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Neonicotinoids ("new nicotine-like things") are among the most widely used insecticides, and are used predominantly to coat seeds. Neonicotinoids persist in the soil, can harm airborne insects, soil organisms, and waterborne insects. Neonicotinoids are "systemic", which means that they do not simply sit on the plant's surface but are taken up into the plant, so the plant become toxic to feeding insects. Unfortunately, neonicotinoids are present in the pollen and nectar of flowers fed on by honeybees.

Leaked U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) memos reveal the agency gave conditional approval to Clothianidin, a neonicotinoid based pesticides now in wide use, without requiring adequate proof that the chemical was safe to use around honeybees. EPA gave conditional approval in 2003, and allowed the chemicals to be sold, but told the manufacturing company, Bayer Crop Science, they needed to complete further safety testing regarding safety of use around honeybees. Bayer failed to do the testing for years, and instead sought and received an extension of the conditional permit to use the chemical. When Bayer finally performed the study, several deficiencies in conduct of the study were identified. EPA deemed the defective study acceptable and gave full registration to clothianidin in 2007.

Globally bee numbers have been on the decline in recent years, with beekeepers losing 30 to 90% of their hives since 2006. This phenomenon is dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Multiple scientific studies identify neonicotinoids as contributing factor. Bees pollinate 90% of the plants we grow and deliver an estimated $40 billion in annual pollination services.

European countries with neonicotinoids bans have seen improvements in bee populations.

"My objective is to fit into the big boots left by Jim Prentice and John Baird," said Kent, adding, "I'm not going to stand by while outsiders slander Canada, Canadian practices and values and our ethical oil products. Communications is going to be a big part of my job." Mr. Kent is the fifth Environment Minister in fiver years.

Ed Whitingham, newly appointed director of the Pembina Institute, issued the newly minted minister with a list of New Year Resolutions for Minister Kent:

• Resolution #1: Improve environmental monitoring of oilsands development and ensure existing rules are enforced.
• Resolution #2: Recognize the compelling scientific and economic reasons to take action on climate change and produce a real plan to move Canada forward.
• Resolution #3: Deliver a plan to phase out coal-powered electricity generation.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May stated, "Peter Kent will not do anything different. He was hired for his communications skills to skate around Canada's continuing sabotage of the climate process."

"We need an advocate in this government. It would be very disappointing and distressing to learn that right at the beginning that Mr. Kent has no ambition to improve what's generally seen as a failed ministry at this point," said Liberal Environment Critic Gerrard Kennedy.

"Peter Kent has very little experience in public administration and none whatsoever in the environment. Environment remains an extremely important portfolio for the future. We have moral, ethical and legal responsibilities towards future generations," said NDP Deputy Leader Thomas Mulcair.

If greenhouse gas emissions continue at current rates, scientist predicts that the Arctic Ocean could be completely free of permanent sea ice. The sea ice acts as a barrier which separates many marine mammal populations. With the loss of the ice, populations which have been isolated from each other for millennia could potentially interbreed. This could result in the disappearance of unique, adaptive characteristics.

"By melting the seasonal ice cap, we're speeding up evolution. People often talk about species adapting to climate change, but the kind of adaptation that's necessary is a change toward genes that fit the new climatic environment better than the old genes. Individuals don't adapt genetically. Populations do. That requires generations, which requires time. But we're talking about losing the Arctic summer sea ice in a matter of a few decades. So the time for adaptive response may not be there," lead author and NOAA scientist Brendan Kelly told OnEarth.org.

Since then communities and interested stakeholders have watched for the posting of the Poplar River First Nation Lands Plan, Asatiwisipe Aki Management Plan.

As of January 4, 2011 the plan is searchable on the Manitoba government web site. Unfortunately there is no web page location, no press release or notification, no information as to review or providing comments, no public registry in place.

A similar problem occurred in November 2010 with a non survey for the planning area with respect to this Act. What is available is officially noted as not being a survey, and was only available some days after the planning area regulation - which listed the survey.

"The question to ask in this situation is whether or not our government is serious about protecting the east side, and serious about supporting community driven lands plans for traditional lands. Perhaps the same question applies to the future world heritage site. And existing concerns about access to information and public reviews in Manitoba simple multiply when this happens," commented Gaile Whelan Enns.

Full details as to notification, posting, timelines, review and public comments for review of lands plans from East Side First Nations will be, presumably, put in place immediately.

A public meetings will be held in Winnipeg on January 12 from 7 - 9 p.m at Fort Garry United Church, located at 800 Point Road. Another public meeting will be booked for the Victoria Beach area.

The RM approval allows an engineer to begin preliminary planning for the wall. Then the proposal will be submitted to Manitoba's Shoreline Erosion Technical Committee for review and recommendations. The proponents want to start work in January and be finished by April.

Lake Winnipeg's shorelines suffered severe erosion following an October 27, 2010 weather bomb that caused winds of more than 90 kilometres per hour over Lake Winnipeg. With already high moisture levels and flooding expected in Spring 2011 some lakefront cottage owners are concerned about potential erosion of their properties and are pushing for the wall. Other residents are concerned about impacts the wall will have on the heavily used public beaches, and that the proposal is being hastily approved without adequately consulting the public.

"I believe we need a plan [for shoreline erosion], but I don't believe this [the wall proposal] is it. If we allow this to go on, we may lose the beach," said RM of Victoria Beach councillor Kathy McKibbin who voted against the proposal.

"People don't want to come to the beach in the summer and be gobsmacked with the construction," said RM Councillor Karen Boyd, who also then voted for the proposal on December 20th.

Reeve Tom Farrell, who voted in favour of the proposal on December 20th, indicated that the RM cannot always be asking for public input, which in this case could delay construction for a year. "Some of these decisions are not always pleasant," Farrell said.

It's the sixth year in a row Canada has been judged an international laggard, and placed near the bottom of the CCPI. For the 2010 report, Canada ranked 56th out of 57 countries evaluated.

"Although Canada scored poorly across the board, its national policies were its greatest source of weakness. Sadly, that's not a surprise, as the federal government has failed to put in place the key policies needed to cut Canada's greenhouse gas pollution. It's worth noting that Norway — like Canada, a cold country that exports oil and gas — finished third overall, earning a high score on climate policy," stated Matthew Bramley, Director of the Pembina Institute's climate change program.

The $16 billion Mackenzie Gas Project encompasses: (i) development of three onshore natural gas fields in the North West Territories (NWT) which pose a direct threat to a migratory bird sanctuary, endangered wildlife species and hundreds of streams and rivers; (ii) a 457-kilometre pipeline to carry natural gas liquids from Inuvik, Northwest Territories (NWT) to an existing oil pipeline at Norman Wells, NWT; and (iii) a 1,196-kilometre long Mackenzie Valley Pipeline which would run from the Beaufort Sea to northwestern Alberta carrying up to 34.3 million cubic metres (1.2 billion cubic feet) of natural gas per day to be used to power growing oil sands production.

The license application was filed in 2004 and the NEB began hearing evidence in January 2006. Final arguments were completed April 2010. In total, the Board held hearing sessions over 58 days in 15 communities throughout the Northwest Territories and Northern Alberta. More than 200 individuals and organizations participated in the NEB's hearing. The NEB attached 264 conditions that must be met for any federal permits and licenses. The project still requires Cabinet approval from the Canadian Federal Government.

The Mackenzie Gas Project has benefit and access agreements in three regions with the Inuvialuit, the Gwich'in and the Sahtu Dene. There is no agreement with the Dehcho who occupy 40 per cent of the land the proposed pipeline will go through in the southwest North West Territories.

"Canada is once again violating an agreement with our people and trying to open sensitive lands to industrial development. We'll fight them every step of the way," said Dehcho Grand Chief Samuel Gargan.

"If we were to stop oilsands mining tomorrow, we would still have an issue that was going to be associated with water -- both from the tailings ponds and from the potential threats on groundwater -- for many decades to come," said aquatic toxicology specialist and report co-author University of Guelph professor Glen Van Der Kraak.

The report is critical of industry and government and calls for increased monitoring and more rigorous scientific oversight. But it also dismisses any correlation between oil sands pollution and an elevated cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan, a Mikisew first nations community in Northern Alberta.

"All the studies that we've been conducting and all the information that we've been receiving states that there is something wrong. What about cumulative effects, after long periods of time?" responded Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

"We strive strongly for balance, not for sensationalism. For me, the take-home message of the report is we have very strong failures in our regulatory and oversight system, both at the federal and provincial levels. That needs urgent attention," said William Leiss, report co-author and a University of Ottawa professor.

In 2001 Tembec upgraded it's Pine Falls operations, with a resulting decrease in coal use and correspondingly emissions. However it was not until 2008 that the $3 million was given to Tembec, so the funding provided no net reductions in GHG emissions.

As Bellringer explains, contrary to government spin, this funding was not meant to reduce emissions, "...[the] case for this funding was built primarily on economic reasons... in response to concerns over the pending closure of the [Pine Falls, MB] plant." With the mill closed and no net reductions in emissions, Manitobans gained little from this funding.

Nor was this the only funding provided to Tembec before the mill closed down in September 2009. When the Manitoba Government announced an end to logging in provincial parks in December 2008 it also announced: "[a] total of just over $3 million in one-time financial compensation will be paid to Tembec and Tolko to reflect the cost of moving operations out of parks." None of the parklands where logging stopped have restoration plans or new regulations to protect these zones.

It remains unclear whether Tembec was obligated to pay any of this government funding back upon closure.

Even though the Tembec plant was closed Manitoba Conservation moved forward with review of a new twenty-year (2009-2028) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and Forest Stewardship Plan (FSP) in January 2010. Manitoba Wildlands submitted comments on the proposed EIS and FSP.

1. How the Canadian federal government responds to oil spills from ships
2. How Canada monitors the quantity and quality of our fresh water
3. How Canada supports adaptation to climate change impacts

"Canada still does not have a national plan to ensure the federal government is ready to respond to major incidents involving spills from vessels transporting all kinds of hazardous and noxious substances. The Canadian Coast Guard has unclear, incomplete, and unreliable data about oil spill responses, and cannot accurately determine the actual size of spills, how many spills required onsite responses, how many spills required the use of Canadian Coast Guard equipment, and the results of the cleanup efforts," says the Commissioner Vaughn's report.

"Environment Canada has been running the federal water quantity and water quality monitoring programs for about 40 years without knowing who - if anyone - is monitoring the quality of fresh water on federal lands," the report highlights, noting Environment Canada has water quality monitoring stations on only 12 of some 3,000 First Nation reserves.

The report recommends Environment Canada take the lead in a coordinating a government-wide response to climate change. This would include the sharing of tools and best practices "to improve how the government integrates climate-risk identification, assessment and adaptation into its decision making and planning."

"Such events can only become more frequent in the future because increased greenhouse gas levels guarantee that the climate will continue to warm, and a warmer world means less sea ice-in Hudson Bay and elsewhere. Scientists have projected that polar bears could disappear entirely by the end of the century if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced," said Dr. Steven Amstrup, Polar Bear International's senior scientist.

Polar bears are completely dependent upon large expanses of sea ice to hunt, feed and survive. They use the sea ice as a platform to capture seals and other prey. Polar bears in western Hudson Bay must come to land each spring when the sea ice melts. While onshore the bears fast until the ice freezes again losing up to 30 percent of their body mass.

Twenty years ago, the average date the bears returned to the ice was November 8. A decade ago that date stretched to November 20. In 2009 the bears returned to the ice on approximately December 4, and in 2010 the bears begun to return to the ice around December 7.

The western Hudson Bay polar bear population declined 22 percent between 1987 and 2004. If current trends persist it will likely be the first polar bear population driven extinct by global warming.

Achievements of the climate conference include:

• Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation - an agreement that could play a role in helping prevent deforestation of developing nations by paying poorer nations to stop cutting down forests;
• Establishment of a fund that will raise and disburse $100bn a year by 2020 to protect poor nations against climate impacts by assisting with low-carbon development.
• Mechanism to transfer low-carbon technologies to developing countries.
• Developing countries will have their emission-curbing measures subjected to international verification - when they have received the funds they have been promised by the west.

"Today's result chases away many of the ghosts of Copenhagen. Although the result is very far from perfect, the Cancun climate talks took real steps forward, including establishing a new global climate fund. Unfortunately Canada was singled out as a laggard among its peer countries, particularly on the question of the second phase of Kyoto," said Pembina Institute Policy Analyst Clare Demerse.

The next Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC is scheduled for Durban South Africa from 28 November to 9 December 2011.