Thawing Tundra Speeds Up Warming

  • University of Florida biologist Ted Schuur does field work in the Alaska tundra every summer (Photo courtesy of Ted Schuur)

A report in this week’s journal Nature looks at how thawing ground up North might
impact global warming. Amy Mayer spent some time in Interior Alaska with
scientists at Eight Mile Lake:

Transcript

A report in this week’s journal Nature looks at how thawing ground up North might
impact global warming. Amy Mayer spent some time in Interior Alaska with
scientists at Eight Mile Lake:

Permafrost is ground that’s supposed to be frozen all the time. But for decades it’s been
thawing in places.

When that happens, carbon gets released—potentially contributing to the greenhouse
effect.

Ted Schuur’s a biologist at the University of Florida but he spends his summers doing
experiments near Healy, Alaska.

I tagged along during some field visits.

I met Schuur when we were both living in Fairbanks. He lives far away now, but loves
Alaska. You only work here year after year if you do. Summer field work is brutal – tons
of mosquitoes and you work all the time because the sun doesn’t set.

Pretty soon, we’re there.

“This has to be one of my more photogenic field sites that I ever worked at.”

Tundra surrounds us. We’re just north of the Alaska Range. I can see the snow-capped
peaks. We change into rubber boots, pick up our packs, and, after a few steps, we’re on
the tussocks.

Alaskans often say walking on tussocks is like balancing on basketballs. It’s not easy. If
your feet slip off, they get wet. Schuur’s tall and used to this, so he goes faster than me,
and with less bumbling.

Soon, we’re balancing on lumber instead. Schuur and his group try to protect the areas
where they work with narrow boardwalks.

“When we first came out here, we put these boardwalks that we’re walking on now, big
10 feet pieces of lumber – they’re like 2x6s or 2x8s. But we don’t really want to walk on
the tundra because we come here a lot and you’d end up with a trail in no time and
destroy vegetation.”

Schuur knows trudging across the tundra damages it and he tries to minimize that harm.
But in order to answer his questions about the potential greenhouse effect from thawing
permafrost, he has to dig in.

Schuur saws into the tundra with a bread knife.

“It’s very satisfying. It’s like cutting a big cake – though this is a cake with lots of roots in it.”

He cuts up the plants and packs the roots and the tops into jars.

“We’re going to measure respiration of plants.”

Schuur uses a machine to scrub out the carbon from the air that’s in the jars. The plant
tops and roots will continue to respire carbon dioxide until they die. Later, he’ll use fancy
equipment to “date” the carbon that’s left.

He needs the age of the carbon because when he finds older carbon he knows it’s only
recently escaped the frozen ground. That makes it extra in the system.

At first, Schuur learned, new carbon coincides with more plant growth that uses up the
addition. That means no greenhouse effect.

But, later, the permafrost keeps thawing, more old carbon becomes available, and plant
growth just can’t keep up. That means, carbon dioxide ends up in the atmosphere from
the thawing permafrost – just like it does from burning coal or gasoline.

The thawing may ultimately be a bad thing, but to understand and explain it further,
Schuur wants to document it – or even cause some. Next, he says…

“As strange as it seems, I would love to thaw permafrost on a large scale,
experimentally.”

The dilemma, of course, is that causing a thaw means contributing to – in a small way –
a process that might damage or destroy the ecosystem. But we all emit carbon dioxide,
just by driving.

“Even as I do that and I do an experiment where I melt out a little bit of the permafrost, I
think we’re generating this information that’s helping society answer these huge
questions.”

Schuur says the amount of tundra he’d sacrifice is tiny relative to the whole circumpolar
region, where tons of carbon waits in ground that is frozen now but could eventually
thaw.

For The Environment Report, I’m Amy Mayer.

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High Mercury Levels Found at Grocery Stores

A new study has found high levels of mercury in fresh swordfish at major grocery chains. Environmentalists say the results should be a wake-up call for the Food and Drug Administration. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

A new study has found high levels of mercury in fresh swordfish at
major grocery chains. Environmentalists say the results should be a wake-up
call for the Food and Drug Administration. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


The Mercury Policy Project tested fresh and frozen swordfish from stores in
twenty-two states. The average amount of mercury in the swordfish was one-point-one parts
per million.


That’s higher than the amount the FDA considers safe for
pregnant and nursing women. Michael Bender is with the Mercury Policy
Project, which organized the study. He says the FDA isn’t doing enough to
protect people.


“Why aren’t they removing the swordfish from the marketplace? Over fifty percent of samples are over one part per million, the FDA’s action level, where they can take action… why doesn’t the FDA take action?”


Bender says the FDA should also require warnings posted where the fish is
sold. An FDA official who asked not to be named says the agency is
educating the public about the risks of eating swordfish. She says states
can take additional action such as posting notices if they wish.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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How Long Do You Keep a Polluting Heap?

  • Motor oil dripping from cars can add up and end up contaminating waterways and sediments. (Photo by Brandon Blinkenberg)

Industries and companies get labeled as
“polluters.” But what do you do when you find out you’re a pretty big polluter yourself… and you find out it’s going to cost you a lot of money to fix the
problem? As part of the series, “Your Choice; Your
Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca
Williams finds herself in that dilemma:

Transcript

Industries and companies get labeled as “polluters.” But what do you do when you find out you’re a pretty big polluter yourself… and you find out it’s going to cost you a lot of money to fix the problem? As part of the series, “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams finds herself in that dilemma:


(sound of car starting)


This is my ‘89 Toyota Camry. It has 188,000 miles on it. Pieces of
plastic trim fly off on the highway, and I have to climb in from the
backseat when my door gets frozen in the winter. But I got it for free, I get good gas mileage, and my insurance is cheap. But now, it’s leaking oil – lots of oil. I knew it was bad when I started
pouring in a quart of oil every other week.


I thought I’d better take it in to the shop.


(sound of car shop)


My mechanic, Walt Hayes, didn’t exactly have good news for me.


“You know, you’re probably leaking about 80% of that, just from experience, I’d say
you’re burning 20% and leaking 80%.”


Walt says the rear main seal is leaking, and the oil’s just dripping
straight to the ground. Walt tells me the seal costs 25 dollars, but he’d
have to take the transmission out to get to the seal. That means I’d be
paying him 650 dollars.


650 bucks to fix an oil leak, when no one would steal my car’s radio. There’s no way. Obviously, it’s cheaper to spend two dollars on each quart of oil, than to fix the seal.


“Right – what else is going to break, you know? You might fix the rear main
seal, and your transmission might go out next week or something. Your car,
because of its age, is on the edge all the time. So to invest in a 25 dollar seal, spending a lot of money for labor, almost doesn’t make sense on an
older car.”


That’s my mechanic telling me not to fix my car. In fact, he says he’s seen
plenty of people driving even older Toyotas, and he says my engine will
probably hold out a while longer. But now I can’t stop thinking about the
quarts of oil I’m slowly dripping all over town.


I need someone to tell me: is my one leaky car really all that bad? Ralph
Reznick works with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. He
spends his time trying to get polluters to change their behavior.


“That’s a lot for an old car. If you were the only car in the parking lot,
that wouldn’t be very much. But the fact is, there’s a lot of cars just
like yours that are doing the same thing.”


Reznick says the oil and antifreeze and other things that leak from and fall
off cars like mine add up.


“The accumulative impact of your car and other cars, by hitting the
pavement, and washing off the pavement into the waterways, is a very large
impact. It’s one of the largest sources of pollution we’re dealing with
today.”


Reznick says even just a quart of oil can pollute thousands of gallons of
water. And he says toxins in oil can build up in sediment at the bottom of
rivers and lakes. That can be bad news for aquatic animals and plants.
There’s no question – he wants me to fix the leak.


But I am NOT pouring 650 bucks into this car when the only thing it has going
for it is that it’s saving me money. So I can either keep driving it, and
feel pretty guilty, or I can scrap it and get a new car.


But it does take a lot of steel and plastic and aluminum to make a new car.
Maybe I’m doing something right for the environment by driving a car that’s
already got that stuff invested in it.


I went to the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan
and talked to Greg Keoleian. He’s done studies on how many years it makes
sense to keep a car. He says if you look at personal costs, and the energy
that goes into a making a midsize car, it makes sense to hang onto it for a
long time… like 16 years.


No problem there – I finally did something right!


Well, sort of.


“In your case, from an emissions point of view, you should definitely
replace your vehicle. It turns out that a small fraction of vehicles are
really contributing to a lot of the local air pollution. Older vehicles
tend to be more polluting, and you would definitely benefit the environment
by retiring your vehicle.”


Keoleian says if I get a newer car, it won’t be leaking oil, and it won’t
putting out nearly as much nitrogen oxide and other chemicals that lead to
smog. Oh yeah, he also says I really need to start looking today.


And so doing the right thing for the environment is going to cost me money.
There’s no way around that. The more I think about my rusty old car, the
more I notice all the OTHER old heaps on the road. Maybe all of you are a
bit like me, hoping to make it through just one more winter without car
payments.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Recent Deer Hunts Help Feed the Poor

  • Overpopulation of deer is causing problems for forest understory, farmers, and increased car/deer accidents. Some programs are encouraging hunters to take an extra deer and donating the meat to charity. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The hunting season for deer has ended or is about to end in most states. But the deer are still plentiful. Overpopulation of deer has led to an increase in deer-and-car crashes. Too many deer also damage the understory of forests. In some states, though, the deer overpopulation also means more deer meat is made available to low-income people. That’s because hunters, meat processors and food banks are working together to get venison to the poor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde
reports:

Transcript

The hunting season for deer has ended or is about to end in most states. But the deer are
still plentiful. Overpopulation of deer has led to an increase in deer and car crashes. Too
many deer also damage the understory of forests. In some states, though, the deer
overpopulation also means more deer meat is made available to low-income people.
That’s because hunters, meat processors and food banks are working together to get
venison to the poor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde reports:


It’s only been in the last decade or so that states have begun allowing hunters to donate
wild game to charitable organizations. In New York, meat processors and hunters started
the Venison Donation Coalition in 1998. Starting out, they gave a thousand pounds of
deer meat to food pantries in two counties.


Kathy Balbierer handles the coalition’s public relations. She says since that first thousand
pound donation, the program has grown…


“Last year, we had 108,000 pounds of venison donated, which on the average is, you
know – a deer is 40 pounds. It was approximately 27,000 deer. This year we have 119
participating processors throughout the state serving 52 counties.”


It’s an idea that hunters and meat processors across the nation are embracing. There are
venison donation programs in almost every state. Some, such as those in New York and
Illinois, are administered by state government. Others, like Michigan’s and Minnesota’s,
are run by private organizations.


Here’s how it works. First, a hunter who wants to donate meat takes it to a participating
processor. Ed Tanguey operates a meat processing facility in Kirkville, New York. He
says it’s a pretty simple process.


“Once the hunters show up to the building, we’ll have them come into our skinning room.
We’ll have them fill out some paperwork and once it’s brought in, we’ll start to skin the
deer, remove the hide and trim off any meat that’s not edible. We’ll bring the deer into
our cutting room.”


Butchers section the deer into shoulder, torso and hindquarters.


(sound of grinder starting up)


Then Tanguey sets up the grinder and grabs the meat from the cooler.


He packs the ground meat into five-pound black-and-white tubes and slaps a label on
with his name and the hunter’s license number on it.


Tanguey has processed 250 deer so far this season, 44 of them for the Venison Donation
Coalition. The coalition pays him a reduced rate, about a dollar a pound. Once there’s
enough meat in Tanguey’s cooler, he calls the Food Bank of Central New York to pick it
up.


Tanguey says this is his way of giving back to his community.


“When I see a hunter bringing in his son or grandson and they’re giving a second deer or
a third deer to the food bank, I think it’s going to pass it on to them. And years from now
we’ll keep the coalition supplied with some more food for the food bank.”


Jim Giacando is operations manager at the Food Bank of Central New York. He says
200 of the 600 agencies he works with ask for venison.


“In our freezer, we have almost 1,000 lbs ready to distribute, and it’s already committed
to a number of agencies throughout our 11-county area. And we’ll be distributing it this
week and next week, and then hopefully we’ll receive more in and fill more orders.”


The food bank will receive venison up until January. But Giacando says the greatest
challenge is keeping up with the demand for deer meat. A lot of people want it.


“I think we actually may have to get to a point where we might have to say ‘you know,
you can’t order that much. We have to keep it for all the other programs.'”


(ambient sound in church)


One of the food pantries asking for the deer meat is the University United Methodist
Church in Syracuse, New York. Norma Goel ordered venison from Giacando’s food
bank. The church’s food pantry feeds about 150 people every week.


Goel says she can’t buy as much food for the pantry as she’d like to because of the
church’s limited budget and an increase in the number of poor people asking for food.
She says farm-raised meat is a high-priced commodity…


“We’re always looking for a way to provide meat to participants in the pantry. And it’s
become increasingly difficult to buy frozen meat that the food bank has. By and large,
we’re not purchasing frozen meat from the food bank because we can’t afford it.”


So the deer meat is a cheaper alternative. Last year, Goel ordered venison too late to
receive any. This year she got all she could for the pantry: 60 pounds. She only has to
pay the handling costs – the coalition covers processing.


Goel says she’ll encourage people to use the deer meat in place of ground beef because
it’s high in protein and low in fat. She says the 60 pounds will feed a lot of hungry people
in her community.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Skye Rohde.

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