.

- In the US, fishers are required to pay the salary of observers from the National Marine Fisheries Service who ride along on their boats. This is now going to the US Supreme Court; whatever one thinks of that particular rule, rightwing opponents of regulation of any sort are latching onto the case in the hope of getting a decision that will tie the hands of federal regulators.

- A recent study indicates that agriculture is by far the biggest driver of deforestation around the world. Beef alone is responsible for 41% of deforestation in the tropics; oilseeds (including soy as well as palm) are responsible for 18%. Note that much of the soy grown in the tropics is grown as cattle feed; if it were fed to humans directly rather than to cattle a lot less of it would be needed.

- In California, a new law passed by referendum in 2018 has just taken effect, requiring that meat sold in the state (whether raised domestically or imported) must meet minimum standards of care. Pregnant sows, for instance, have typically been kept in crates too small for them to even turn around, but under the new law they must be provided with a minimum of 24 ft² of space. Space requirement are also increased for hens and veal calves. The industry fought it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost; they are now hoping for the feds to intervene. Unfortunately there are a lot of exemptions, notably that it doesn't apply to processed meat like sausages, nor does it apply to meat that is sold outside the state.

- Poland gets about 70% of its electricity from coal-fired plants, but the new government there hopes to change that. 

- A Russian command aircraft was shot down and another heavily damaged over the Sea of Azov. 

- Italy's culture minister is under investigation for possessing, and exhibiting, a stolen 17th century painting.

Yet more water troubles

This time it's in Syria:

AR RAQQAH, Syria — The farmlands spreading north and east of this Euphrates River town were once the breadbasket of the region, a vast expanse of golden wheat fields and bucolic sheep herds.

Now, after four consecutive years of drought, this heartland of the Fertile Crescent — including much of neighboring Iraq — appears to be turning barren, climate scientists say. Ancient irrigation systems have collapsed, underground water sources have run dry and hundreds of villages have been abandoned as farmlands turn to cracked desert and grazing animals die off. Sandstorms have become far more common, and vast tent cities of dispossessed farmers and their families have risen up around the larger towns and cities of Syria and Iraq.

From the New York Times. This should be a familiar refrain to regular readers of this blog (see for example this or this). And we're not likely immune to this stuff either. Danny Blair, a climatologist at the University of Winnipeg, thinks we should be preparing in advance for trouble:

It's time for Canadians to wake up to the reality of climate change. Many already do understand that the consequences of climate change for our part of the world and the world as a whole are profound, but many do not. Of course, there are both positive and negative aspects to climate change, but it is increasingly clear the climate trends that will almost certainly prevail throughout this century will leave us with a world in which the benefits of climate change will be swamped by its environmental, economic and humanitarian costs.

From the Free Press. And what might some of these costs be?

On the other hand, insects and weeds will also flourish in a warmer world, perhaps necessitating an increase in the use of pesticides. Warmer summers will also increase the demand for energy to cool our buildings and will increase the frequency of heat-related health problems. Forest fires will become more frequent and the winter recreation season will be shortened. Importantly, the network of winter roads across Manitoba will become even less reliable than is already the case, causing significant and costly impacts.

Impacts related more directly to water are likely to be even more significant. Climate change will likely result in higher annual precipitation totals across Canada, but they also show that the summers will be drier. With more of the annual precipitation falling in the winter and more heat available to evaporate surface water, it is quite likely that the Prairie provinces will have to suffer through more frequent and more severe droughts. Ironically, it is also likely that floods will become even more problematic than they are today, as the hydrological cycle kicks into a higher gear. Thus, the survivability of the settlements of the southern prairies already stressed by the ups and downs in agricultural productivity may become even more tenuous.

It's worth noting that when scientists try to predict the fine details of the effects of climate change there is an element of speculation involved (and it should be noted that Blair is cautious himself, using words like "likely" rather than making definitive statements). Climate is pretty complicated stuff, and we should be preparing for a number of eventualities.

One eventuality that Manitoba should definitely be preparing for, though (and yes, I've harped on this in the past) is the melting of the glaciers in the Rockies. Right now, the Saskatchewan and Churchill Rivers are flowing very nicely indeed, fed by the melting glaciers... but in a few decades the glaciers will be gone, and then those rivers will be a lot smaller. The probably won't dry up entirely, since it will still rain and snow periodically, but Manitoba Hydro should be planning for this now by getting other clean energy sources online as quickly as possible. Ideally, what we should have is enough solar and wind capacity to keep Jenpeg closed enough of the time that Lake Winnipeg can be kept near its current level. Will we do it? That remains to be seen...

Some bad news about the world's food supplies

A couple of stories today are worthy of concern. The first is this from the UK:

In a study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, the scientists warned that rising temperatures would make crops mature more quickly, reducing their yield, while extreme temperatures could also significantly reduce yields.

More droughts would affect crops, while more intense monsoon rains could lead to flooding and crop damage, the researchers said.

If nothing else, it's noteworthy that a paper as conservative as the Telegraph is covering this. Of course, they also happily report the proposed solutions:

But they said the worst effects of climate change could be limited by investment in better farming and the development of new drought resistant or heat tolerant crops. This could be done by aid money, breeding and new technologies like genetic modification (GM).

Hmm. While I'd support GM if it really turns out to be necessary, I'd prefer to see enough of an effort made to fight climate change that we can get by without it. But that's another story.

The second story on this issue is what's happening to the vast Murray-Darling Basin that spans four Australian states:

Farmers and small business owners are predicting the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's recommendation for massive water cuts will force a mass exodus from their communities.

The authority predicts the reductions in water allocations may result in losses of up to $1.1 billion a year to irrigated agriculture production, 800 job losses and significant social impacts across the basin.

But business leaders in the New South Wales Riverina town of Griffith say cuts of 43 per cent for their area mean, at worst, a loss of 5,000 jobs across the region.

They say there will need to be a big investment in mental health facilities for not only irrigators, but the wider community.

From the ABC. The Murray-Darling basin today, the American southwest tomorrow...

Decline of pollinators having an effect

Notwithstanding the potential breakthrough on colony collapse disorder, it's worth noting that even if that turns out to be successful, there are a lot of other problems facing pollinators in many parts of the world. Given this, it shouldn't be surprising that it's having an effect:

A decline in bees and global warming are having a damaging effect on the pollination of plants, new research claims.

Researchers have found that pollination levels of some plants have dropped by up to 50 per cent in the last two decades.

The "pollination deficit" could see a dramatic reduction in the yield from crops.

The research, carried out in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, is the first to show that the effect is real and serves as a "warning" to Britain which if anything has seen an even greater decline in bees and pollinators.

"This serves as a warning to other countries," said Professor James Thomson at the University of Toronto, who carried out the research.

"For quite some time people have been suggesting that pollinators are in decline and that this could have an effect on pollination.

"I believe that this is the first real demonstration that pollination levels are getting worse. I believe it is a significant decline. I believe the pollination levels have dropped by as much as 50 per cent.

This is serious, as it could significantly affect the world's food supply if it happens in a lot of places. Interesting too is the explanation Thomson offers for the decline:

"Bee numbers may have declined at our research site, but we suspect that a climate-driven mismatch between the times when flowers open and when bees emerge from hibernation is a more important factor."

Interesting. So for instance if the bees come out of hibernation based on temperature, while the flowers opened based on some internal clock, any significant climate change could cause the bees to emerge too early to pollinate the flowers. Similar concerns have been raised about possible mismatches between emergences of boreal forest insects and the migrations of songbirds that prey on them. This could cause a decline in the birds and/or an increase in insect damage to the forest, with unpredictable results. Just another example of what a messy experiment we're conducting with the biosphere...

A bit of good news on the stem rust front

Remember Ug99, the scary-as-heck fungus that threatens the world's wheat crops? Well, Indian scientists appear to have found strains of wheat that are resistant:

A wheat-killing fungal disease, which is being called ‘agriculture’s polio’, is racing like swine flu towards Asia from Africa, crippling food baskets in seven countries. India, also at risk, has got a global breakthrough with its first line of defence — 20 varieties that can fight an attack.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Ug99 fungus is on a “wind-borne trip around the globe” and poses a “genuine risk” to global food security and could push millions into hunger.

Indian farm scientists have confirmed locating “genetic sources” that can potentially resist Ug99. These varieties, internationally endorsed, will allow a coalition of at-risk countries to fight the disease better.

“This is an internationally-accepted breakthrough.” Swapan K Dutta, head of crop sciences at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research told HT.

Source.

Think peak oil is scary?

It's nothing compared to peak phosphate:

Peak oil presents the world with an energy crisis once supplies start to dwindle any time from 2015. But another growing crisis is looming, with potentially devastating consequences for the world's food supply.

Phosphorous is an essential nutrient for plant growth, along with nitrogen and potassium. It is a key component in DNA and plays an essential role in plant energy metabolism. Without it, crops would fail, causing the human food chain to collapse.

Phosphate production is predicted to peak around 2030 as the global population expands to a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050. And unlike oil, where there are renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels, there is no substitute for phosphorus, according to the US Geological Survey.

As imported rock phosphate becomes more expensive and may one day run out, there could be a solution much closer to home, says Professor Brian Chambers, a leading UK soil scientist.

Professor Chambers is calling on the government to respond to the threat of peak phosphate by recovering nutrients from household compost, livestock and human manure and municipal waste.

Western Europe imports all of its phosphate for agricultural use, but Professor Chambers from environmental consultancy ADAS, believes that more than 50 per cent of the UK's total requirement could come from organic sources, saving the agricultural industry between £20m and £30m a year.

From the Guardian. Incidentally, I'm told that the biological nutrient removal recommended by the CEC for Winnipeg's wastewater is good for the recovery of phosphate as well as nitrogen. As we know, the city isn't keen to spend that kind of money, though, and they've been fighting the provincial government tooth and nail on the issue.

The latest effort to destroy the Wheat Board

The fact that the Canadian Wheat Board is democratically run is a source of annoyance to the federal Conservatives, who would rather the whole thing just went away. So when prairie farmers kept voting to retain the Wheat Board's monopoly, the government has decided to try to limit who's allowed to vote on such matters:

OTTAWA — Wheat and barley growers who don’t produce more than 40 tonnes of grain a year would no longer be eligible to vote in Canadian Wheat Board elections under federal legislation introduced Friday.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said hobby farmers and former producers shouldn’t get a say in elections which send farmer representatives to the board.

"Everyone agrees these important votes must be cast by real farmers, not producers who have left the business," said Ritz.

The legislation would mean any producer who didn’t deliver 40 tonnes of wheat or barley to the board in either the year of the election or the previous two years would not be eligible to vote.

From the Montreal Gazette (h/t pogge). The fact that it's small farmers who need the Wheat Board the most is probably not a coincidence...

Yet another thing to worry about

Modern agriculture is depleting topsoil way too fast:

Fertile soil is being lost faster than it can be replenished and will eventually lead to the “topsoil bank” becoming empty, an Australian conference heard.

Chronic soil mismanagement and over farming causing erosion, climate change and increasing populations were to blame for the dramatic global decline in suitable farming soil, scientists said.

An estimated 75 billion tonnes of soil is lost annually with more than 80 per cent of the world's farming land "moderately or severely eroded", the Carbon Farming conference heard.

A University of Sydney study, presented to the conference, found soil is being lost in China 57 times faster than it can be replaced through natural processes.

In Europe that figure is 17 times, in America 10 times while five times as much soil is being lost in Australia.

Soil is also a valuable store of carbon and can release the greenhouse gas if it is ploughed or dug up.

The conference heard world soil, including European and British soils, could vanish within about 60 years if drastic action was not taken.

This will lead to a global food crisis, chronic food shortages and higher prices, the conference heard.

Despite better than average farming practices, European soil might last for 100 years if no further damage occurs worldwide, scientists said.

In reality, however, increased land pressures aimed at compensating global production losses would likely mean it will run out faster, they added.

From the Telegraph. While stuff like this would allow food production to continue in industrialized countries, a huge chunk of the world's population lives in places that may not have the necessary infrastructure... which means mass starvation. Of course, we may see mass starvation well before then, depending on how much of an impact climate change has on agriculture.

An ominous sign for the future of California

There isn't enough fresh water:

Mike Chrisman looks out from his SUV as he drives through seemingly endless rows of walnut trees on his property near Visalia, in central California. "I have to be optimistic, I'm so tied to this land," he says. His great-grandfather, after trying his luck in the Gold Rush, settled in Visalia in the 1850s, and the family has been there ever since.

But as California's secretary for natural resources – a job at the intersection of the environmental and farming lobbies, perennially at loggerheads over the state's scarcest resource, water – Chrisman also knows that optimism has become a minority view.

His land is in California's Central Valley, a region that covers 19 counties and stretches for 725 kilometres from the Cascade Mountains in the north to the Tehachapis in the south, and is bounded in the east by the Sierra Nevada and the west by California's Coast Ranges.

Much of it was an inland sea in its geological past, and its alluvial soils and Mediterranean climate make parts of it, particularly the San Joaquin Valley in the south, about the most fertile agricultural region in the world.

But this status is at risk because water, the vital ingredient to make the soil productive, is increasingly scarce. Some of the reasons are natural; California has been in one of its periodic droughts since 2006, and climate change is a long-term threat to the state's mountain snowpacks.

Others are political; the pumps and aqueducts that carry water from the wetter north to the dry fields in the south are creaking with age, threatening ecosystems and endangering species.

And the absurd thing is, Californians use insane amounts of water simply making their lawns and golf courses look nice and green. They really need a reality check, though I fear their answer to the problem will be to push for something like this.