News stories by Stephen Leahy

Jan 22 (IPS) - I wasn’t going to stop for the school bus stuck in the mud outside of Fort McMurray, Alberta in the heart of the Canada’s tar sands industry but my kids insisted. It had been raining most of the week and the grassy field was soaked and slick. We stopped and got out and looked at the 12,000 kilogram bus uselessly spinning its wheels, digging deeper into the mud. Someone got the driver to stop, essentially saying you’re making a bad problem worse.

ONTARIO, Canada, Feb 08 (IPS) - Canada introduced a new healthy eating food guide January 2019 and, for the first time, the meat, dairy and processed food and beverage industries were not involved. Based on the recommendations of health and nutrition experts, the guide places a new emphasis on eating plants, drinking water and cooking at home.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Dec 05 (IPS) - Despite the deep, cold waters, newly discovered undersea mountains off Canada's west coast are home to a rich diversity of life.

CHURCHILL, Canada, Nov 26 (IPS) - It's almost always cold in Churchill, Manitoba, a remote coastal community on Hudson Bay in Canada's subarctic region. Today, a month before winter officially begins, it's -25 degrees C with a fierce wind coming off Hudson Bay which is thick with slabs of ice. Situated in the middle of Canada, it's the world's largest saltwater bay. And even though frozen solid eight months of the year, the bay sustains the nearly 800 residents of Churchill which is known as the "Polar Bear Capital" of the world.

VIENNA, May 14 (IPS) - It may be the 21^st century but more than three billion people still use fire for cooking and heating. Of those, one billion people have no access to electricity despite a global effort launched at the 2011 Vienna Energy Forum to bring electricity to everyone on the planet.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 24 (IPS) - The Carbon Law says human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions must be reduced by half each decade starting in 2020. By following this "law" humanity can achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by mid-century to protect the global climate for current and future generations.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 08 (IPS) - In the course of human history many tens of thousands of communities have survived and thrived for hundreds, even thousands, of years. Scores of these largely self-sustaining traditional communities continue to this day in remote jungles, forests, mountains, deserts, and in the icy regions of the North. A few remain completely isolated from modern society.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Mar 26 (IPS) - Pollution is likely to be the most pressing global health issue in the coming years without effective prevention and clean-up efforts, experts say.

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Nov 17 (IPS) - This December, 195 nations plus the European Union will meet in Lima for two weeks for the crucial U.N. Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, known as COP 20. The hope in Lima is to produce the first complete draft of a new global climate agreement.

BONN, Oct 27 (IPS) - China and the United States are responsible for 35 percent of global carbon emissions but could do their part to keep climate change to less than two degrees C by adopting best energy efficiency standards, a new analysis shows.