Erik BJORGAN for Parliament

Vanessa Farquharson,
National Post

Film Review: Petropolis (3 stars)

While the debate over Alberta’s tar sands continues to rage, Toronto filmmaker Peter Mettler offers us a silent, 43-minute montage of aerial shots, taken from a helicopter flying over the Athabasca river, which together make one of the most profound statements on this issue to date.

A complete departure from his previous documentary, Gambling, Gods and LSD, Petropolis is at once a quiet meditation on the transformation of serene forest into industrial nightmare and an unabashedly-presented-by-Greenpeace political statement, soaked in a subtext of shame.

http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=2469703

and

http://www.petropolis-film.com

Canadian agriculture salutes Margaret Webb of the Toronto Star for this exceptional piece of work.

Follow the flow of food. That’s what any farmer will tell you. Because apples don’t grow in supermarkets. So to get to the root of the exploding obesity epidemic, I went in search of a junk food farm.

Such farms are not so easy to spot. No fields of Dorito bags waving in the breeze, no orchards blooming with soda pop, no soil bursting with 99-cent burgers.

What you do see are vast operations growing the raw materials for junk food: soybeans and corn.

The two crops go into the production of many things: pharmaceuticals, industrial products, animal feed – and inexpensive calories.

Tonnes of soybeans and corn are turned into “edible food-like substances,” as food system critic Michael Pollan calls them, used in virtually all processed foods, beverages and junk food.

Last year, Ontario farmers planted 2.4 million acres of soybeans and just over 2 million acres of corn. That’s nearly half of all cropland in the province, a near-colonization of Ontario farms by the soy and corn industry.

It has provided an abundance of cheap calories for a food system that operates by Doritos economics. A bushel of corn produces some 440 two-ounce bags of 99-cent chips. Farmer grosses $3.70 for the bushel of corn, Doritos more than $440.

Read the rest of this article … http://www.agridigest.com/featureWherejunk.html

Dear Premier Campbell, Minister Shea, Eric Foster MLA Vernon-Monashee,
Colin Mayes MP Okanagan-Shuswap

Similar to other forms of “factory” farming, wherever in the world salmon is farmed in open net-cages, disease outbreaks cannot be controlled. The Chilean industry has been devastated by Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) for two years and both Scotland and Norway continue to discover new cases. North America is not immune to viral diseases.

The constant threat of a disease running rampant through the industry’s open net-cages puts our wild fish at unacceptable levels of risk.

This week, governments around the world are being asked to take responsibility for making salmon farming safe for wild fish stocks and ocean ecosystems. Please let me know what specific actions your governments are taking to address the impacts of open net-cages.

Sincerely,
Russ Collins and Huguette Allen,
130 Shuswap River Dr
Lumby V0E 2G6
250-547-0272

Monsanto has come out with a new GMO corn called SmarStax which is anything but smart. It consists of 8 traits stacked together and has been authorized by the CFIA without an assessment by Health Canada for human health effects.

Yes this is the same CFIA that prevents us from buying organic chickens from our neighbour because they might be “unsafe”.

Today is the the first international Day of Action Against Multinational Corporations and the Green party of Canada has joined citizens around the planet who support this day. see http://www.greenparty.ca/media-release/2009-10-16/smartstax-not-smart

It is worth noting that while Canada let GMO sugar beet be planted, California has ruled them out, saying that they prevent anyone else from growing non-GMO beets – of course, pollen mixes.

If you care to stop this new dangerous breed of corn, sign letter at: http://cban.ca/content/view/full/540 – for more information on dangers associated with this see: http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/press/press-releases/cfia-rubber-stamping?mode=send

http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/environment/2009/09/10/arctic-may-be-changed-forever-study-finds.html
Study documents ecosystem-wide changes to global warming across Arctic.

The dramatic changes sweeping the Arctic as a result of global warming aren’t just confined to melting sea ice and polar bears — a new study finds that the forces of climate change are propagating throughout the frigid north, producing different effects in each ecosystem with the upshot that the face of the Arctic may be forever altered. Read the rest of this entry »

by F. William Engdahl

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has just issued a call for an immediate moratorium on Genetically Manipulated Foods. (GMO)

In a just-released position paper on GMO foods, the AAEM states that ‘GM foods pose a serious health risk’ and calls for a moratorium on GMO foods. Citing several animal studies, the AAEM concludes ‘there is more than a casual association between GMO foods and adverse health effects’ and that ‘GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health.’ The report is a devastating blow to the multibillion dollar international agribusiness industry, most especially to Monsanto Corporation, the world’s leading purveyor of GMO seeds and related herbicides.

Agri-Digest
http://www.agridigest.com/featureGMOmoratprium.html