Satire

It's Monday February 25th,

Dallas' Southern Methodist University has been selected as the future home of the George W Bush Presidential Library. It will house his presidential papers and a public policy institute in his honour.

Currently, archivists are puzzling over how best to preserve stacks and stacks of paper airplanes, cartoon doodles, and cocktail napkins covered with war plans.

This is The Current.

Anglican Split

Parishioners at three Anglican churches -- two in British Columbia and one in Ontario -- have voted to split from the Anglican Church of Canada and join up with the Province of the Southern Cone. That's the part of the Anglican church that covers South America.

In all, ten parishes have now split with the Canadian church, all of them because of a fundamental disagreement over its stance on blessing same sex unions.

Joyce Lee is a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Vancouver. That's one of the parishes that voted to leave the Anglican Church of Canada. The Current caught up with her after the vote to hear her thoughts.

The fight over the issue has left Steve Schuh in an awkward situation. He's a member of the Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod. He's also a spokesperson for Integrity Canada, a national organization for gay and lesbian Anglicans. And he worships at St. John's Shaughnessy in Vancouver, a parish that voted to split with the Canadian church earlier this month.

We spoke to Steve Schuh from Vancouver. Also joining us was The Most Reverend Gregory James Venables, Presiding Bishop of the Province of the Southern Cone. He's also the Bishop of Argentina and the leader of the parishes that have split with the Anglican Church of Canada. Archbishop Gregory James Venables spoke to us from Buenos Aires.

Listen to The Current:Part 1



The Current: Part 2


Seed Bank - Supporter

It's been dubbed the "Doomsday Vault" -- a multi-million-dollar storehouse buried deep in the side of a Norwegian mountain that is itself in the middle of a remote Arctic island. The vault is designed to withstand rising sea tides, missile attacks, ground assaults and pestilence, all in the name of preserving at least one of each and every agricultural seed on the planet.

The project is being financed by the Norwegian Government and overseen by a group called The Global Crop Diversity Trust. The idea is to secure our global food supply by creating a last line of defense against the extinction of the plants that feed us.

Among the dignitaries and scientists from around the world attending the official opening of the the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was Cary Folwer, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust. He spoke to us from Longyearbyen, Norway.


Seed Bank - Critic

Not everyone is reassured by the launch of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. In Canada, some seed growers prefer to maintain the diversity and health of our seed supply by growing and exchanging seeds with each other.

Dan Jason is the President of the Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada and spoke to us from Salt Spring Island in British Columbia.


Sound - Seed Savers

There are several ways of trying to preserve the world's seed supply. Robert and Carole Mouck are "seed savers." Every month, they invite about thirty people into their barn in order to pass on what they know -- about how to store carrot seeds for example -- or how to dry peas for seed.

They say the real problem is hybridization, a process that took over the seed business in the 1940s. Seed companies began producing hybrid seeds that guaranteed a good crop for one year but nothing after that. So the Moucks went looking for seeds from traditional "open pollenated" plants -- non-hybrids. And they began a collection called the Heirloom Seed Sanctuary. It's housed at the Sisters of Providence in Kingston, Ontario. And every year they grow those seeds in order to produce new ones that will help keep natural diversity alive and well.

The Current dropped in on one of their monthly meetings.


Listen to The Current:Part 2



The Current: Part 3


Ship Emissions

Last year, 3,000 deep sea freighters sailed into the Port of Vancouver, loading and unloading 2.7 million cargo containers. It's the biggest and busiest port in Canada, and coping with the air pollution that all those ships produce is a real challenge for the people who run it. Yoss LeClare is the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority's harbour master and he described the situation for The Current.

According to the United Nations' International Maritime Organization, pollution from freighters is a global problem, one that's a lot worse than it previously thought. Because it is not just about the ill human health effects from the emission of smog-forming chemicals, it's also about global warming.

According to a report the organization released in early February 2008, ships are spewing out about a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. That's about 4.5% of the the world's total greenhouse gas emissions, and about twice as much as the aviation industry produces. And to make matters worse, the report predicts the problem is going to get worse.

Ian Bruce has been watching this trend carefully. He is an air quality and climate change specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation in Vancouver. And joining us from Hamburg, Germany was Stephan Wrage, head of a German company called Skysails that's developing an idea that might help cut down on emissions from ships.


Ship Emissions - Transport Canada

A study released last year showed international marine traffic is British Columbia's second-largest industrial source of greenhouse gas. That's a 20% increase since 2000.

With the ship trade projected to only increase, many are concerned how these emissions are being regulated.

To hear more about that, we were joined by Paul Topping, Manager of Environmental Protection with Transport Canada.

Last Word - India's Seed Supply

We wanted to make some space for one more voice in our discussion about preserving the world's supply of agricultural seeds. Vandana Shiva is physicist and environmental activist from India. She's also the author of Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. She's spoken and written at length about how her country is dealing with the problem of seed scarcity. We closed the show with some of her thoughts on the problem.


Listen to The Current:Part 3

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