Great Lakes Water Levels Drop

  • The International Joint Commission will be studying water levels to find out why Lake Michigan (pictured) and the other upper Great Lakes have been lower. (Photo by Lester Graham)

A five year, 15 million dollar study will look at water levels of the Great Lakes.
Chuck Quirmbach reports on some of the concerns:

Transcript

A five year, 15 million dollar study will look at water levels of the
Great Lakes. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Since 1911, the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission, or IJC, has
regulated how much water flows out of Lake Superior and eventually into
the rest of the Great Lakes.


Currently, Lake Superior is near its record low level, and Lakes
Michigan and Huron are relatively low. That’s triggering several
problems, including forcing many ships to carry less cargo.


The IJC study will look into the potential reasons for the water level
changes. Study co-chair Eugene Stakhiv says it might not be a simple
matter:


“It’s a whole series of issues that we’re going to have to untangle and
then sort of resolve almost independently and then put the puzzle back
together again.”


Stakhiv says the study will look at big-picture topics, like the role
of climate change and how the channels between the lakes are
engineered.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Protesters Target Pvc

Last week, America’s 6th largest retailer Target was handed 10,000 signatures at its Annual Shareholders meeting. The petition urges the company to phase out the use of PVC plastic in the products it sells. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports:

Transcript

Last week, America’s 6th largest retailer Target was handed 10 thousand
signatures at its Annual Shareholders meeting. The petition urges the
company to phase out the use of PVC plastic in the products it sells.
Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports:


(Sound of protestors)


Protesters at Target’s Shareholder meeting wore white hazmat suits as
they urged the company to phase out PVC, or Polyvinyl Chloride. PVC is
used in packaging, shower curtains, teething rings and other consumer
products it sells. Mark Schade is a spokesman for the Center for
Health, Environment and Justice:


We’re concerned about PVC because from manufacture to disposal PVC is
the worst plastic for our health and environment. Releasing chemicals
that are known to cause cancer, learning disabilities, reproductive
health problems, birth defects and many other health issues.


Target says it’s asking its suppliers to look into alternatives for PVC
but the company is reluctant to set a timetable for phasing out the
plastic. Other companies, such as Wal-Mart, Ikea, Johnson and Johnson,
Lego, Nike, Microsoft have already begun the process.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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No Vaccine-Autism Link

Some parents of autistic kids believe that a preservative used in vaccines is in part to blame for their child’s autism. But Mark Brush reports a new study concludes there is no link between the preservative and autism:

Transcript

Some parents of autistic kids believe that a preservative used in
vaccines is in part to blame for their child’s autism. Mark Brush
reports a new study concludes there is no link between the preservative
and autism:


Pregnant women who are Rh-negative receive a shot to prevent disease in
their developing fetuses. Prior to 2003, these shots contained
thimerosal – a preservative made with mercury.


Dr. Judith Miles conducted a study that found no connection between
thimerosal exposure and autism. The study was published in the
American Journal of Medical Genetics. Dr. Miles says her research is
an important clarification for parents of autistic kids:


“I think it’s still important for parents to know, particularly mothers
who are Rh-negative, not to be concerned that this was something that
they somehow had a part in that caused the autism.”


Thimerosal has been removed from most childhood vaccines in the U.S.
However, it’s still used in the flu vaccine – and it’s widely used to
preserve immunization shots for kids in the developing world.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Defending Rights of Nature

  • Sister Pat Siemen (pictured) leads a seminar on earth jurisprudence at Barry Law School in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Jennifer Szweda Jordan)

Some lawyers believe it’s time to stand for the rights of nature. They want to represent trees. They want to defend the rights of birds and lakes, and all of nature.
They’re trying to put into practice a theory called earth jurisprudence.
Jennifer Szweda
Jordan has the story:

Transcript

Some lawyers believe it’s time to stand for the rights of nature. They
want to represent trees. They want to defend the rights of birds and
lakes, and all of nature. They’re trying to put into practice a theory
called earth jurisprudence. Jennifer Szweda Jordan has the story:


A law seminar on defending the rights of nature is probably not what
you expect, at least not at first. The start of Roman Catholic Sister
Pat Siemen’s law seminar on earth jurisprudence is unorthodox and Zen
like:


“We’re gonna start with our reflection time. And what I’d like you to
do is close your computers.”


Siemen taps a handheld chime in a classroom at Barry Law School in
Orlando, Florida. She has the law students practice slowing down so
they’ll notice what’s going on around them in nature, and they’ll take
the time to really think about arguing for the rights of nature in the
courtroom.


The legal system doesn’t recognize the rights of nature just yet.
Courts interpret the Constitution as protecting needs and rights of
humans. So only humans, or say, groups of humans such as corporations
can sue. The rights of bunnies and trees aren’t entitled to a voice in
courtrooms. Siemen says the emerging field of earth jurisprudence wants
to change that.


Part of the whole thought of earth jurisprudence is that other beings
actually be given their rights -legislatively – to come into court
through the understanding that someone as a guardian or trustee stands
in their right.


Besides teaching this new area of law, Siemen directs the Center for
Earth Jurisprudence. The center’s just wrapped up its first academic
year. Siemen’s early legal work focused on advocating for people who
were poor, minorities, or otherwise marginalized.


Siemen moved in a different direction when she was influenced by
ecotheologian Thomas Berry. Berry says that if the animals and trees
had a voice, they’d vote humans off the planet. Siemen was shocked:


“I had spent my whole life – at least adult life – ministerially trying
to stand in positions of empowerment of others, and furthering the
rights of others and I had never once really thought about what it
meant to be – whether it would be rivers or endangered species – what
it would mean to have to live and exist totally by the decisions of
humans.”


Siemen was also influenced by University of Southern California Law
School professor Christopher D. Stone. Stone wrote an article entitled
“Should Trees Have Standing?” In 1972, Supreme Court Justice William
Douglass agreed that inanimate objects should have rights. But that
view hasn’t gotten very far in American courtrooms.


The idea that ecosystems should have legal rights is problematic in the
view of free-market advocates. Sam Kazman is General Counsel for the
Competitive Enterprise Institute. He calls the theory of earth
jurisprudence gibberish.


“It is impossible to lay out what is in the best interest of an
ecosystem unless you lay out just what you as someone who owns that
ecosystem, or enjoys it, or appreciates it from a distance, what you
hold important.”


In other words, the owner will decide what’s best for the ecosystem.
Some legal experts believe giving nature rights would take nothing less
than a constitutional amendment.


University of Pittsburgh Law Professor Tom Buchele disagrees. He’s an
environmental lawyer who’s used the standing concept – unsuccessfully –
in arguing for a forest. He says that the Supreme Court could, if it
chose, interpret the constitution as allowing nature to have legal
standing:


“There’s certainly nothing in the constitution that says a case or
controversy has to have a person as the entity. It’s just that current
case law doesn’t do that.”


Buchele and Siemen know changes in court decisions are a long way away.
But if teaching about earth jurisprudence can make tomorrow’s corporate
counsels, real estate lawyers, and governmental officials consider the
trees and the water in their work, Siemen feels she’ll have made some
progress.


And getting law students to think about the rights of nature along with
the rights of humans might be the start of the legal revolution Siemen
wants to see.


For the Environment Report, this is Jennifer Szweda Jordan.

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Green Chemistry

  • Colin Horwitz is a researcher at Carnegie Mellon. He's working on a chemical that will break down pollution released by pulp and paper mills. (Photo by Reid Frazier)

Modern chemistry is everywhere – the paint on our walls, the ink on the morning newspaper, and the plastics in our computers.
Problem is – the chemicals are also in our air, water, and food. Reid Frazier visited a chemist who is trying to re-think how chemicals are made:

Transcript

Modern chemistry is everywhere: the paint on our walls, the ink on the
morning newspaper, and the plastics in our computers. Problem is – the
chemicals are also in our air, water, and food. The Environment
Report’s Reid Frazier visited a chemist who is trying to re-think how
chemicals are made:


This room looks and sounds like a chemical lab anywhere in the world.
Trays full of vials sit atop machines with blinking lights. Notebooks
filled with hand-written numbers sit next to computer screens. But this
isn’t a typical chemistry lab.


Evan Beach is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh. He works at the Institute for Green Oxidation Chemistry, or
Green Ox. Beach is analyzing wastewater from a pulp and paper mill:


“We try and work with as close to the real pollution as we can. We
actually have the paper mill ship the stuff to us.”


Beach is working on a chemical that he hopes will clean up the
wastewater before it hits rivers and streams.


The Green Ox lab is run by Terry Collins. His career as a green chemist
started as a college student in his native New Zealand. He worked
during summers at a plant that made refrigerators. One summer, he
discovered that workers using a cleaning agent were all getting sick.


“Just in lunch with them I’d hear about their headaches and their blood
noses and I realized, my goodness, they’re using an awful lot of these
organic solvents, and if there’s any benzene there, these are signature
benzene intoxication conditions, early stage.”


Collins calculated the workers were getting slowly poisoned by benzene,
a chemical that’s known to cause cancer. He told company officials
about it and they promised to replace it.


“So I went a way, nine months later, I felt an obligation I went back
and checked they had made no change so I went and I got every paper I
could and I took it and dropped it on the chief chemist and I can still
remember his jaw hitting the floor when I opened the door and gave it
to him, I then tried to get the institute of chemistry to help and they
told me not to even bother going to the health department, that they
wouldn’t help, and they were probably right, and I just felt immensely
frustrated by the situation.”


After this experience, Collins decided to focus his research on
reducing the harm caused by modern chemicals. He started designing a
chemical catalyst in the 1980s. When combined with hydrogen peroxide,
the catalyst eats through long chains of harmful chemicals. It could
potentially clean up the paper, textile, and plastics industries. It
could also curb pollution found in almost every home in America: The
water coming out of your tap.


“If you have a glass of water in most American cities you get some
Prozac and you get many other things as well that come from the
pharmaceutical industry.”


The drugs can be found in trace amounts in tapwater. Their effect on
human health is still unknown. But these drugs are being flushed into
the environment and they don’t break down easily. Once they enter
rivers and streams, these chemicals can last for decades. Scientists
believe they might be affecting fertility in some animals. Collins and
his colleagues believe the catalyst they’re developing could break down
these drugs once they hit the environment.


Some believe all chemists should take a more holistic look at the
compounds they make. Sasha Ryabov is a physical chemist who works in
Collins’ lab. He worked as a traditional chemist at Moscow State
University in his native Russia. Ryabov converted to green chemistry
when he came to Green Ox. Since he’s made the switch, he thinks that
all chemists should consider themselves green:


“It’s not the future field… It’s a natural part that cannot be
separated. The green chemistry we are thinking should be part of
chemistry as a whole.”


While academics like Collins are forging new grounds in their field,
some big companies have started to follow suit by using more
environmentally-friendly products. One hitch is that the federal
government provides little funding for research in the field. A bill
before congress could boost funding for green chemistry. Regardless of
funding, Collins says all chemists must do their part to address some
of the problems their discipline has helped create:


“If you’re a chemist, and you have this information, it’s a burden to
carry. But we have to deal with it, we have no choice; we have to look
after the children of future generations.”


For the sake of those future generations, Collins hopes more chemists
see the value of taking the long view when they’re in the laboratory.


For the Environment Report, this is Reid Frazier.

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High Tech, High Voltage Cars

  • Mechanic Mike Beukema just opened his own shop, Enviro Auto Plus, after working as a Toyota mechanic for 18 years. He specializes in fixing hybrids. He says there's a pretty big learning curve, especially when it comes to dealing with the high voltage battery. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

These days, hybrid gas-electric vehicles make up just a tiny fraction of total car and truck sales. But that’s expected to change. With higher gas prices…
demand for hybrids is
going up. And car companies are stepping up their hybrid production. But there’s a shortage of people who know how to fix hybrids. Rebecca Williams reports some mechanics are getting a crash course in hybrids:

Transcript

These days, hybrid gas-electric vehicles make up just a tiny fraction
of total car and truck sales. But that’s expected to change.
With higher gas prices… demand for hybrids is going up.
And car companies are stepping up their hybrid production. But there’s
a shortage of people who know how to fix hybrids. Rebecca Williams
reports some mechanics are getting a crash course in hybrids:


Mike Beukema’s been a mechanic for more than 18 years. So he’s seen
cars change a lot. But opening the hood of a hybrid car… that pretty
much changed his life:


“This car just fascinates me altogether so that was the perfect fit.
When it came out, I says this is what I want to be all about!”


He loves the technology. He loves that every time you hit the brakes
you recharge the car’s battery. He loves all the little computers that
tell him exactly what needs fixing.


But there’s one thing that took some getting used to:


“The whole issue of safety was freaky at first because you almost
didn’t dare work on them because they were letting you know exactly how
dangerous it was.”


It’s dangerous because you can get zapped by the high voltage battery.


“These have circuit fuses in ’em at 15 amps – there’s plenty of power
there. Not something you want to mess with.”


You can actually get electrocuted.


Mike Beukema’s got experience with hybrids. He worked at Toyota when
the first generation Priuses came out.


Beukema says the high voltage batteries are pretty intimidating for the
professionals, let alone backyard mechanics. And to really know what’s
wrong with a hybrid system, there’s a big thick manual you have to
read. And c’mon, who wants to read the manual?


Beukema says all this means working on hybrids is a pretty big shift
for mechanics. He says at this point most people who know how to fix
hybrids work at dealerships. There aren’t a whole lot of independent
shops that can fix them. That could be a problem if you like to shop
around to save money on car repair. Or if you break down in the
middle of nowhere.


That’s why, here and there, hybrid classes for independent mechanics
are popping up.


Kurtis LaHaie teaches auto tech classes at Macomb Community College in
Michigan. He recently started hybrid classes here. Today, he’s got a
room full of high school auto tech teachers.


He’s holding their attention… even after lunch.


“Too many volts, too many amps, you’re being cooked, literally inside.”


Then he pulls out the face shield and the big orange gloves.


“Now, as a technician, we’re going to need some new tools. These are
lineman’s gloves – people up on telephone poles? That’s what they wear.
That’s what we’re going to wear, same thing.”


LaHaie says electricity can get through even a tiny pinhole in the
gloves… so you have to be careful.


There’s also a big shepherd’s hook you’re supposed to have on hand.
Just in case you have to save your buddy from being electrocuted by a
live battery.


Joe Hart had his eye on that shepherd’s hook. It’s not the kind of
thing that helps sell a guy on hybrids:


“I’m an internal combustion guy, a technician, but you’ve gotta embrace
change and you’ve gotta accept the fact that we’re going to move from
an oil society at some point and I want to be there when it happens, I
want to be ahead of the game rather than trying to catch up.”


Hart might not have much of a choice.


Instructor Kurtis LaHaie says even new internal combustion cars are
getting more complicated. Let alone hybrids:


“If you don’t keep up, you’re going to fall by the wayside. The old
backyard mechanics, they’re very hard to maintain these cars, they’re
very sophisticated. This is just the next level for them to get into.
There’s room for everybody but I think the guys who take the lead in
this, especially now, will take the lead in the future and will do very
well.”


(Sound of grandfather clock chiming)


Mechanic Mike Beukema is hoping that’s true. After a long career at a
dealership, he’s just opened his own shop specializing in hybrids.
Right now, it’s a little lonely for him.


“I’m the service writer, the person that answers the phone, the person
that fixes your car, and person that collects your money – so I am, I
guess, everything here right now.”


Beukema says with any luck, that won’t last too long. He sees his shop
getting big enough that he can quit fixing cars himself. His dream is
to hire guys fresh out of trade school and train them to be experts on
hybrids and other cars of the future.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Fish Disease Spreads to New Waters

  • The external bleeding on this freshwater drum fish is a result of VHS. The disease is spreading beyond the eastern Great Lakes region. (Photo by John Lumsden, University of Guelph)

A virus that’s been killing fish in the Great Lakes is spreading to
other waterways in the US. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A virus that’s been killing fish in the Great Lakes is spreading to
other waterways in the US. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Viral hemorrhagic septicemia has been limited to the eastern Great
Lakes region, but now it’s gotten into a forty-mile long lake in
Wisconsin. Lake Winnebago draws anglers from a wide area.


Mike Schmal is a local tourism official. He says the fish-killing
virus could be very disruptive.


“There’s numerous bait shops and numerous businesses that depend on the
lake and this is our summer leisure season… when the boating season
begins and when sportfishing begins.”


Scientists say it appears to be impossible to get the virus out of
infected waters, so natural resource officials are trying to stop VHS
from being spread to more lakes and rivers in other states.


It’s not clear how VHS got into the US, though contaminated
ballast water from international ships is one possibility.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Bush Calls for Lower Emissions

President Bush has called on federal
agencies to develop an energy plan. He wants
them to cut oil use and reduce vehicle emissions
before he leaves office. But as Dustin Dwyer
reports, some environmentalists are
not impressed:

Transcript

President Bush has called on federal
agencies to develop an energy plan. He wants
them to cut oil use and reduce vehicle emissions
before he leaves office. But as Dustin Dwyer
reports, some environmentalists are
not impressed:


The president says he wants to cut oil use 20% in the next ten years.
The question is how to get that done. He prefers that Congress pass
new laws to make the cut happen.


While they debate the issue, the president has ordered the
Environmental Protection Agency to work with the Departments of
Transportation, Energy and Agriculture to finalize their own approach
by the end of 2008.


But the Sierra Club says the president could get his plan done right
now by raising federal fuel economy standards. The President has
already called for raising the current standards by four percent per
year.


But right now, the standards are at the same level they’ve been at for
the past 17 years.


For their part, auto executives have opposed any plan to raise the
standards. They say the regulations could cost them billions of dollars
to implement.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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Eagles to Fly Off Endangered List?

  • Since bald eagles have reached their highest numbers since World War II, they might be removed from the endangered species list. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

Bald eagles could be taken off the endangered species list soon.
Rebecca Williams reports bald eagles have reached their highest numbers
since World War II:

Transcript

Bald eagles could be taken off the endangered species list soon.
Rebecca Williams reports bald eagles have reached their highest numbers
since World War II:


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says there are just under 10,000
breeding pairs of eagles in the lower 48 states. That’s up from a
record low of just 400 breeding pairs in the 1960s.


For many years, eagles were seen as predators and shot. After World
War II, the pesticide DDT weakened the birds’ eggshells… so they
couldn’t reproduce.


Valerie Fellows is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She says
they’ll decide whether to take the eagles off the endangered species
list by the end of June:


“We can determine at any point if populations start to plummet,
that we can re-list them and add them
to the Endangered Species Act.”


Fellows says bald eagles also have other safety nets. They’re
protected by several federal laws that make it illegal to kill or harm
the birds.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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More Jobs in Sustainable Business

Thousands of college graduates will try to enter the labor force this
summer. Some job candidates might find it helps to have a background in
environmental sustainability. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Thousands of college graduates will try to enter the labor force this
summer. Some job candidates might find it helps to have a background in
environmental sustainability. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Home Depot is one of the companies that says it’s now taking a long
view of the environment and following some sustainable policies and
practices. That switch could be good news for college grads with
experience in energy efficiency, sustainable agriculture and certain
other fields.


Tom Eggert teaches college classes on business and sustainability. He
says construction of environmentally-friendly buildings is another area
seeking people educated about the earth:


“This is not something coming from the industry itself. It’s coming
from the folks that are having these buildings built or deciding to go
in a way that would be aligned with being energy efficient.”


Eggert says it’s nice to see that young people who want to make a
positive difference for the environment seem to be getting more chances
in the corporate world.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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