Lester Brown founded the Earth Policy Institute in 2001.
(Photo courtesy of the Earth Policy Institute)
One environmental leader says if
we keep doing what we’re doing,
the world will continue on a path
toward economic decline and eventual
collapse. Lester Brown heads up the
Earth Policy Institute. He’s written
a series of books on changes that need
to be made. The most recent book is
‘Plan B 4.0.’ Lester Graham
talked with him about the complexities
involved in a few commodities we take
for granted:
Transcript
One environmental leader says if
we keep doing what we’re doing,
the world will continue on a path
toward economic decline and eventual
collapse. Lester Brown heads up the
Earth Policy Institute. He’s written
a series of books on changes that need
to be made. The most recent book is
‘Plan B 4.0.’ Lester Graham
talked with him about the complexities
involved in a few commodities we take
for granted:
Molly Aubuchon and Stefan Meyer survey their lawn. (Photo by Julie Grant)
There are some dead spots in the yard, but they don't want to use chemicals. (Photo by Julie Grant)
They like to keep the yard natural and free from chemicals. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Many Americans love full, lush
lawns. Fertilizers and herbicides
might help. But there’s concern
about water pollution from lawn
chemicals. Julie Grant reports
that some experts say you can use
them, just don’t over-use them:
Transcript
Many Americans love full, lush
lawns. Fertilizers and herbicides
might help. But there’s concern
about water pollution from lawn
chemicals. Julie Grant reports
that some experts say you can use
them, just don’t over-use them:
Molly Aubuchon and her husband Stefan Meyer aren’t sure
what they’re going to do. Their two little kids are running
around the yard. Stefan wants a lawn of thick, soft grass for
them to play on. But that’s not what he’s got.
Stefan: “As you can see, there’s no grass here.
I don’t know what some of this stuff is. Some kind of moss.
I think even the moss died, so now we have dead moss
that’s like yellow and brown.”
Molly: “It’s not attractive dead.”
Stefan: “No. I just think, when I’m out here cutting my grass,
I’m like, man, if I lived across the street, I’d be like, ‘hey look,
they’re cutting absolutely nothing again. They’re just running
that lawn mower over bare spots.’”
They see their neighbors, with those thick, green lawns,
spreading chemicals a few times a year. Molly and Stefan
don’t want to do that.
Molly: “Well, the fact that I’ve got kids running around here
all day. And the fact that it seeps into the water supply and
the rivers, that’s a concern to me.”
There are lots of people who are concerned about lawn
pollution. Lawns have gotten a bad wrap in some places –
because of the fertilizers and other chemicals people use on
them. In much of Canada, lawn chemicals have actually
been banned.
Lou DiGeranimo is General Manager of Water in Toronto.
He says lawn chemicals were damaging the water quality.
“People were over-fertilizing, they were using commercial
pesticides. That chemical ended up in the rivers and ended
up in the lake. We passed a bylaw that prohibited that.”
But some experts say the chemical bans in Canada are
extreme.
David Gardner is professor of turf grass at the Ohio State
University. He doesn’t think banning lawn chemical will do
anything to improve the environment.
“Based on the work that I have seen, based on the research
that has been conducted, I believe that if there is a unilateral
ban on the use of pesticides it will make absolutely no
impact on our environmental footprint.”
Gardner says compared to
other sources of pollution, like cars and over-use of
chemicals on farms, the impact of lawn care is miniscule.
Still, Gardner says people like Molly and Stefan can keep
nice lawns – without using a lot of chemicals.
He says you’ve got to cut the grass and water regularly.
He also recommends fertilizing lightly in the spring and more
heavily in the fall.
That’s what Gardner does at his house – and he uses only 6
to 8 ounces of herbicide a year.
“Putting it another way, if I were to go to a store and buy one
of those gallon jugs of ready-made herbicide, that would be
enough to last me for about 16 years.”
Gardner says the herbicide will hit its expiration date before
he has a chance to use it all.
But Molly and Stefan just aren’t sold. They don’t want to use
lawn chemicals just to appease the neighbors.
Stefan: “I just want to feel good about the way my yard
looks for my own satisfaction. I would like to cultivate some
grass that looks good, you know, with my hands.”
Besides, Stefan says, they don’t have the worst looking lawn
on the street and they’d just rather not add unnecessary
chemicals into the environment.
Stefan: “We don’t have the worst lawn on the street. Our
street is not that long. It’s only four blocks, five blocks long –
there’s a house down there and their yard looks worse than
ours.”
Sally Maughan and her assistant John Knight (Photo by Sadie Babits)
The bears' enclosure (Photo by Sadie Babits)
A shy bear cub (Photo by Sadie Babits)
Many state wildlife agencies can’t
or won’t take in injured or abandoned
critters. They rely on a lot of volunteers
to do the job. One woman in Idaho has made
it her life’s work to give orphaned bear
cubs throughout the West a second chance.
Sadie Babits brings us this profile:
Transcript
Many state wildlife agencies can’t
or won’t take in injured or abandoned
critters. They rely on a lot of volunteers
to do the job. One woman in Idaho has made
it her life’s work to give orphaned bear
cubs throughout the West a second chance.
Sadie Babits brings us this profile:
Sally Maughan used to be known as the “squirrel lady.” As a wildlife
rehabilitator, she took in weasels, foxes, raccoons and a lot of
squirrels.
She had no intention of working with bears until one day the
Idaho Fish and Game Department called.
“And they kept calling because nobody else had an enclosure that could hold a bear.”
Maughan named that first bear cub Ruggles. That was twenty
years ago.
So far, she’s helped 189 orphaned bear cubs from around the
West. She runs a non-profit in Boise called the Idaho Black Bear
Rehabilitation Program.
(sound of outdoors and cars passing)
It’s a chilly afternoon but it’s sunny. So Maughan, her helper John Knight
and I sit outside on her front steps. It’s hard to ignore the smell as
we talk. You know that musty smell of animals and straw and well, bears. It’s kind of an
animal barnyard smell out here.
This place used to be surrounded
by pasture. Not any more. On one side there’s an upscale subdivision.
And on the other side, there’s another large subdivision. Maughan says
her neighbors don’t mind the bears and sometimes she’ll let them come
visit.
“We don’t want bears seeing people any more than they need to.
John just comes in and feeds and comes back out. And I do the bottle
feeding which is when they really attach so once they are weaned he
pretty much takes over from there.”
(sound of gate opening)
Sadie: “So who’s that?”
John: “That is one of the Oregon bears.”
The cub makes a bee line for his house the minute he spots us. Maughan’s
assistant John Knight explains this bear and two others are the only
ones here at the center.
The bear pokes his head out then ducks right
back inside as I check out the roomy enclosure. There are logs to play
on and green apples to eat.
John: “That’s their swim tub.”
Sadie: “They have a swim tub.”
John: “Yep. They like to break it often.”
Sadie: “Will they get in there during the winter?”
John: Yeah. Some bears do. It’s odd. One bear last year was in it everyday. It was
snowing – 30 degrees. He was in it.”
These cubs are orphans. We don’t really know what happened to their
mothers. They may have been killed by licensed hunters or even illegally killed.
Each year more orphaned cubs show up at Maughan’s place. She’s one of only
a few bear rehabilitators in the West.
Jon Rachael works for the Idaho Fish and Game as a wildlife manager. He says they have
to turn to people like Maughan.
“We simply don’t have the personnel or resources to handle all
of that.”
Just in the last year, Sally Maughan took in 53 bears. It was a bad
year
for berries and there were a lot of wildfires around
the West.
“What are you going to do? Say, ‘I’m sorry I can’t take you – just die?’ Uh-uh. Can’t do
that. So, hopefully, eventually, there’ll be some more rehab-ers
for bears. It’s a lot of money, a lot of time, a lot of energy.”
The World Society for the Protection of Animals covers most of Maughan’s
expenses. She relies heavily though on donations. It’s still not enough.
Anything left from her paycheck as a travel agent goes back to the bears.
She’s even wiped out her retirement just to get these black bears back
into the wild where they belong.
Roger and Margaret Martin visit the effigy and burial mounds. (Photo by Brian Bull)
The sign asking people to be careful with the historic burial mounds. (Photo by Brian Bull)
Jay Toth is an archaeologist with the Ho-Chunk tribe in Wisconsin. He says the mounds are sacred and should be protected. (Photo by Brian Bull)
Historians, archaeologists, and Native American tribes are fighting to save ancient
mounds. The mounds are found scattered across much of North America. These
earthen, man-made formations mark the presence of prehistoric, indigenous people. But,
Brian Bull reports many are disappearing because of development or neglect:
Transcript
Historians, archaeologists, and Native American tribes are fighting to save ancient
mounds. The mounds are found scattered across much of North America. These
earthen, man-made formations mark the presence of prehistoric, indigenous people. But,
Brian Bull reports many are disappearing because of development or neglect:
Jay Toth is walking through the Kingsley-Bend Indian Mounds site. Toth is an
archeologist with the Ho-Chunk tribe in Wisconsin. He surveys nearly 30 mounds here,
including several that he says contain human remains. Toth says these mounds range
from 800 to 2000 years old, and are considered sacred, which is why Toth isn’t happy
when a man lets his dog use one for a bathroom:
“There’s a sign right there…”
“The guy saw the sign coming in, he didn’t bother…think that’s a good reflection on why
mounds are continually destroyed. There’s just no consideration.”
The tribe has painstakingly restored and maintained this site with its own money. But
Toth says out of 20,000 groups of mounds across Wisconsin alone, only a quarter
survive today. Many are still being desecrated or destroyed by construction and
development:
“It’s just too bad that we don’t have the respect for the religious aspects of what these are
all about. No one would expect the Ho-Chunk Nation or
any other tribe to go in and buy up public cemeteries and subdivide it up for housing
development, but somehow mound sites and other native burial seem to be okay.”
And it’s not just in Wisconsin. Similar problems exist for Indian mounds in other states,
including Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, and Tennessee. Development is supposed to stop if a
mound is discovered, but authorities can only act on the calls they receive.
Samantha Greendeer is a Ho-Chunk attorney. She’s working with tribal, state, and federal
officials to revive legislation first introduced by West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall.
It would proactively protect burial mounds, rather than after they’re disturbed:
“We seem to have to deal with this a little bit more just because a lot of the old ancestral
mounds and burials of native people are not in organized European-type cemeteries that
are zoned and properly accounted for. They don’t get that extra
bit of protection that a normal burial site would get.”
If passed, the federal government would have to deal with Native American and Native
Hawaiian tribes before taking action that would affect any land deemed sacred. Attitudes
about the mounds are changing.
(Sound of jackhammers)
Construction workers are tearing up old concrete foundations, to help set up new
buildings on the University of Wisconsin campus. But it’s a different story near the
University observatory. Campus developers plan to displace newer structures with the
older architecture. Gary Brown points to a sidewalk built in the 1950s. It’s right next to a
centuries-old bird effigy mound which some Native Americans still use for ceremonies:
“We’ll be coming back several feet away from the edges of the mound, carefully remove
the sidewalk, reconstruct the sidewalk a little bit further away. It’ll be a lot of hand labor,
there won’t be a lot of major big machinery…”
And moving the sidewalk will create a buffer zone to help protect the ancient mound.
Some people outside of the tribes realized the value of the mounds decades ago.
Roger and Margaret Martin walk in the rain with umbrellas, to show several effigy and
burial mounds in their backyard:
“When friends come to visit, we take ’em out back and point them out…We’re standing
on the bird effigy, swept back from both sides are the bird’s wings…the one on the left is
much more pronounced.”
Back when the neighborhood was being built, most people flattened the mounds. But, he
Martins signed up with what’s called an archaeological covenant program. They’ve
promised not to alter the mounds on their property. They also get a tax break on any land
containing a mound.
The Martins say they’d like to begin a ceremony where they visit the mounds and think of
their makers, the early North American cultures. Such reverence means a lot to Ho-Chunk
archeologist Jay Toth, who says the formations are rich in meaning and history for his
people:
“These mounds represent the deed to the land for all Native Americans. This you can’t
take away.”
Toth and other preservationists hope Congress passes laws to better protect ancient
mounds. They hope in time that people come to regard both burial and effigy mounds as
items to preserve, rather than destroy.
The fish detectives (a.k.a. scientists who specialize in fishery genetics) survey the scene. (Photo courtesy of the Lake Erie Center)
A fish eye view of yellow perch, Perca flavescens. The fish detectives cracked The Case of the Fried Perch. They discovered that some fried perch being marketed as locally caught was actually imported from Europe. (Photo courtesy of U.S. FWS)
The fish detective headquarters, the Lake Erie Center, is tucked away on the shores of Maumee Bay in Lake Erie. (Photo courtesy of the Lake Erie Center)
Another popular Lake Erie sport fish, the smallmouth bass. (Photo courtesy of the Lake Erie Center)
On television, the CSI detectives make forensic lab work look glamorous. It’s a cinch for them to track a criminal by the DNA left behind at the scene. In real life, DNA is also a powerful tool for solving environmental crimes and mysteries. Rebecca Williams visits the Fish Detectives:
Transcript
On television, the CSI detectives make forensic lab work look glamorous. It’s a cinch for them to track a criminal by the DNA left behind at the scene. In real life, DNA is also a powerful tool for solving environmental crimes and mysteries. Rebecca Williams visits the Fish Detectives:
(Sound of gulls and reel being cast)
It’s midday, and it’s so hot the gulls are just standing around with their beaks open.
But Joe Al-Sorghali is still trying to get himself a fish dinner:
“Hopefully I can get a good amount of perch today… they’re not that fishy so they’re a really good catch.”
It takes a lot of these little fish to fill up a dinner plate. But that doesn’t stop Al-Sorghali from going after perch and walleye any chance he gets. A lot of people call Lake Erie the Walleye Capital of the World.
Fishing is a really big deal here. So it makes sense that Lake Erie’s also home to the Fish Detectives.
(Dragnet theme music)
The fish detective headquarters is tucked away on the edge of a quiet cove. The investigators at the Lake Erie Center are not wearing trench coats. They’re not even wearing lab coats. This crew of laid-back lab techs and grad students comes to work in jeans and T-shirts.
Carol Stepien heads up the fish detective squad. She says they solve lots of cases of mistaken identity.
Take the Case of the Fried Perch.
Last year the detectives got a call from a TV station in Milwaukee. The news crew was suspicious that the fried local perch on restaurant menus wasn’t really local.
Stepien says she asked the news station to send her some frozen filets.
“So instead they sent their news crew out into restaurants and had their news crew eat the fish and put a little bit of the breaded, cooked fish in a plastic bag and froze those and sent them to me. We were pretty shocked to get those in our laboratory. We didn’t know if we could get DNA from breaded, fried material like that.”
But Stepien says they scraped off the breaded coating… and they actually were able to extract DNA from the little bits of cooked fish.
“And we found that about half of those fish were yellow perch from Europe.”
Stepien says it’s gotten more common for fish brokers to import yellow perch from outside the U.S. because it’s cheaper. She says even though the foreign perch might taste the same when they’re deep-fried… a close look at the DNA of the European yellow perch reveals big differences from Great Lakes yellow perch.
“They probably could be called freshly caught lake perch, but they were certainly frozen and didn’t come from any local lakes, they didn’t come from the Great Lakes. Instead they came from overseas.”
Stepien’s team will tackle any sort of mystery, as long as it involves gills and fins.
Lately they’ve solved cases of home invasion. That is, invasions by exotic species that’ve gotten into the Great Lakes. The scientists can track the invaders by their DNA fingerprints, and find out where they’ve been.
Joshua Brown is a Ph.D student at the lab. He’s been tracking the round goby. It’s a fish native to Europe. Scientists say it caught a ride to the Great Lakes in the ballast tanks of ocean going ships. It’s been crowding out native species.
“We’re going to find somebody to point the finger at, as it were. We’ve found evidence they came from the northern portion of the Black Sea, right around one of the major ports.”
That port is in Ukraine. Even though they’ve found the culprit, Brown says there’s not much governments can do, because everyone’s guilty.
“I don’t think you could really sue a nation for you know, not keeping their species under wraps. If so, we’d be open for a lot of lawsuits too – we export almost as many as we import.”
But Brown says knowing exactly where a foreign species comes from might help keep the door closed to future invaders from that same region.
Whether it’s a case of consumer fish fraud or defending the home turf from invaders, there’s one bottom line for these detectives. They want to find out as much as they can about native fish so they can keep them from going belly up.
Bernard Brown says making a peanut butter and jelly (or PB and fruit) sandwich is better for the environment than eating a burger or chicken nuggets. (Photo by Jennifer Szweda Jordan)
Bernard Brown waves a peanut butter-smeared knife as he explains how PB & J sandwiches can reduce global warming. (Photo by Jennifer Szweda Jordan)
A cookie cutter can transform a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into a character for a slide show on Brown's website to make the case that a small change can make a big difference in the environment. (Photo by Jennifer Szweda Jordan)
What could be more American, more humble, than a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich? And yet one activist suggests a PB and J a day could help slow
global warming. Jennifer Szweda Jordan recently visited the founder of the
PB and J Campaign:
Transcript
What could be more American, more humble, than a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich? And yet one activist suggests a PB and J a day could help slow
global warming. Jennifer Szweda Jordan recently visited the founder of the
PB and J Campaign:
(Brown:) “So we just spread some peanut butter on your banana bread.
Would you like to try it?”
(Jordan:) “Yeah. Yeah.”
Bernard Brown is trying to get people to see the peanut butter and jelly
sandwich in a new light. On his website, there’s a saintly glow behind a
graphic of the sandwich. He thinks eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
could just save the planet.
Brown estimates that eating one peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch
versus, say, a ham sandwich, or a burger, saves nearly three and a half
pounds of greenhouse gas emissions and 280 gallons of water. In Brown’s
kitchen, he waves a peanut butter covered knife. He explains why he’s using
this comfort food to change the world:
(Jordan:) “Why peanut butter and jelly? Like it’s a pretty processed, highly
processed kind of…”
(Brown:) “Yeah, it’s because it’s the most familiar food I could think of that
didn’t have, that was sort of purely plant-based and wasn’t animal-based at
all. It’s one of these things like people might be scared by words like vegan
or vegetarian. But there’s absolutely nothing alternative about peanut butter
and jelly.”
What’s more, some experts suggest Brown’s not, well, nuts. A Princeton
bioethicist says if 100 million Americans – that’s one of three of us – traded a
burger for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it would make an impact on
the environment. And if we made the same choice three times a week, it
would make a huge impact.
Those who worry that Brown’s dietary suggestions might make a huge impact on the
waistline, take heart. A serving of two tablespoons of peanut butter does have nearly 200
calories and 16 grams of fat. But the fat is not the worrisome saturated type and there’s
some evidence that eating a small amount of nuts each day might reduce the risk of heart
disease, and even prevent cancer.
Of course, Brown and nutritionists still suggest partnering a low-sugar peanut butter with
whole grain breads, and low-sugar jellies, or even fresh fruit. And Brown hopes people
consider moving beyond the peanut butter and jelly:
“On the website, we go into other different, other foods people could try – a
bean burrito’s a good example. Black bean soup. Falafel. We even tried
mentioning tofu. I’m not sure if it scares people away.”
Brown really wants to win over people by keeping the campaign from
becoming a crusade. He says that even a vegetarian like him is turned off by
overly radical, moralistic or bloody efforts against meat-eating, or for saving
the world:
“I think have a lot of messages that, ‘Things are very scary, you must change
your life.’ And so, it’s to try to come in with a softer approach, I think. The
ideal is to reach people who aren’t reached with more intense messages.”
Brown hopes to disarm you with playfulness. And what could be more playful than
playing with your food – turning peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into
people?
(Sound of fast typing)
On a laptop computer, Brown calls up a slide show he’s made of a
gingerbread-style cutout couple, peanut butter and jelly boy and girl. They’re
making a snowman and chatting. When PBJ boy gets a little sad, his
companion wonders why:
“He’s concerned that maybe global warming will mean there won’t be
conditions for making snowmen in the future.”
(Jordan:) “Can you read this one? They’re very sophisticated?”
(Brown:) “PBJ Girl says, ‘Well, anthropogenic climate change is a serious
problem. It should only affect the climate gradually. I’m positive we’ll able
to build a snowman next year.’ And then PBJ boy says, ‘Well, I guess that
makes me feel better, but what if our grandkids never see snow?'”
The girl says if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it might stay snowy in
the winter. Then she backs up Brown’s claim that it’s easy enough to do: just
have a sandwich that looks a lot like her and visit the pbjcampaign.org
website.
PBJ boy and girl are just the beginning.
(Sound of jingling cookie cutters)
Brown has a jar full of more cookie cutters like those he used to make the
boy and girl. He figures a wider variety of peanut butter and jelly creatures
could act in slide shows and carry out other environmental messages.
Brown’s not just limiting his work to online skits. He’s also trying to build a
calculator into his site so visitors can register the number of peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches they’ve eaten. Then he can track the impact. No
matter what, though, Brown plans for the campaign to remain light, fun, and
easy to swallow.
For the Environment Report, this is Jennifer Szweda Jordan.
Members of Dooda Desert Rock. From left, Alice Gilmore, Elouise Brown, her son JC, her brother-in-law and her grandfather, Julius Gilmore. Her grandparents Alice and Julius lived their whole lives just down the hill from here. They would have to be relocated if the power plant is built. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)
The protestors’ make-shift camp in Burnham, New Mexico on the Navajo Nation at the proposed power plant site. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)
The Navajo coal mine would be expanded if the Desert Rock power plant is built. Desert Rock would be a "mine mouth" facility, meaning that coal would not have to be brought to the power plant by train or truck. The Navajo coal mine already provides coal to the nearby Four Corners Power Plant. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)
The Four Corners Power Plant is about ten miles north of the proposed Desert Rock plant. Another giant power plant, the San Juan Generating Station, is just north of here. Four Corners is one of the largest coal fired plants in the country with 2000 MW of generating capacity. It’s also one of the dirtiest based on its emissions of nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and mercury. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)
To meet the country’s growing demand for
energy, there are about 150 new
coal-burning power plants on the drawing board.
But not everyone is thrilled about relying on
coal as a future energy source. Daniel Kraker
takes us to a place where people have
lived next to these power plants for decades.
And now they’re fighting plans to build another
one:
Transcript
There’s been a lot of talk about developing clean energy sources, like wind and solar
power. But coal is still king. And to meet the country’s growing energy demand there are
about 150 new coal fired power plants on the drawing board. But not everyone is thrilled
about relying on coal as a significant future energy source. Daniel Kraker takes us to a
place where people have lived next to these power plants for decades. And now they’re
fighting plans to build another one:
In northwest New Mexico, the Navajo Indian reservation is a spectacular other-worldly
landscape of mesas and giant sandstone rock formations jutting out of the red earth.
Underneath the ground are huge reserves of coal. This is where the Navajo government
and a company called Sithe Global Power want to build a 1500-megawatt power plant
called Desert Rock, and it’s here where a small group of Navajos who oppose the project
have set up their base of resistance.
“It’s called Dooda Desert Rock, Dooda means ‘no’ in Navajo.”
That’s Elouise Brown. She’s president of a group of Navajos who live near the proposed
construction site. They’ve been camped out there since December, in a small plywood
shack attached to a trailer. Brown says she’s quit her day job to protest the project full-time:
“I think this whole coal plant is just, people are just looking at dollar signs. They don’t
care about their people, they don’t care about their mother earth, global warming…And I
think it’s about time that we be heard, we’re going to stand here and stay here until
somebody listens to us.”
Brown walks outside the shack with her son and grandfather, Julius Gilmore. He points
out in Navajo where the power plant would go.
“You see the drill down there? It’s just northeast of there…”
“And that’s your grandfather’s house right there?”
“Yes.”
Her grandparents have spent their entire life there. They’ll have to be relocated if the plant
is built.
From the protestors’ camp the tips of two giant smokestacks are visible. The Four Corners
and San Juan Generating Stations were built in the 1970s during the last big construction
wave of coal fired plants. Desert Rock would be the third power plant in this area. Frank
Maisano is a spokesman for Desert Rock:
“Already in the region there is 2300 megawatts of new requests for power, and that is just to
satisfy massive growth in the region right now. Those who say that, ‘Oh we just won’t use
coal.’ They’re not looking at the larger picture, which says we really do have to have a
balanced approach, not just that we don’t like this one little carbon dioxide emission that
comes from this plant.”
Maisano says Desert Rock would be one of the cleanest coal fired plants in the country.
He says scrubbers would remove many of the harmful chemicals that can lead to health
problems and smog. And it would cough up less carbon dioxide than the older generation
of coal-fired plants.
“It’s a higher heat rate so that the coal is heated up so it combusts more completely,
basically what you’re doing is, you’re getting more efficiency, you’re getting more
megawatts out of less coal.”
Still, Desert Rock would emit about 10 million tons of CO2 every year. That’s only about
15% less than older plants. There are 150 coal fired plants like this one on the
drawing board across the country, and 40 of those are likely to start up in the next five
years.
Many environmentalists worry if Desert Rock and other coal plants are built, we’ll be
saddling the country with growing greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come.
Roger Clark is Air and Energy Director with the Grand Canyon Trust:
“As a nation we should consider a ban on all new coal plants. We’re at a point now where
we need to start reversing the amount of greenhouse gasses that we’re putting into the
atmosphere. It’s 19th century technology here in the 21st century that is something that we
don’t need.”
The country’s population is growing, and our thirst for energy is growing right along with
it. Roger Clark and others believe we can meet that growing demand through energy
efficiency improvements, combined with investments in renewables.
Here in the southwest, the Navajo Nation is in the early stages of developing a wind farm.
But that would only produce 200 megawatts of electricity; Desert Rock would be seven
times that size.
The tribe’s primary focus in this debate isn’t CO2 emissions, or climate change, it’s
revenue. Desert Rock would generate an estimated 50 million dollars annually for the
impoverished tribe. If the plant gets its final environmental approvals, and it isn’t taken to
court, that money could start flowing as early as 2012.
Some people are warning there are hidden costs
to the drive for ethanol. The demand for corn-based
ethanol for fuel has pushed the price of corn close
to the highest price it’s been in 10 years. In the
first of our two-part series on ethanol, Rebecca Williams
reports that economists say the push for more ethanol will
mean higher prices at the supermarket:
Transcript
Some people are warning there are hidden costs
to the drive for ethanol. The demand for corn-based
ethanol for fuel has pushed the price of corn close
to the highest price it’s been in 10 years. In the
first of our two-part series on ethanol, Rebecca Williams
reports that economists say the push for more ethanol will
mean higher prices at the supermarket:
(Sound of burger sizzling)
Everything in your classic American meal has one thing in common.
(Sound of soda can opening and fizzing)
The burger, chips, soda, even the ketchup. They all depend on corn.
Cows eat corn. Chips have corn oil in them. And your soda and ketchup
have high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient. Supermarkets are
loaded with food that has something to do with corn.
And lately, corn’s been near its highest price in ten years. The price
has nearly doubled. Everyone from livestock producers to beverage
companies has been feeling the squeeze of more expensive corn. And
that’s been starting to show up at the grocery store.
The US Department of Agriculture predicts our food is going to get more
expensive this year, and maybe for many years to come.
Ephraim Leibtag is a USDA economist. He says we’ll probably be paying
between two and a half and three and a half percent more this year at
the store:
“That’s on average for your food bill. So if you’re buying an average
basket of products and you spend $100 when you go to the store, now
you’ll be spending $103. But you’ll see it first in products most
related to corn. In addition you’ll see some after-effects because if
more corn is produced that may drive up the price of other commodities
if the tradeoff in land is between, let’s say, corn and other potential farm
products.”
So if farmers plant more corn for ethanol instead of soybeans, that
will drive up the price of soybeans, and in turn, the food that’s made
from them.
It turns out that’s exactly what farmers are planning to do this year.
A recent USDA report says farmers will be planting 12 million more
acres of corn than last year… and less soybeans, and rice.
Leibtag says high corn prices have been great for corn farmers, but he
says it’s been rough on a lot of other people:
“If you use corn as a main ingredient you’ve already noticed your costs
go up quite a bit. Some companies have explored the possibility of
substituting or using other products. But certainly producers of livestock and
poultry have higher feed costs. They have to think about exactly how they’re
going to produce their product when one of their inputs goes up 20, 30,
50, 80 percent in price.”
Ethanol backers say it’s just a matter of time before the market will
adjust to more expensive corn. Bob Dinneen is the president of the
Renewable Fuels Association:
“Corn prices are indeed going up… Our own industry is paying more for feedstock for ethanol today. But
at the end of the day, as the marketplace adjusts, we’ll be able to grow
more than sufficient grain to satisfy the country’s demand for food,
fuel and fiber and rural America will be better for it.”
But others argue it won’t be possible to have it all forever. Lester
Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute:
“Usually in the past, rises in food prices come when we have a poor
harvest somewhere in the world as a result of weather and therefore is temporary. It usually
lasts a year or so and weather comes back to normal and we get a good
harvest again. What we’re looking at now is continuous pressure on
prices as far as we can comfortably see in the future, simply because in
agricultural terms, the demand for automotive fuel is insatiable.”
Brown says we’re at risk of trading food for ethanol fuel. And he says
it’s not just going to impact food prices in the US. It’s also going
to affect food supplies worldwide, especially in developing countries.
“The biggest effects are hitting people in other countries who consume
corn more directly, like Mexico for example, which has a corn-based diet and there
the price of tortillas has gone up about 60 percent.”
Brown says many US politicians have what he calls “ethanol euphoria.”
He’s called for a moratorium on licensing new ethanol plants. He wants
the government to think about whether it makes sense to keep
subsidizing ethanol made from corn.
Many people, even some in the ethanol industry, say ethanol from corn
is a limited solution. So researchers are looking for ways to make
ethanol from other sources, such as woody plants like switchgrass.
In the meantime, ethanol from corn is still the most viable option.
Economists say if corn gets diverted into ethanol on a large scale,
that might mean we’ll all be paying higher food prices for the next
several years.
Officials placed containment booms around the barge. Most of
them failed to prevent the oil from floating downriver, contaminating dozens
of miles of pristine shoreline. (Courtesy of the NY State Dept. of Conservation)
Dwayne Chalk at his marina on Fisher's Landing near Alexandria Bay,
NY. In the background, you can see a black stripe of 30-year-old oil on the
dock. The St. Lawrence River has recovered, but Chalk and many others worry
about another spill. (Photo by David Sommerstein)
Blue herons and thousands of other wildlife were victims of the
oil spill of 1976. (Courtesy of the NY State Dept. of Conservation)
30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New York state. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:
Transcript
30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds
of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New
York State. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the
United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic
liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill.
The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:
It was really foggy that morning. Bob Smith awoke to two sounds:
“You could hear the anchor chains going down, and next thing we know
there was a young Coast Guard guy knocking on the front door.”
The Coast Guard guy had driven up, asking around for a missing barge.
Smith remembered the anchor chains echoing across the water that woke
him up. He went outside to look.
(Sound of walking outside)
Thirty years later, Smith lives amidst cozy cottages on manicured lawns in
the heart of the touristy Thousand Islands.
“Just right about straight out there. See where that boat’s coming up there
now?”
That’s where a barge carrying oil from Venezuela had dropped anchor after
running aground. That morning Smith watched crude as thick as mud drift
out of sight downriver:
“If you’re born and raised here on the river, you don’t like to see anything go
in the river that doesn’t belong there.”
The Coast Guard placed booms in the water, but the oil quickly spilled over.
It carried 50 miles downstream. It oozed as far as 15 feet into the river’s
marshes. Tom Brown was the point man for New York’s Department of
Environmental Conservation. He says the spill couldn’t have come at a
worse time for wildlife:
“All the young fish, waterfowl, shorebirds, furbearers, were coming off the
nests and were being born.”
Thousands of birds and fish suffocated in black goo. As images of
devastation flashed on national TV, the spill killed the tourism season, too.
It was a summer with no swimming, no fishing, no dipping your feet in the
water at sunset. Really, it was a summer with no river.
(Sound of river at Chalk’s dock)
30 years later, everyone still remembers the acrid smell:
“When I woke up in the middle of the night and I could smell oil, I was
afraid I had an oil leak in my house.”
Dwayne Chalk’s family has owned a marina on the St. Lawrence for
generations. Chalk points to a black stripe of oil on his docks, still there
three decades later, and he’s still bitter:
“The Seaway has done this area, well, I shouldn’t say that, it hasn’t done any
good. To me it hasn’t.”
The St. Lawrence Seaway opened the ports of the Great Lakes to Atlantic
Ocean freighters carrying cargoes of steel, ore, and liquid chemicals. It
generates billions of dollars a year in commerce, but it’s also brought
pollution and invasive species.
Anthropologist John Omohundro studied the social effects of the 1976 oil
spill. He says it helped awaken environmentalism in the Great Lakes:
“The spill actually raised people’s consciousness that the river could be a
problem in a number of areas, not just oil.”
Groups like Save the River and Great Lakes United began lobbying for
cleaner water and safer navigation in the years after the spill:
“If a vessel carrying oil or oil products were in that same type of ship today,
it would not be allowed in.”
Albert Jacquez is the outgoing administrator for the US side of the St. Lawrence
Seaway. The 1976 barge had one hull and gushed oil when it hit the rocks.
Today’s barges are mostly double-hulled and use computerized navigation.
Jacquez says a lot has changed to prevent spills:
“The ships themselves are different, the regulations that they have to follow are
different, and the inspections are different. Now does that guarantee? Well,
there are no guarantees, period.”
So if there is a spill, the government requires response plans for every part of
the Great Lakes. Ralph Kring leads training simulations of those plans for
the Coast Guard in Buffalo. Still, he says the real thing is different:
“You really can’t control the weather and the currents and all that. It’s definitely going to be a
challenge, especially when you’re dealing with a real live incident where
everyone’s trying to move as fast as they can and also as efficient as they
can.”
Critics question the ability to get responders to remote areas in time. They
also worry about spills in icy conditions and chemical spills that oil booms
wouldn’t contain.
(Sound of river water)
Back on the St. Lawrence River, Dwayne Chalk says the oil spill of 1976
has taught him it’s not if, it’s when, the next big spill occurs:
“You think about it all the time. Everytime a ship comes up through here,
you think what’s going to happen if that ship hits something.”
Chalk and everyone else who relies on the Great Lakes hope they’ll never
have to find out.
For some people, lawn care is a choice between burning calories or burning fossil fuel. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Turf plots at Michigan State University are studied for grass hardiness, ease of maintenance, and water usage. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Polls indicate the majority of people want to do better toward the environment. One of the most polluting activities at many homes is lawn care. Lawn mowers spew out emissions that pollute at a higher rate than cars. Lawn sprinklers can use massive amounts of water. And over-use of fertilizer can pollute nearby streams. The GLRC’s Lester Graham looks at simple things you can do to reduce pollution and still have a green lawn:
Transcript
Polls indicate the majority of people want to do better toward the
environment. One of the most polluting activities at many homes is lawn
care. Lawn mowers spew out emissions that pollute at a higher rate than
cars. Lawn sprinklers can use massive amounts of water. And over-use
of fertilizer can pollute nearby streams. The GLRC’s Lester Graham
looks at simple things you can do to reduce pollution and still have a
green lawn:
It figures that the day I went to talk to a turf expert about mowing and
lawn care… it would be raining.
“Well we needed it. So, I guess that’s the good thing about it.”
Tom Smith is the Executive Director of the Michigan Turfgrass
Foundation. He’s got all kinds of recommendations for how to properly
prep soil for lawns… but we wanted to limit this story to some simple,
practical things we can do with an existing lawn to reduce the impact to
the environment.
“One of the first things and easiest things you can do is mow high. In
fact, I tell most consumers, most residential facilities mow as high as you
can set your mower. Because, what that will do is you’ll get a better root
system, you’ll get more shading of that soil and you’ll have less water
loss.”
Smith works closely with the Michigan State University’s turf grass
research program. One of the things they’ve learned there goes against
some of the advice you might have heard in the past about watering. In
research that’s been going on since 1982, they’ve let Mother Nature take
care of one plot… another gets deep waterings a couple of times a
week… and a third gets daily watering, light rates, in the middle of the
heat of the day. The plot that looks best year after year… the one that
gets light watering, daily during the middle of the day. Most of the water
evaporates… but it reduces the heat stress on the grass… so it doesn’t go
dormant and brown. And Smith says it actually uses less water…
“In that research, we were able to reduce water use by about half by
doing daily watering at light rates in the middle of the day compared to
that deep infrequent watering.”
“Now, there are going to be some people who say ‘Look, I don’t want to
use water in a cosmetic way at all.’ Is there a grass that doesn’t use the
kind of water that most grasses we know do?”
“Actually there is one of our grasses that we recommend called Turf
Type Tall Fescue. Turf Type Tall Fescue is our most drought tolerant
grass. In most summers it will stay green without any supplemental
water.”
Smith says before you start spreading fertilizer on your lawn… you
should get a soil test to see exactly what you need. It’s an eight to ten
dollar test that can be done by your county extension office… and it’s
good for about three years. If you put fertilizer down without knowing…
you’re probably adding to the phosphorous and nitrogen pollution
problems in the streams and lakes in your area and beyond.
Keeping your equipment running well also helps reduce pollution. An
oil change in the lawn mower… and sharpening your mower blades.
(Sound of grinder)
Mark Collins maintains the turf plots at Michigan State University’s turf
grass program. His crew sharpens their blades every third mowing… but
they’re probably mowing a lot more than you do…
“Probably a homeowner should at least once a month. Just keep the
blade sharp. That’s the biggest thing. If it’s a sharp blade, then it cuts
the grass cleanly and you don’t get a frayed edge on the grass blade.”
And Collins says a mulching mower is best because it cuts the grass
blades into tiny bits that help fertilize the lawn… and reduces the need
for bagging your clippings.
And while we’re on the topic of mowers… recent years, lawn mower
manufacturers have been making more efficient, cleaner burning
machines… although they’ve resisted the idea of catalytic converters
which would greatly reduce emissions.
At Midwest Power Equipment, John Brown says there’s not a lot of
consumer pressure to make lawn mowers more environmentally
friendly…
“Nobody asks about environmentally friendly – or very, very few. Most
people want to know about power, they want to know about ease of use.
As far as environmentally friendly, it’s probably the last question that
comes up.”
But if you are interested… Brown says there’s a little bit of information
on emissions right on the mower.
“Yeah, there’s a little sticker that’s actually on – like on the ones I have
on the floor here – it’s wrapped around the gas tank. It says an air index
quality and it’s a one-to-ten scale, one being the best, ten being the worst.
So, you could look at it, kind of judge for yourself.”
So, using less water, planting hardy grass, using only the fertilizer you
need, keeping your machinery in good working order and buying the
least polluting models all help. But… there are soulutions… such as
planting more drought resistant shrubs and trees so that there’s not as
much grass to mow… and if you’re really adventurous… you can get a
manual reel mower… one with no engine… it just uses the energy you
provide by pushing it.
Lester Brown founded the Earth Policy Institute in 2001. (Photo courtesy of the Earth Policy Institute)
