Planet Haliburton

From the “Public Power” of Ontario Hydro to the “Public Pharma” of Connaught Labs, public enterprise has achieved great outcomes for Canadians only to be privatized and sold off to those more interested in making profit than serving people. Join us for a conversation about Canada’s fascinating public enterprise history and post-pandemic prospects with award winning author and activist, Linda McQua...

4800+ front-line healthcare workers in Ontario infected by the virus more than 1 in 6 of all those who’ve tested positive in Ontario 30% of those infected under age 60 are front-line health workers one of the worst national records in the world on a per capita basis Join us for a conversation about PPE and Covid-19 with Michael Hurley, President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Council o...

Many argue that a return to pre-pandemic personal and working life will have to await the development of an effective and safe vaccine – something that’s by no means guaranteed as we have seen with other recent coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS. But, even if a safe, effective and affordable Covid-19 vaccine becomes widely available, will it be embraced by a sufficient percentage of the populatio...

It turns out that the presence of tiny creatures making their homes at the water’s edge can tell us a lot about water quality and the health of adjacent shorelines. And, as we know healthy shorelines are essential to the water quality of Haliburton’s incredible lakes, streams and wetlands. Recently, The U-links Centre for Community Based Research, headquartered in Minden, partnered with six Lake A...

<p>Three of the four townships in Haliburton County have established septic reinspection programs and the 4th, Minden Hills, is about to launch its variation in the near future.</p><p>Programs vary tremendously from one township to the next and some inspectors and waste treatment experts question the capacity of the majority of the county’s programs to actually identify key struc...

<p>As of April 6th, 26 residents of the 65-bed Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon have died from covid-19. The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care says that 50+ nursing home residents have died across the province with 44 homes reporting active covid-19 outbreaks. Clearly, Long Term Care facilities, which are home to significant numbers of elderly residents with underlying healt...

<p> Today we take a look at the water level situation within the so-called RaFT or reservoir and flow through lakes portion of the Trent Severn Waterway (TSW).</p><p> The spring melt is now well underway in the northern-most reaches of the TSW, and a lot of people are wondering about the prospects for high water, ice damage and flooding throughout the system.</p><p> T...

<p> Can we protect those natural shorelines from ongoing decline without undermining shoreline landowner property rights or the shoreline landscape industry?</p><p> To shed some light on this and other questions related to the draft County Shoreline Preservation By-law, we speak with shoreline naturalization expert, Julia Sutton.</p><p><br><...

<p>On the next episode of Planet Haliburton we examine the science and regulatory issues related to natural shoreline protection. Natural shorelines perform a range of important ecological functions essential to the environmental and economic health of Haliburton County. But they’re are under increasing pressure due to shoreline development and redevelopment.</p><p>&...

<p>Ever wonder about how taxpayers, like me and you, end up subsidizing large carbon-intensive and climate disrupting projects, like the Trans-Mountain and GasLink pipelines, across this country?</p><p> And just how much demand really exists for more pipeline capacity to get Alberta’s tar sand bitumen to tidewater?</p><p> To lift the rug on these and...

<p>In this episode of Planet Haliburton Short Takes, we focus on the debate surrounding the recent tabling of a draft County-wide Shoreline Preservation Bylaw. A massive 60 lake, 12,000 property “Love Your Lake” shoreline heath assessment was carried out across Haliburton County by the Coalition for Haliburton Property Owner’s Associations (CHA) between 2014 and 2018. That study found that o...

<p>On the February 24th episode of Planet Haliburton we examine what Doug Ford has been up to since he eliminated the independent Office of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, almost one year ago. Why did Doug Ford go to the extraordinary length of passing legislation to fire Ontario’s public environmental watchdog 2 years before her 5 year term of office was set to expire?&l...

<p>Ever wonder about the environmental footprint associated with what happens to your body after you die? How does the carbon intensity of a conventional burial in a finished casket surrounded by a concrete vault, for example, compare to the carbon emissions caused by cremation?</p><p><br></p><p>The Green Burial Movement has been at the forefront of raising inco...

<p>On the next episode of PH we take a close look at the role Haliburton’s wetlands play in limiting future climate change as well as adapting to the warming already in the pipeline. Ontario is home to an astounding 25% of Canada’s and 6% of the world’s wetlands.</p><p><br></p><p>Haliburton’s almost 20,000 acres of wetlands, sequester a huge amount of c...

<p>On the next episode of Planet Haliburton we take a hard look at the climate crisis and the health of Ontario’s Boreal Forest. Discussion about slowing down, stopping, or even reversing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere place a lot of faith in the world’s forests as virtually inexhaustible carbon storehouses. But are Canada’s and Ontario’s forests really the carbon sinks we t...

<p>On Friday December 20, 2019 the last vehicle rolled off the assembly line at the GM Oshawa Plant throwing 5,000 direct employees out of work as well as eliminating an additional 10,000 indirect supplier jobs across Ontario.</p><p><br></p><p>On September 13, 2019, in the middle of the federal election campaign, Green Jobs Oshawa and the Canadian Worker Co-op F...

<p>Ever get frustrated when told that you need to get rid of something because it’s cheaper to trash it than repair it? Repairs Cafes, active in 1500 locations across 33 countries, bring people together with a communities of local “fixers” to provide an alternative to just junking stuff that breaks down.</p><p><br></p><p>On the next episode of Planet Ha...

<p>With senior levels of government repeatedly failing to meet their own voluntary targets under international climate change agreements, the call has gone out for political and economic leaders at the municipal and community level to step into the breach. In Haliburton County, the Four Townships have each opted into a County-wide Climate Change Planning process that’s gathering steam with t...

The January 29, 2018 episode of Planet Haliburton will feature an interview with Geoff Coulson, Weather Preparedness Meteorologist with Environment Canada, focusing on extreme weather notifications and other information available to individuals and communities trying to adapt to the increased incidence of extreme weather associated with climate change.

Residential, commercial, and industrial buildings are the third largest source of carbon emissions in Ontario accounting for about 37% of energy use and 20% of C02 emissions. Emissions have been going up within the sector at a time when we need to be making serious reductions.

Is there an economic model that can provide good living standards for everyone without destroying the planet? Join us for a discussion of these and related questions with Richard Swift, author of the 2014 book “SOS: Alternatives to Capitalism”.

With multiple environmental crises, from extreme weather to biodiversity loss, coming home to roost, interest in building ecologically sustainable communities is on the rise. But what do truly sustainable communities look like and how we can go about building them, especially in rural Ontario?

Sometimes the whole idea of enacting positive environmental change on an individual level can seem overwhelming.  Please join us as we talk with Jessica Correa, founder and owner of Random Acts of Green – RAOG . Jessica will tell us how to work toward positive change as individuals and how to use social media as a tool to make this happen. You won’t want to miss this positive, energetic conversati...

As land-based animals, we often don’t appreciate just how important healthy oceans are to all life on the planet. Yet, one third of the oxygen we breath comes from zooplankton, whose coral nurseries are dying from warming and acidifying seas – caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.

Lake Associations across Haliburton County have been focused on water quality, healthy shorelines and healthy septic systems for years. Some lake associations have consistently taken a leadership role and built proactive programs in an attempt to head off problems before they get out of hand.