Canada

"Susan Rice, the candidate believed to be favored by President Obama to become the next Secretary of State, holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline. If confirmed by the Senate, one of Rice's first duties likely would be consideration, and potentially approval, of the controversial mega-project."

"It is known that mountain pine beetle infestations have the potential to raise nearby air temperatures by killing off trees that provide a natural refrigerator effect for forests. Now, researchers are releasing hard numbers documenting how the pests' invasions affected a specific place."

"WINDSOR, Ontario -- For more than three decades, workers, most of them women, have complained of dreadful conditions in many of this city’s plastic automotive parts factories: Pungent fumes and dust that caused nosebleeds, headaches, nausea and dizziness. Blobs of smelly, smoldering plastic dumped directly onto the floor. 'It was like hell,' says one woman who still works in the industry."

The Conservative Harper government is discouraging Environment Canada scientists from talking to news media about their published findings on pollution from oilsands.

"OTTAWA -- To attract Chinese investment for development of the Alberta oil sands and other natural resources, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is pushing through a treaty that gives away Canadian legislative and judicial sovereignty with no public debate, warns a Canadian international investment law expert and law professor."

"High-profile U.S. protesters against the Canadian oil sands are taking their activism north this week, as the battle over a pipeline that would send crude to Asia enters a critical regulatory stage."

"CALGARY -- The ugly scars left on the northern Alberta landscape by the oil sands have prompted calls from around the world for an independent body to gather data on the ecological damage wrought by the energy industry."

"Climate change contributed to a fivefold increase in weather-related natural disasters in North America over the past three decades, according to Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer."

"Budget cuts to the ozone monitoring department were $13.3m this year, the 25th anniversary of the Montreal protocol."