Researchers at the Census for Marine Life have spent the past decade counting fish.
(Photo courtesy of NOAA)
You’ve heard there are lots
of fish in the sea, but nobody
knows exactly how many. That’s
what a project has been trying
to find out. Samara Freemark reports the results
will be out soon:
Transcript
You’ve heard there are lots
of fish in the sea, but nobody
knows exactly how many. That’s
what a project has been trying
to find out. Samara Freemark reports the results
will be out soon:
Researchers at the Census for Marine Life have spent the past decade counting fish. They want to get as accurate a count as possible of how many animals are in the sea.
The project is based at the University of Rhode Island, but 2000 scientists around the world are collaborating.
Darlene Crist works with the Marine Census. She says the project used a huge range of tools to sample fish populations: electronic tags, robots, cameras– as well as some pretty unconventional research methods.
“We’ve used old tax records, ship logs, even restaurant menus.”
Now Crist say they’re done counting and they’re starting to crunch numbers.
Researchers say the data will serve as the first baseline measure of life in the ocean. They hope it will help policymakers better manage the fish stocks that remain.
Elmo is surprised when he and Rosita find a baby bird as part of Sesame Street's 40th season.
(Photo by Richard Termine, courtesy of Sesame Street)
Sesame Street is going green.
The children’s program will
focus on nature education during
its 40th season with the “My
World is Green and Growing”
project. Lester Graham talked
with Carol Lynn Parente.
She’s the Executive Producer
of Sesame Street:
Transcript
Sesame Street is going green.
The children’s program will
focus on nature education during
its 40th season with the “My
World is Green and Growing”
project. Lester Graham talked
with Carol Lynn Parente.
She’s the Executive Producer
of Sesame Street:
Lester: Letters, numbers, social interaction, all things we’d expect from Sesame Street. Why nature?
Parente: We learned by having our academic research advisors that by giving love and exposure to the environment was the best way to hopefully create citizens that will want to take care of it.
Lester: What kind of things will kids be able to pick up from this effort?
Parente: Well, we want to just get them out and exploring the environment and nature in general. And that can be in whatever their environment is. So nature doesn’t necessarily have to be a camping trip, although Elmo does go on one of those in our season 40, but it can be out experiencing what is in their environment, whether it be urban or rural and –
Lester: yeah, I wanted to note that. I mean, Sesame Street is an urban setting for kids whose lives are more about concrete and asphalt than flowers and grass. How will you relate to them?
Parente: Well, when you talk about noticing your environment, those environments and habitats are all around us. So, grass for a child in a suburban big wonderful meadow or field might be what their version of grass is, but there is also grass that pops up between the concrete of the sidewalks in an urban setting. And there are habits of wildlife in every environment you’re in and getting kids to understand that is part of the fun.
[Clip from Sesame Street Episode]
Lester: Some of these environmental issues are complicated, a little scary, take global warming for example. So where do you draw the line on Sesame Street?
Parente: When we talked about how the environment affects our audience, some of the messages that are common with environmental conservationist messages like “Save the Earth” and that’s a really scary concept for very young children because it implies something is wrong and something is going to happen and you don’t what that is and what needs saving. So we really stayed away from those kinds of messages. It’s really about having fun interacting with the environment and I think for our audience, that’s where we really put the focus.
[Clip from Sesame Street Episode]
Lester: So, how often in a typical show will we hear about nature and how long will this nature education effort last on Sesame Street?
Parente: It’s definitely has a presence in every single show in season 40, which is great because it’s a really thorough, um, jump into the curriculum. We’re definitely dealing with it through all of season 40 and the science part of the environment, which it really what it is, a science and nature curriculum, will extent into season 41 as well.
Lester: Carol Lynn Parente is the executive producer of Sesame Street. Have a sunny day!
The study showed that in some cases, dishes had twice as many calories as they were supposed to.
(Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
Counting calories is easier
to do now that more restaurants
are publicly posting calorie
information about their food.
But Samara Freemark
tells us why those numbers might
be misleading:
Transcript
Counting calories is easier
to do now that more restaurants
are publicly posting calorie
information about their food.
But Samara Freemark
tells us why those numbers might
be misleading:
18% – a new study says that’s the average amount that restaurants underreport the calories in their dishes.
Researchers at Tufts University analyzed the calorie content of meals from chain restaurants. Then they compared those numbers to the calorie counts posted publicly by restaurants on websites and menus.
Susan Roberts is the senior author of the study. She says in some cases, dishes had twice as many calories as they were supposed to.
“You just assume that the numbers are right, you don’t really think about, well, is this number only half what it really is? To have the calories on the web or in the restaurant, that would be a great thing. But they do have to be accurate.”
Roberts says the biggest culprit is portion size – restaurants serve larger amounts of food than advertised. She says the researchers also found that many restaurants served extra side dishes that weren’t included in posted calorie counts.
Amory Lovins is the Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. (Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Institute)
There’s a lot of talk about
conserving energy, but many
homeowners are not taking
advantage of the tax credits
being offered to tighten up
their homes. Many are more
intrigued about solar panels
and generating their own power.
Amory Lovins is an inventor,
author, and the chief scientist
at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Lester Graham talked with him
about conserving energy at home:
Transcript
There’s a lot of talk about
conserving energy, but many
homeowners are not taking
advantage of the tax credits
being offered to tighten up
their homes. Many are more
intrigued about solar panels
and generating their own power.
Amory Lovins is an inventor,
author, and the chief scientist
at the Rocky Mountain Institute.
Lester Graham talked with him
about conserving energy at home:
Lester: When I talk to some of my friends about energy consumption, they immediately jump to installing backyard wind turbines or solar panels; just getting off the grid. And I always ask, well, have you added insulation your attic? It seems like some of us are really into those gee-whiz aspects of renewable but we tend to overlook conservation, that’s something you’ve stressed. Why?
Lovins: Well, efficiency, which I use instead of conservation cause it unambiguously, means doing more with less is faster, cheaper, easier, than any kind of supply. Look, if you can’t keep your bathtub full of hot water because it keeps running down the drain the first thing you do is get a plug before you go looking for a bigger water heater. Then when you get a water heater, it will be a lot smaller and cheaper and work better. So efficiency first is a wonderful adage, most people live in houses with a square yard of holes in them. Of course if you live in a sieve, it’s hard to stay warm. So, first, you start with stuff like weather stripping and caulk, and if you can you get a house doctor to come do a house call with diagnostic equipment and diagnose you houses chills and fevers. But uh, even in our house which is one of the most efficient in the world, uh, we still need to the blower door test and caulking every few years because with changes in humidity the wood works in and out and you have to renew this stuff occasionally. But the benefits are huge.
Lester: How far can we really go in saving energy at home?
Lovins: If you’re really conscientious about it, most people can save around half to two-thirds of their energy. That’s partly by draft proofing, insulation, and perhaps, although they’re often costlier, uh window improvements. I’m sitting under some windows now that insulate like fourteen sheets of glass but look like two and cost less than three. Then also it means whenever you get lights or appliances, you get the most efficient you can, so after some years you’ve turned over the stock and if you’re ever going to buy an appliance, go to aceee.org. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy posts their list of the most energy efficient appliances. Of course, a minimum, you should get energy star, that at least knocks the worst stuff off the market. But within the energy star category, there is quite a lot of variation and it is worth shopping for the best ones.
Lester: What about the upfront costs of new appliances, new windows, new furnaces, things like that?
Lovins: For many kinds of appliances, there isn’t even any correlation between efficiency and price, but if there is, it’s probably still a very good deal; a much better return than you can get in any other form of investment and with much less risk. Think of it as money very well spent and of course, if you had first done the very cheap stuff like stopping up that square yard of holes in your house, the wind doesn’t whistle through, it saves so much upfront that it helps pay for everything else. The whole package is really quite an enticing return.
Lester: Amory Lovins consults on energy issues and he’s the chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute. Thank you for your time.
Last year, there were four million fewer cars, but two million more drivers than in 2008.
(Photo by Samara Freemark)
America’s love affair with the
car skidded a bit last year.
According to data from the
US Department of Transportation,
the number of cars in the
US dropped in 2009. Lester
Graham reports that’s the first
time that’s happened since
World War II:
Transcript
America’s love affair with the
car skidded a bit last year.
According to data from the
US Department of Transportation,
the number of cars in the
US dropped in 2009. Lester
Graham reports that’s the first
time that’s happened since
World War II:
Last year there were four million fewer cars, but two million more drivers than in 2008.
Lester Brown is with the Earth Policy Institute. His group reviewed the numbers. He says the market’s saturated.
“We have more licensed vehicles than we have licensed drivers. So, we couldn’t get all our cars on the road at once if we wanted to because we don’t have enough drivers. That’s one way to define saturation.”
The Earth Policy Institute also found more people have access to mass transit, people are concerned about the impact of foreign oil, gasoline prices, and young people socialize on the internet and cell phones more than driving around in the car with their friends.
Auto industry experts say the decline of cars on the road has more to do with tight credit for auto loans than anything else.
When doing home improvement projects, WaterSense, EnergyStar, GREENGUARD, and FSC certifications are some to keep an eye out for.
(Photo by Michelle Miller-Freeck, courtesy of FEMA)
When you’re planning a home
improvement project, you can
be overwhelmed with decisions
about the right materials, the
right quality, and the right
design. Trying to keep it eco-
friendly on top of everything
else just adds to the confusion.
Lester Graham reports it can be
as simple as finding a label:
Transcript
When you’re planning a home
improvement project, you can
be overwhelmed with decisions
about the right materials, the
right quality, and the right
design. Trying to keep it eco-
friendly on top of everything
else just adds to the confusion.
Lester Graham reports it can be
as simple as finding a label:
Julia Weinert and her boyfriend like the idea of making their place nice, but even something as simple as painting causes concerns.
JW: “We want to support environmentally friendly options and we just don’t want to be smelling it for three days out and have to be running the fans. We just want it to be convenient and we think it would be an easy thing to do.”
LG: “Well, you’re in luck. We’re at the local Home Depot and we just happen to have Greenovation.TV’s Matt Grocoff here. Matt, you’ve got some advice for her.”
MG: “And it’s really, really simple. When you’re trying to find a paint that’s healthy for you or another product, you shouldn’t have to be a chemist when you go to the store. There’s a really simple thing you can look for. Just look for the simple GREENGUARD label. GREENGUARD is an independent organization that lets you know with a simple label that that product is safe for you.”
So, none of the really strong paint smells that mean polluting chemicals are being released. GREENGUARD Environmental Institute sets indoor air standards for products and buildings. Julia and I sniffed a can of paint WITH the GREENGUARD label, and then one without.
LG: “I’ll let you sniff first.”
JW: Okay. Oh! Yeah! Oh my gosh! That is ridiculous. I mean, it smells so much stronger than this one. You can’t even smell that one compared to this one.”
A gallon of paint with the GREENGUARD label DOES cost a few dollars more, maybe as much as ten bucks.
Matt then herded us to another part of the store, the plumbing section, where Julia and I were confronted by all kinds of shiny chrome and brass faucets.
JW: “There’s a whole wall, a whole aisle of faucets here and I just don’t know which ones to look for.”
LG: “So, Matt. You got any fancy labels here?”
MG: “Absolutely. Again, if you’re looking for that eco-friendly option, a way to save yourself some money and some water, it’s simple. Just look for the WaterSense label. The EPA does EnergyStar labels for appliances. The EPA also does WaterSense label for plumbing fixtures.”
WaterSense means the fixture – whether a faucet, shower head or toilet – will use less water but still works well.
As we wandered over to the lumber section of the store, Matt told us the last label he wanted to show us is the most ignored label – and it might just be the most important one.
MG: “FSC stands for the Forest Stewardship Council. And what that means is they’ve made a commitment that they’re not going to be tearing down forest and clear-cutting them in order for you to build some bookshelves in your home. This is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gases is that we don’t have these forests capturing this carbon any more. Instead of having to have a PhD in forest management, you can just simply look for a piece of wood that has an FSC label on it.”
So, labels. Julia says, works for her.
JW: “It’s going to be great, taking my boyfriend around the store and showing him all these cool things I can get to make our home improvements a little more cheap and environmentally-friendly.”
LG: “Alright remind me, go over this again. What am I supposed to be looking for?”
MG: “It’s very simple. If you’re looking for paint, look for GREENGUARD. For plumbing, WaterSense. For lumber, FSC, Forest Stewardship Council certified.”
LG: “That’s Matt Grocoff, Greenovation.TV. Thanks again, Matt.
In mountaintop removal mining, explosives are used to get at coal that's close to the surface. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)
The Environmental Protection
Agency has approved one
mountaintop removal coal
mining operation. But, Lester
Graham reports, it’s asking a
federal court to delay another
mine in the same state:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection
Agency has approved one
mountaintop removal coal
mining operation. But, Lester
Graham reports, it’s asking a
federal court to delay another
mine in the same state:
The Environmental Protection Agency says it supports permits for one mine in West Virginia because operators agreed to some environmental protections.
But the EPA is asking a federal court to delay a decision on another mine. The Spruce Number One mine – owned by a subsidiary of Arch Coal – is one of the largest mountainop removal mines ever proposed in the area.The EPA says it’s concerned the mine would bury streams and contaminate water.
Bill Raney is the President of the West Virginia Coal Association. In a recent interview he said regulators are changing the rules.
“And it’s punishing the people here with uncertainty, not knowing what the future holds as to whether you’re going to get the next permit and are you going to be able to mine the coal, are you going to be able to use it in the power plant.”
The EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, said in a statement, the EPA is actually bringing clarity to the process.
West Michigan Park lies along the Tittabawassee River. Large swaths of its soil was removed and re-sodded due to dioxin contamination. The removal was part of a US EPA effort to have Dow clean up several hot spots in the rivershed.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
One thing we hear over and over
from the Obama Administration
is that when it comes to the
environment, science should set
the agenda. Right now, though,
the chemical industry is accusing
the administration of abandoning
that idea. Shawn Allee reports it has to do with the science
behind a potent toxin:
Transcript
One thing we hear over and over
from the Obama Administration
is that when it comes to the
environment, science should set
the agenda. Right now, though,
the chemical industry is accusing
the administration of abandoning
that idea. Shawn Allee reports it has to do with the science
behind a potent toxin:
President George W. Bush took it on the chin when it came to the environment. One accusation is that he ignored science that suggested we should get tougher on green house gas emissions.
President Obama’s Administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency is Lisa Jackson. She said things would be different.
“On my first day, I sent a memo to every EPA employee stating that our path would be guided by the best science and by the rule of law, and that every action we took would be subject to unparalleled transparency.”
It hasn’t taken long for the chemical industry to say Obama’s Administration is back-tracking.
“There’s been this notion to get things done, and it get it done fast.”
That’s David Fischer, an attorney for the American Chemistry Council. Fischer’s concerned about new standards on dioxins.
Dioxins are by-products from producing chemicals. They also get into the environment from burning trash and wood.
The government says dioxin causes cancer and reproductive and developmental diseases.
It’s known this for decades, but it’s been finishing a report to show exactly how toxic dioxins are. It’s been writing this dioxin reassessment for 18 years, and it was supposed to put out a draft last week.
But it didn’t do that, and it hasn’t said when it will.
That didn’t stop the EPA from proposing a new rule about how much dioxin should be allowed in the soil in peoples’ yards.
Fischer says that rule should wait.
“If they’re going to base goals based on the best available science, and they have, in fact, stated they plan to, it’s hard to imagine how you can do that before the reassessment’s finished because that does after all represent or should represent the best available science.”
The chemical industry’s concerned because dozens of sites across the country are contaminated with dioxins. And the rule would lower the amount of dioxin allowed in residential soil. It would go from 1000 parts per trillion to 72 parts per trillion – that’s a drop of more than 90%.
Fischer says that could cost companies millions of dollars in extra clean-up costs.
“Again, that begs the question, Why?”
One accusation is that the Obama administration wanted to finalize dioxin soil regulations in time to coincide with controversial, on-going dioxin clean-ups, such as one in central Michigan.
The EPA didn’t answer this question directly and wouldn’t provide an interview in time for this report. But it did say it’s got sound science to justify the proposed dioxin soil rule.
You might ask why this matters. Well, just look at central Michigan, where there’s a large, on-going dioxin cleanup.
Linda Dykema works with Michigan’s Department of Community Health. She creates state standards on how much dioxin should be allowed in water, fish, and soil. To protect people in Michigan, she needs help from the EPA.
“We rely a great deal on federal agencies to provide us with some hazard assessment for chemicals. The ability of the state to public health staff to do those kinds of assessments is pretty limited. They can do what needs to be done and what we can’t do here at the state.”
And a ruling on dioxin levels in soil should help Dykema. But this move by the EPA might cause more problems than it solves. For years, the chemical industry’s argued that the science behind dioxin isn’t complete.
This proposed soil rule gives the chemical industry another chance to say, ‘here we go again.’ And the justification it needs to keep fighting a rule the EPA insists protects people’s health.
2.6 billion pounds of arsenic and other toxic pollutants flooded over nearby farmland and into the river.
(Photo courtesy of the Tennessee Department Of Health)
When a dam broke a year ago in Kingston,
Tennessee, the town experienced one
of the biggest environmental disasters
in US history. Billions of gallons
of waterlogged coal ash from a nearby
power plant streamed into the Emory
River. Tanya Ott reports
the contamination was even greater
than originally thought:
Transcript
When a dam broke a year ago in Kingston,
Tennessee, the town experienced one
of the biggest environmental disasters
in US history. Billions of gallons
of waterlogged coal ash from a nearby
power plant streamed into the Emory
River. Tanya Ott reports
the contamination was even greater
than originally thought:
2.6 billion pounds of arsenic and other toxic pollutants. That’s how much
contamination flooded over nearby farmland and into the river.
That comes
from a report by the Environmental Integrity Project.
Eric Schaeffer is the
project’s Executive Director and a former official with the Environmental
Protection Agency. He says 2.6 billion pounds is more than the total
discharges from all U-S power plants last year.
“The toxic metals, once they get into the environment,
and especially once they get into sediment, are notoriously difficult to
clean up.”
Difficult and expensive. The Tennessee Valley Authority puts the price tag
at about a billion dollars.
The EPA was supposed to propose tougher
disposal standards for toxic ash by the end of 2009. But the agency delayed
that decision.
Lena Perenius and Franco Bisegna are with CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council in Brussels, Belgium.
(Photo by Liam Moriarty)
Bjorn Hansen oversees chemical regulations at the European Commission's Directorate General for the Environment in Brussels, Belgium.
(Photo by Liam Moriarty)
There are tens of thousands of
chemical compounds on the market
these days. And, for the most part,
unless regulators can prove a chemical
is harmful, it stays there. Now, Europe
has turned that way of doing things
on its head, and the US is showing
signs of moving in that direction, too.
Liam Moriarty has this report:
Transcript
There are tens of thousands of
chemical compounds on the market
these days. And, for the most part,
unless regulators can prove a chemical
is harmful, it stays there. Now, Europe
has turned that way of doing things
on its head, and the US is showing
signs of moving in that direction, too.
Liam Moriarty has this report:
(sounds of a street)
Brussels, Belgium is sort of like the Washington, DC of Europe. It’s here – in the seat of the European Union – that the 27 nations that make up the EU hash out their common policies.
I’m sitting in the office of Bjorn Hansen. He keeps an eye on chemicals for the European Commission’s Directorate General for the Environment. To give me an idea of how ubiquitous chemicals are in our everyday lives, Hansen points around his office.
“Just us sitting here, you are probably exposed to chemicals, which come from the office furniture, which have been used to color the textile, which has been used to create the foam, the glue under the carpet that we’re sitting – you name it, you’re exposed.”
The big question is whether all this exposure is harming our health or the environment. The answer?
“We, by far, do not know what chemicals are out there, what the effects of those chemicals are, and what the risks associated with those chemicals.”
In the European Union, that uncertainty led to a new law known by its acronym, REACH. That’s R-E-A-C-H. REACH requires that tens of thousands of chemicals used in everyday products in the EU be studied and registered. If a substance cannot be safely used, manufacturers will have to find a substitute, or stop using it. REACH has, at its core, a radical shift: it’s no longer up to the government to prove a chemical is unsafe.
“The burden of proof is on industry to demonstrate safety. And by demonstrating the safety that they think, they also take liability and responsibility for that safety.”
Even for industries accustomed to tougher European regulations, REACH was alarming.
“There were very, quite violent opposition in the beginning.”
Lena Perenius is with CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council.
“In the EU, we already had a very comprehensive set of regulations for ensuring safe use of chemicals. And the industry saw that this was putting an unreasonable burden on the companies.”
Corporations may not have liked it, but the measure had strong public support. After several contentious rounds of negotiations, Perenius says the industry feels it got key concessions that’ll make the far-reaching law workable. Now, she says, the industry has come to see the up-side of REACH.
“Now, when we have the responsibility, that gives us a little bit of freedom to demonstrate, in the way we believe is appropriate, how a substance can be used safely.”
Here in the US, there are signs of political momentum building around taking a more REACH-like approach to regulating the chemicals in everyday products. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg recently said he’d introduce a bill that would shift the burden of proof for safety onto chemical manufacturers.
“Instead of waiting for a chemical to hurt somebody, it will require companies to prove their products are safe before they end up in the store, in our homes, and in our being.”
Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson recently told a Senate committee that – out of an estimated 80,000 chemicals in use – existing law has allowed the EPA to ban only 5, and to study just 200.
“Though many of these chemicals likely pose little or no risk, the story is clear – we’ve only been able to effectively regulate a handful of chemicals, and we know very little about the rest.”
More than a dozen states from Maine to California have already moved to toughen safety standards for chemicals. Even the American Chemistry Council has agreed to support more vigorous regulations to assure consumers that the chemicals in the products they use are safe.
As always, the devil is in the details. But the coming reform is shaping up to look a lot like what Europe is already putting in place.
Researchers at the Census for Marine Life have spent the past decade counting fish. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
