Ecojustice recaps the week in Canadian environmental news: August 10, 2012

By Pierre Hamilton, Communications Associate

Today we bring you the first in what will be a weekly feature. We’ll collect all the environmental news you need to read, hear or watch and share it with you. We’re calling it “Ecojustice recaps the week in Canadian environmental news.”

Climate & Energy

• Yesterday, the Globe and Mail editorial board questioned Ottawa’s decision to let Alberta and other provinces dismiss federal emissions regulations in favour of their own regulations. The elephant in the room is Alberta’s oil patch, whose growth threatens our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ("Ottawa still has a role to play in environmental regulation")
• Environment Minister Peter Kent on Wednesday told Canadians that we were “halfway” to our 2020 emission targets under the Copenhagen Accord. P.J. Partington of The Pembina Institute challenged that assessment in a blog titled, “Are we there yet? Closing the gap on Canada’s climate commitments.” 
• Today, photojournalists Paul Fletcher and Daniel Sikorskyi begin their “Ride The Pipe” trek. They’re following the planned route of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline, meeting people and telling their stories along the way. We’ve contacted Paul and Daniel and are looking to share some of their content right here. 
• “A new age of abundant oil.” That’s what writer Chrystia Freeland labels this boom in oilsands, shale gas and something called pre salt oil in the Globe and Mail’s “The coming oil boom, and resulting environmental battle.” 

Wildlife & Wilderness

• Water levels in the Great Lakes are low, endangering fish spawning grounds and wetlands that provide a home for many species. But the International Joint Commission wants to know what you think Canadian and U.S. governments should do about it. Listen to the earlier report from CBC’s Morning North here and learn how you can have your say at the updated article, “Great Lakes low water levels need more public input: mayor.”
• The Vancouver Sun reports that two B.C. fish farms will kill hundreds of thousands of their Atlantic salmon stocks because they tested positive for an infectious virus, IHN, which may pose a threat to wild salmon. We’re still waiting for the Cohen Commission’s final report on the 2009 collapse of wild sockeye salmon stocks in British Columbia. In that case, a different infectious virus was discovered in wild sockeye salmon. 

People & Health

• Could a herbicide be no more toxic than table salt? Newfoundland and Labrador’s transportation minister seems to think so after defending his government’s decision to reduce roadside vegetation with chemicals in the hope of preventing moose from wandering onto roads and colliding with vehicles. Watch the story at the CBC. One of the chemicals, 2, 4-D, is banned for cosmetic use in Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador over concerns that its toxic.

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