Canada

"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."

"Despite recent announcements in Ottawa and Quebec that suggest asbestos will soon be a thing of the past, products made of the cancer-causing mineral are still being imported and used in Ontario today."

"The sign by the side of the highway is hard to miss: ASBESTOS. No, it’s not a health warning to motorists about hazardous material ahead. It’s the name of a proud community in southern Quebec, waging a fight to survive in an increasingly lonely stand against the world."