Bob Weber

Sep 19, 2024 | sootoday.com | Bob Weber

WINNIPEG — A court has been asked to declare Lake Winnipeg a person with constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of person in a case that may go further than any other in trying to establish the rights of nature in Canada. "It really is that simple," said Grand Chief Jerry Daniels of the Manitoba Southern Chiefs' Organization, which filed the suit Thursday in Court of King's Bench in Winnipeg. "The lake has its own rights.

Sep 16, 2024 | castanet.net | Bob Weber

Alberta's energy minister is promising strong action by next fall to clean up the province's growing backlog of unreclaimed oil and gas sites. "There are many oil wells to reclaim and the current system is unlikely to see them reclaimed," Brian Jean said in an interview with The Canadian Press. But Jean said industry might need help from public finances to live up to its legal obligations, as well as lower municipal tax burdens and a lighter regulatory approach. "I don't like sticks.

Aug 26, 2024 | vancouverisawesome.com | Bob Weber

The Alberta Energy Regulator seems to be going ahead with hearings on coal exploration in the Rocky Mountains despite a court ruling that opened the question of whether those applications should have been accepted. The regulator has promised to hold public hearings into three applications from Northback Holdings to explore for coal on the Grassy Mountain site in southwestern Alberta. It released a document dated Aug. 21 that lays out a schedule for hearings in December and January.

Aug 21, 2024 | castanet.net | Bob Weber

The largest study of Canada's catastrophic 2023 wildfire season concludes it is "inescapable" that the record burn was caused by extreme heat and parching drought, while adding the amount of young forests consumed could make recovery harder. And it warns that the extreme temperatures seen that year were already equivalent to some climate projections for 2050.

Aug 5, 2024 | castanet.net | Bob Weber

They lurk in the murky depths of some of Alberta's biggest rivers, living fossils from when giant lizards strode the earth. But a prominent fisheries biologist fears the province's lake sturgeon may finally share the fate of the dinosaurs because of growing pressure on water resources. "The more you shrink the area in which a critter lives, the greater the chances are that critter could wink out," said Lorne Fitch, a retired provincial biologist, university professor and author.