NDP MP Pat Martin said Tuesday the Canadian delegation did not even participate in the discussions this year but got others to work on their behalf instead.
He accused the Canadians of browbeating developing nations such as India, Pakistan and Vietnam — some of Canada's largest chrysotile customers — into opposing its inclusion on the list.
"It's not a proud day for our country," said Martin, who attended the convention and spoke by telephone from Rome.
Well, I am not sure if the Clean Air Act has all the right tools to regulate CO2, but the kind of vehicle-to-vehicle and plant-to-plant focus that the Clean Air Act brings could be a good starting point. If the court decides in favor of the states, and the EPA can get its rule making together, we can start seeing regulation in 5 years. I am not sure if this is early enough, and it is definitely insufficient. A “pollutant” as ubiquitous as CO2 needs a a comprehensive national and global policy effort even bigger than the Montreal Protocol to be effective. Kyoto was meant to be a starting point, but is stalled at the moment.
Forcing motor vehicles to lower their emissions and increase efficiency is a no-brainer. If it takes the Clean Air Act to make this happen, I am all for it! But this will not really address the power plants that are the other huge contributor, most of the existing plants will be grandfathered in and as we know from previous experience, these grandaddies are bionic and immortal!
Any chance that the Supreme Court will find in favor of this addition? I don’t think so. I predict 6-3 for the government on this one.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider whether the Bush administration must regulate carbon dioxide to combat global warming, setting up what could be one of the court’s most important decisions on the environment. A dozen states, a number of cities and various environmental groups asked the court to take up the case after a divided lower court ruled against them. They argue that the Environmental Protection Agency is obligated to limit carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles under the federal Clean Air Act because as the primary ”greenhouse” gas causing a warming of the earth, carbon dioxide is a pollutant.
As CO2 levels in the atmosphere increase, plants uptake less water from the soil. Betts’ model indicates that there could be a 6 percentage point increase due to this effect on top of the 11% increase in global water flows due to direct climate effects.
Researchers say efforts to calculate flooding risk from climate change do not take into account the effect carbon dioxide (CO2) has on vegetation. Higher atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas reduce the ability of plants to suck water out of the ground and “breathe” out the excess. Plants expel excess water through tiny pores, or stomata, in their leaves. Their reduced ability to release water back into the atmosphere will result in the ground becoming saturated.
Anyone want? I don’t think this household is ever going to consume. About 80% of original capacity
I posted this on social media last week and an interesting conversation ensued. I was hoping someone would take the cereal off my hands as it had sat in my pantry for a while. This is not what happened. Instead, there was a fun discussion on this iconic Canadian cereal which, incidentally, got bought by a US company, then retired last year (per wikipedia). The taste and texture of red river cereal are a polarizing topic, and the cereal was frequently associated with grandparents of the prairies!
No one took the box off my hands, but many ideas were offered. So, challenge accepted. I’ll try and finish this box off!
Basic Savoury Hot Cereal
I am watching my sugar intake, so I usually eat my oatmeal savoury. Given mornings are busy, I needed to do something easy and almost unattended. So, took my cereal bowl, added a 1/3 cup of Red River, a bit more than 2/3rd cup water and put it in the Instant Pot to cook at high pressure for 10 minutes. Key here is to use pot in pot mode where your cooking bowl sits on a trivet inside the main pot, which has a cup of water in it to provide the steam. This approach is painless, less work than microwaving oatmeal even and no extra dishes. Half an hour later (I did this while I was making coffee), the pressure released and I opened the Instant Pot up to a fluffy, well cooked, but nicely textured hot cereal. My kid even had a few spoons with honey and they’ve sworn off oatmeal recently!
I added some yogurt, chopped up strawberries and cashews, and some store-bought coriander chutney for flavour. This was tasty! I liked it quite a bit more than oatmeal. There was more texture and body, and the porridge’s taste was nutty, but neutral enough to not get in the way of all the fruit and coriander chutney flavour bombs.
So, this is a keeper and the toppings will vary, so will the flavours.
Deaths related to cardiovascular disease occur 5 to 10 years earlier in South Asian countries than in Western countries, according to background information in the article. This has raised the possibility that South Asians exhibit a special susceptibility for acute myocardial infarction (AMI; heart attack) that is not explained by traditional risk factors.
But why?
The prevalence of protective risk factors (leisure time physical activity, regular alcohol intake, and daily intake of fruits and vegetables) were markedly lower in South Asian study participants compared with those from other countries.
Um, it is mainly behavioral, not genetic according to the authors, and hence can be mitigated by lifestyle changes.
Well, I guess it is time to take a personal stock as of 1-18-2007:
Weight – Well, I am in the lower end of the healthy BMI.
Exercise – 4-5 days of 45 minutes – 1 hour per day, pretty good.
Food – Well, mostly good, especially if the candy can be avoided. I need to eat more vegetables, but I eat a lot of high fibre, and whole wheat food, probably not enough protein, mostly vegetarian.
Alcohol (1-2 drinks is apparently a heart protector) – Amen, I am a religious one drink a day partaker, more on weekends :-;
Smoking – Well, gave that up a while back, now to quit that occasional “party” smoke.
Stress – Well, not so good, this is probably the area I would need to work on the most.
Hypertension – Well, I am borderline on my blood pressure readings 🙁 Need to work on that.
Cholesterol – Still waiting for results on my physical.
On the whole, I seem to be in decent shape. It’s good to take stock once in a while.
A virus that has already killed tens of thousands of fish in the eastern Great Lakes is spreading, scientists said, and now threatens almost two dozen aquatic species over a wide swath of the lakes and nearby waterways.
The virus, a mutated pathogen not native to North America that causes hemorrhaging and organ failure, is not harmful to humans, even if they eat contaminated fish. But it is devastating to the ecosystem and so unfamiliar, experts said, that its full biological impact might not be clear for years. It is also having a significant impact on the lakes’ $4 billion fishing industry.
There is no known treatment for the virus. As a result, scientists are focusing on managing its spread to uncontaminated water — quite a challenge since the Great Lakes are linked and fall under the jurisdiction of several states and provinces in Canada.
