For a good dose of sanity on GMOs, hunger, and post-oil farming, check out Ann Clark, plant physiologist and farmer, in Bold Scientists. Read an excerpt here.
Tuesday, February 24, 1 – 3 pm. Michael Riordon at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, north of Bloor. Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium, ground floor, right-hand side of the building, back corner. More detail here. Map here.
Wednesday, February 25, 7 – 10 pm. Michael Riordon at Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham Street, one minute west of the Bathurst subway stop on the Bloor line (Markham Street exit). More detail here. Map here.
* February 22 – 28, 2015: Celebrate and defend Freedom to Read (and think, and speak, and share ideas….)
Great minds don’t think alike. They think differently. Bring yours.
The more people learn about the extreme dangers of bitumen, tar sands oil slurry, the more resistance grows along the planned routes of pipelines to transport the toxic muck across country to refineries and coastal ports. And as resistance grows, so do propaganda and dirty tricks from the industry and its partners in government.
Oil pipeline spill, Yellowstone River, 2011. Photo: The New York Times.
A new must-read exposé from PRWatch, a US-based investigative research group, takes an inside look at what we can expect in the escalating battle over the proposed TransCanada pipeline from Alberta to Quebec/New Brunswick, aka “Energy East”:
“Leaked documents expose a plan for TransCanada to launch an ‘aggressive’ American-style PR campaign to persuade Canadians to support a Canada-based alternative to the stalled Keystone XL pipeline, to get controversial tar sands oil to refineries in eastern Canada for export. [MR: Prices are higher overseas, and diminished domestic supplies will ensure higher prices here, too. Oil-pushers call this a win-win situation.]
“According to the documents, this Canada-centric campaign would actually be run out of an office in Washington, DC. And the digital campaign is being led by a rightwing American political operative employed by the world’s largest public relations firm…”
Their battle plan includes investigations [read: attacks] on Canadian groups opposing the pipeline, and recruitment of buyable scientists “to build an echo chamber of aligned voices.”
Tuesday, February 24, 1 – 3 pm. Michael Riordon at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street, north of Bloor. Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium, ground floor, right-hand side of the building, back corner. 
Michael Riordon 