2020

CBC News has just released results from an opinion poll taken midway through the 2010 Olympic Games. The poll, conducted by Environics, asked people two questions.

"We know the fault lines because we have been imprisoned by them for years - the time for talk is over." So said President Obama in his speech at COP15 in Copenhagen. Obama called for unified action rather than delay and repeating "the same stale arguments" while the climate change problem escalated.

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

They expected 8.7 million sockeye salmon to return to the Fraser River this summer. Only 600,000 turned up. Only 7% of what was expected. It's the third year of low returns.

What's happened to all the salmon?

The British Government today released a map that shows the temperatures in Northern Canada rising by 12c and rising by 15c to 16c in the Northern Arctic by 2060 due to climate change.

The recession may have slowed global consumption down a bit, but we're still consuming our planet's finite resources faster than it can replenish them, according to the Global Footprint Network.

Friday was an ignominious milestone: Earth entered ecological debt.

Advance voting for the British Columbia provincial elections starts in three days (Wednesday 6 May). General Election Day is on 12 May, 2009. There's also a referendum on changing to a fairer voting system the BC Single Transferable Vote or BC-STV (vote yes).

Kevin Falcon, B.C. Transportation Minister, no longer wants to twin the Port Mann Bridge. Unfortunately, it's not because he's had an epiphany, seeing that there's no place for massive road infrastructure projects in a future with peak oil and climate change.

By 2020 Vancouverites will probably still be paying the bill for the 2010 Olympics.

It's been well documented that the social malaise that accompanies economic downturns allows radical groups and fringe parties to expand their sphere of influence and power.