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"Kent's announcement is a either a bad joke or an insult to the intelligence of Canadians. It's amazing he can make these announcements with a straight face," John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, said in a news release.

"Coal is the easiest source of greenhouse gases to deal with because cleaner alternatives are already cost-competitive," said Keith Stewart of Greenpeace Canada. "If the federal government is prepared to gut its proposed coal regulations this way, then the oil lobby must be smiling while they sharpen their knives."

BP reached a damage settlement with plaintiffs of the Deepwater Horizons disaster back in March 2012. The new Department of Justice filing would quadruple the civil damages BP must pay to $21 billion.

"The behavior, words, and actions of these BP executives would not be tolerated in a middling size company manufacturing dry goods for sale in a suburban mall," government lawyers wrote in the filing on August 31 in federal court in New Orleans.

The project is also subject to federal review, and an environmental comprehensive report, under the original Canadian Environmental Act. A cooperative federal-provincial environmental assessment has been underway since 2010, with EIS guidelines being issued in March 2012.

Manitoba Wildlands participated in the review of the project scoping document, which was used as the basis for EIS guidelines. We have posted updates to our Keeyask contents, see links below.

Recently participants filed motions to adjourn CEC proceedings until all EIS materials are received, reviewed, and able to be applied to the CEC proceedings. These motions were refused. With EIS materials still outstanding, including in response to formal requests from the Manitoba government licensing branch, the proposed hearings start in early October seems optimistic.

Manitoba has begun a multi year pattern of environment act proposals for hydro projects, with public reviews, assessments, and public hearings. These may be scheduled in relation to the assumed in service dates for Bipole III, Keeyask, and other dams, transmission projects, plus sale agreements for exports of hydro electricity.

'There is unequivocal evidence that Earth's lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research.'

The AMS is currently supporting a campaign to educate the public and the media on the subject of climate change. A recent survey of weather forecasters in the US showed a distinct lack of understanding of climate change and more than a 50% denial rate of climate change. The AMS is citing this lack of understanding and belief in scientific research as the reason why public opinion and US policy continues to turn a blind eye to impacts human activity is having when it comes to climate change.

"Your plan, your land, your future? This is not our plan it's the governments plan to annihilate our lands and our future. There are no commitments to our people and no protection of our lands and rights. We thought we were working towards a partnership with the government, but this plan doesn't reflect that," states Chief Allan Adam of ACFN.

"The plan's management framework is riddled with significant gaps and it gives far too much discretion to government decision-makers," said Barry Robinson, Ecojustice staff lawyer. "Until those gaps are addressed and a better regulatory system is installed, the Alberta government shouldn't approve any further oilsands developments in the area."

"If you care about clean air, fresh water and wild salmon you should be very, very concerned," said Gwen Barlee, Wilderness Committee policy director.

"It's death by a thousand cuts. All these little projects are destroying habitat and Ottawa is ignoring that," said Otto Langer, retired head of habitat assessment and planning for the federal fisheries department in B.C.

The cancelled reviews are a direct result of the Government of Canada's omnibus budget bill, which passed May 2012, modifying or replacing 69 pieces of legislation. This included completely replacing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

"Sadly in Canada right now when the oil industry says jump, the government asks how high," said Hannah McKinnon, campaign director of Climate Action Network Canada, a coalition of environmental, labour union and faith-based groups.

The number of environmental reviews cancelled in each Canadian province are as follows: Alberta (348), British Columbia (492), Manitoba (87), New Brunswick (141), Newfoundland and Labrador (152), Northwest Territories (6), Nova Scotia (151), Nunavut (1), Ontario (561), PEI (24), Quebec (295), Saskatchewan (638), Yukon (1).

Global Footprint Network (GFN), a California-based environmental research organization assesses Earth Overshoot Day each year. They calculate humanity currently uses more than 1.5 times the Earth's regenerative capacity in a year.

"Overshoot can be thought of as living off your credit card. Humanity is living off its ecological credit card," explains Global Footprint Network Associate Director Susan Burns.

Throughout most of history, humanity has stayed within the planet's carrying capacity. But since the mid 1970's, we've been using more resources than can be replenished, meaning we keep going deeper and deeper into the hole.

Each year, "Earth Overshoot Day" comes sooner. In 1992 GFN estimated that Earth Overshoot Day fell on October 21, by 2002 it was October 3, and by 2009 it was September 25. If current trends continue unchanged, we are on track to require the annual resources of two planets well before 2050.

"Our ecological overspending has become a vicious cycle, in which we draw down more and more principal at the same time our level of consumption, or "spending," grows. The social and economic costs could be staggering," said Dr. Mathis Wackernagel, Global Footprint Network President.

Stephen Kakfwi, former premier of the Northwest Territories is disappointed with the way the boundary lines are drawn. He said in an interview that Prime Minister Harper is protecting the mining interests more than environmental interests.

"Unfortunately I think Prime Minister Harper has let down Canadians in his choice," Kakfwi said. "That is not a national park, that is a joke." He went on to say that local people were put in a corner because it was either the smaller protected area than they desired, or no protection at all.

The boundaries of the new park reserve do not reflect scientific research or the overwhelming support from Canadians to protect the headwaters of the Nahanni watershed and critical wildlife habitat within.

Park Reserves are added to the schedule on Natural Park Act, and approved by the House of Commons and Senate.

"I looked at every combination of 12 months from September through August, January to December, March through to February. There never has been a warmer 12 months in [Winnipeg's] recorded history," Phillips said.

The average temperature in Winnipeg between Aug. 1, 2011 and Jul. 31, 2012 was 6 °C (43 °F). This shatters the record of 5.6 °C (42 °F) that stood since 1877, and is well above Winnipeg's historical median temperature of 2.6 °C (37 °F). The average temperature included highest and lowest each 24 hours, through all seasons.

Winnipeg is not the only place experiencing unusually warm weather.

The Mojave Desert town of Needles, California, experienced rainfall that fell to the ground at a scorching 46.1 °C (115 °F) on August 13, 2012 – the hottest rainfall ever recorded on the planet.

In Phoenix, Arizona, residents dealt with nine straight days (August 6th to 14th, 2012) with the mercury above 43 °C (110 °F).

"It's becoming very hard to not conclude that global warming is decidedly here, especially with the extreme events and the record runs like the one we've just experienced," said Dr. Danny Blair, the associate dean of science and director of the Climate Studies Institute at the University of Winnipeg.

Blair said weather patterns are largely determined by jet streams -- and these streams are affected when the patterns of the Earth's surface change.

About 7,000 cubic kilometres of ice remained at the end of last summer. By contrast, in 2004 there was 13,000 cubic km of sea ice in the Arctic.

"Very soon we may experience the iconic moment when, one day in the summer, we look at satellite images and see no sea ice coverage in the Arctic, just open water," said Dr. Seymour Laxon, with London's Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling.

The consequences of losing Arctic ice coverage, even for only part of the year, could be profound. The ice caps reflect sunlight back into space, without them the region will heat up even more than at present. As a result, ocean temperatures will rise and methane deposits could melt, evaporate and bubble into the atmosphere. Methane is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas and rising levels in the atmosphere are likely to accelerate global warming.

"Our greatest concern is that loss of Arctic sea ice creates a grave threat of passing two other tipping points -- the potential instability of the Greenland ice sheet and methane hydrates. These latter two tipping points would have consequences that are practically irreversible on time scales of relevance to humanity," said NASA's top climate scientist, James Hansen.

Governments must act to prevent a global food crisis that may "hit us very soon," said Shenggen Fan, director-general of the International Food Policy Research Institute.

The United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called on the United States to suspend the mandate that results in 40% of the corn going to make biofuel. Suspension of the quota would allow more of the crop to go for food production.

"With world prices of cereals rising, the competition between the food, feed and fuel sectors for crops such as maize, sugar and oilseeds is likely to intensify. One way to alleviate some of the tension would be to lower or temporarily suspend the mandates on biofuels," stated Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the UN FAO.

The US Renewable Fuels Standard, or RFS, has long been controversial, with many blaming the quota for pushing up corn prices. The RFS requires 13.2 billion gallons of ethanol to be made from corn in 2012.

The United Nations and Food Policy Research Institute are not alone in calling for the US quota to be suspended. Livestock producers in the US, worried about the cost of cattle feed, also want it scrapped and the governments of China, India and France have expressed concerns about the policy.