james - The Environment Report

Interview: Dr. James Hansen, Part 2

Dr. James Hansen's book, 'Storms Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About The Coming Climate Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To Save Humanity' (Photo courtesy of Bloomsbury USA)

James Hansen is the author of
‘The Storms of My Grandchildren:
The Truth About The Coming Climate
Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To
Save Humanity.’ This is the second
half of our interview with Dr. Hansen.
He’s a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify
before Congress about climate change.
He stresses, he’s not speaking for
the government, but only for himself:

Transcript

Lester Graham: Doctor Hansen, in the book you say we should scrap the cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, and instead go with a fee on fossil fuels and then give that money to the people directly to help them adapt to higher energy costs. How would that work?

Dr. James Hansen: The fee would be charged at the mine or the oil head or the port of entry for imported fossil fuels. It’d be collected from the fossil fuel companies and then they money should be distributed to the public on a uniform basis. You’d introduce this gradually so that people can change their habits, the technology that they use, the vehicles that they use, for example. So, you introduce it gradually, but by the time it’s reached a dollar of gallon on gasoline, at the rate of fossil fuel use last year, that would be generating $3,000 per legal resident of the country with to half a share to each child, up to two children per family. So a family with two or more children would be getting $9,000 a year in this dividend, which should be sent to them monthly just automatically, electronically, to their bank account or their debit card if they don’t have a bank account.

Lester: We’re talking about getting that through Washington D.C, where special interests drive the agenda often. I don’t want to accuse you of being naïve, but I believe many in Washington would.

Dr. Hansen: Yes, they do, however, there is a growing realization, environmental groups, like Friends of the Earth, which now recognize this is exactly what’s needed and they’re beginning to promote that. I think that’s why it’s a good thing that we’re kinda taking, probably taking, a year off dropping this cap and trade and give us a chance to discuss this because it’s what’s in the interest of the public as opposed to the lobbyists.

Lester: Since you first made congress aware of climate change as a pressing issue, the Clinton-Gore administration did nothing. President George W. Bush indicated he would deal with the emissions causing climate change, and then evidently Dick Cheney worked to kill that effort and Bush reversed his position. Now President Barak Obama has indicated we must do something, but legislation in Congress is stalled right now. What do you this is stopping this effort if this is such a serious threat?

Dr. Hansen: It is the role of money in Washington and other capitals around the world. Special interests have more influence on these policies than the public’s interest and that’s why, you know, we had hoped with the election of the new president things were really going to change, but I think he hasn’t really looked at this issue closely enough to really understand what’s in the people’s interest. And I hope that over the next year we can convince them that we need to move in a direction that is in the people’s interest rather than in the big businesses interest.

Lester: James Hansen is the author of The Storms of My Grandchildren, the truth about the upcoming climate catastrophe and the last chance to save humanity. Dr. Hansen, thank you very much for your time!

Dr. Hansen: Uh huh, thank you!

Interview: Dr. James Hansen, Part 1

Dr. James Hansen is a climate scientist for NASA and the author of the book, 'Storms Of My Grandchildren.' (Photo courtesy of Bloomsbury USA)

James Hansen is the author of ‘The Storms
Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About
The Coming Climate Catastrophe And
Our Last Chance To Save Humanity.’
He’s been a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify before
Congress about climate change. In the
book, Hansen wrote about climate change,
‘We seem oblivious to the danger, unaware
how close we may be… to our demise.’
Lester Graham talked to Hansen and noted
that we don’t often hear strong language
like that from scientists:

Transcript

Dr. James Hansen: Well, the public is unaware of the situation, and that’s partly because of the way nature works. You know, weather is highly variable – 10 or 20 or 30 degree variations are common – while the global warming, so far, is about 1 degree Celsius, which is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. So, people have a hard time seeing it. But the consequences are already becoming apparent, as we see with the melting sea ice in the arctic. The Northwest Passage is now actually open. Mountain glaciers melting around the world, sub-tropics expanding – which is affecting the Southwest United States and the Mediterranean region and Australia. And the problem is that those things are going to grow, and we’re going to pass tipping points, which will have disastrous consequences if we pass them. We don’t have to pass them though. And that’s why it’s appropriate for us to try to communicate the situation to the public, because the kinds of things that we need to do with our energy systems make sense anyway for different reasons.

Lester Graham: The evidence for climate change is growing – almost every week more studies are released, often indicating the future will be worse than first thought. What do you think we need to do to minimize the effects of climate change?

Dr. Hansen: Well, it’s very clear what we need to do. The carbon dioxide is increasing because of the burning of fossil fuels. If you look at how much carbon there is in oil, gas, and coal, you see that coal is, by far, the biggest reservoir. And then there’s the unconventional fossil fuels, like tar shale and tar sands. What we need to do is phase out the coal use and prohibit the use of these unconventional, dirty fossil fuels – and we could solve the problem. But to get there, there’s a very practical requirement, and that is that we begin to put a price on carbon emissions. The reason that people use fossil fuels as their main source of energy is that it’s the cheapest energy. And, as long as that’s the case, we’re going to keep using more and more. But the reason that they’re the cheapest is that we subsidize them – our government subsidizes them – and they don’t make them pay for the costs that they cause for society. The human health problems due to air pollution and water pollution, the mercury and the arsenic that comes from coal, and the costs of future climate change for our children and grandchildren – all of these are free for the fossil fuel companies. They don’t have to worry about those at all. The way we would solve that is to put a gradually rising price on carbon emissions. And there’s actually some good news in the newspaper, and that is that Senators Kerry, a Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican, announced that they’re not going to push cap-and-trade – which had been the big banks’ proposed solution to put a ‘cap’ on carbon emissions, and then they, you would (chuckles) – it was a complicated system where you could trade the rights to pollute. But the big winners would be the traders and the losers would be the public.

James Hansen is a climate
scientist for NASA and the author of the
book, ‘Storms Of My Grandchildren.’ He
spoke with The Environment Report’s
Lester Graham. We’ll hear
more from Dr. Hansen tomorrow, including
his idea on how to reduce using fossil fuels.

The 100 Mile Meal: A Homegrown Thanksgiving

Reporter Dustin Dwyer found all the ingredients for his Thanksgiving dinner within 100 miles of his house, including the turkey (poor thing). (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
Turkey farmer Christine Roperti continues to farm near Detroit despite growing development pressures. (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)

Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:

Transcript

I like to look at labels on my food. I don’t care so much about the nutritional info, I just want to know where it came from.

But there’s a problem with that. Even if I know where something is packaged, I still have no idea where the actual ingredients come from. I mean, where the heck do they make partially hydrogenated soybean oil?

I have no idea. And so, for one meal, for the most important meal of the year, I decided to try to get all my food, and all the ingredients in my food, from within 100 miles of my apartment in Southeast Michigan.

If you’re impressed by my ingenious and creative idea, don’t be. I stole it from someone else. Alisa Smith and her partner James MacKinnon were on a 100 mile diet for a year, and they’re writing a book about it. I called up Alisa for some help.

Dwyer: “So my wife and I are going to do the 100 mile Thanksgiving, and I want to ask some advice.”

Smith: “Oh, great! For doing a single meal you picked a very good time to do it because it’s the harvest bounty, so that makes life a lot easier.”

I’m thinking, excellent, this could be a piece of cake. But I’m worried about a few tough ingredients, such as salt. Alisa says salt is a problem for a lot of people.

“I think in the end, you probably will find that salt isn’t available. And not being able t o make it yourself you might just say ‘okay salt is going to be an exception for us.'”

Ok, fine, but I still wanted to make as few exceptions as possible. I’ve got to have a challenge here, somehow.

That said, our menu would be simple: just turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Turkey turned out to be easy.

“Roperti’s Turkey Farm.”

Christine Roperti has been living on her family’s turkey farm in suburban Detroit all her life. Farms like this one are getting crowded out more and more by suburban sprawl. There’s even a brand new subdivision next door to Christine’s place. There have been offers for her land too.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to go anywhere. I like the farm, and like raising my turkeys.”

I liked knowing that Christine actually enjoys this, and cares about it. It made me feel good. And that’s important, because I was also paying a lot more for her turkey than the store-bought stuff.

Anyway, I was flying high, and things were going really well. My list of exceptions was firming up, and it was mostly spices: salt plus all the spices for the pumpkin pie.

Then, while I was bragging at work about how I’d be able to get almost everything but salt for my local dinner, someone reminded me that there are actually salt mines under the city of Detroit.

Like a good journalist I looked into it, and ended up on the most absurd shopping trip of my life.

“Okay I’m headed over the Ambassador Bridge, going from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. They do have salt mines in Detroit, but they don’t sell that salt as food salt in the US, they only sell road salt. So in order to get food salt that’s made within a hundred miles of my house, I have to go to Canada.”

Because of some trade regulation I don’t understand, table salt from this mine can’t be commercially shipped into the US. So I ended up in a city I barely know, looking for a grocery store. I went into the first, and then the second without finding the right brand of salt. Then an hour or so later, in the third store…

“Finally! Windsor salt.”

So, I wasted a lot of fuel putting this dinner together. It’s probably still an improvement over what the Sierra Club says is an average two thousand miles of driving that goes into each ingredient for my usual dinner.

But here’s the thing: if all this local stuff is available, I think I should be able to get it at the grocery store down the street. I should probably let them know that, and let them know I’m willing to pay more for it. I mean, that’s better than driving to Canada for salt, anyway.

But making that happen would take a lot more effort, a lot more voting with my pocketbook, and a lot more than just checking labels.

For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Cement Kiln Pollution

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule regulating
mercury emissions from cement kilns is being challenged by both sides.
As Tracy Samilton reports, the cement industry says the rule goes too
far. Environmentalists say it doesn’t go far enough:

Transcript

The rule regulates mercury emissions from new cement kilns only. The
EPA doesn’t think cement kilns are that big of a factor in mercury
pollution, but the EPA’s estimate is based on voluntary disclosure by
kiln operators. Some kilns were found to be emitting ten times what
they’d been claiming.

EarthJustice Attorney James Pew says he’s skeptical that the mercury
emissions are as low as the EPA thinks they are:

“There’s strong reason to believe that it’s a lot worse than that, in
fact it could be off by an order of magnitude.”

Meanwhile, the cement industry is challenging the EPA’s requirement
that new kilns install mercury-scrubbing technology. Industry officials
say more study is needed to show that it works.

For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

The 100 Mile Meal: A Homegrown Thanksgiving

Reporter Dustin Dwyer found all the ingredients for his Thanksgiving dinner within 100 miles of his house, including the turkey (poor thing). (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
Turkey farmer Christine Roperti continues to farm near Detroit despite growing development pressures. (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)

Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment, and a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:

Transcript

I like to look at labels on my food. I don’t care so much about the nutritional info, I just want to know where it came from.

Dwyer: “So my wife and I are going to do the 100 mile Thanksgiving, and I want to ask some advice.”

Smith: “Oh, great! For doing a single meal you picked a very good time to do it because it’s the harvest bounty, so that makes life a lot easier.”

I’m thinking, excellent, this could be a piece of cake. But I’m worried about a few tough ingredients, such as salt. Alisa says salt is a problem for a lot of people.

“I think in the end, you probably will find that salt isn’t available. And not being able t o make it yourself you might just say ‘okay salt is going to be an exception for us.'”

Ok, fine, but I still wanted to make as few exceptions as possible. I’ve got to have a challenge here, somehow.

That said, our menu would be simple: just turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Turkey turned out to be easy.

“Roperti’s Turkey Farm.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to go anywhere. I like the farm, and like raising my turkeys.”

I liked knowing that Christine actually enjoys this, and cares about it. It made me feel good. And that’s important, because I was also paying a lot more for her turkey than the store-bought stuff.

Anyway, I was flying high, and things were going really well. My list of exceptions was firming up, and it was mostly spices: salt plus all the spices for the pumpkin pie.

Then, while I was bragging at work about how I’d be able to get almost everything but salt for my local dinner, someone reminded me that there are actually salt mines under the city of Detroit.

Like a good journalist I looked into it, and ended up on the most absurd shopping trip of my life.

“Finally! Windsor salt.”

But making that happen would take a lot more effort, a lot more voting with my pocketbook, and a lot more than just checking labels.

For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Locavores Sprout New Way of Eating

Holley duMond's daughter Zoe enjoys a local harvest. (Photo courtesy of Holley duMond)
Some of the many tomatoes Holley duMond will be preserving for the winter. (Photo courtesy of Holley duMond)

Eating grapes and green beans in winter isn’t all that
novel. We’re used to buying whatever we feel like all year
round. But some people are rejecting what’s convenient.
They’re going on a diet that means they can’t get what they
need from the supermarket. The GLRC’s Rebecca
Williams explains:

Transcript

Eating grapes and green beans in winter isn’t all that novel. We’re used to
buying whatever we feel like all year round. But some people are rejecting
what’s convenient. They’re going on a diet that means they can’t get what
they need from the supermarket. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams explains:

When the snow flies, most of us will trudge to the store in heavy coats.
But Holley duMond will just be walking out to her freezer.

(Sound of footsteps and freezer opening)

“These are our fruits, we eat a ton of blueberries throughout the winter.
And all of that is ratatouille and then there’s corn. And then underneath here is the
beginning of our meat stores for the winter, but that will fill up to the
top.”

Holley duMond has her hands full. She and her husband have busy jobs and a
3 year old daughter. They also have a basement full of mason jars. As the
Michigan harvests come in, they spend four days a week buying locally-grown
cherries and sweet corn and squashes, and chopping and cooking and canning.

duMond says yeah, sometimes people call them crazy. But she’s proud that
even in the winter, her family gets half of their diet from local sources.

Holley duMond says at first, she just felt local food would be fresher and
healthier. Then, she says she learned how far most food travels. Some
recent studies say your average piece of produce travels 1500 miles from
field to store. duMond says she worries about the environmental costs of
shipping lettuce from California, or apples from New Zealand or China.

“We do believe that every dollar that we spend is a vote, and so I think politically
we’re helping to change some of the bigger systems that we just don’t like
and don’t appreciate.”

duMond says for her family, it’s been a gradual shift. They eat local meat
and produce but they still drink coffee and eat chocolate that’s shipped in
from far away.

But some local eaters make food buying sound like an Olympic contest. James
Mackinnon and his partner Alisa Smith spent a year on what they call the
100-Mile Diet.

“We were absolutely 100% hardcore about it by the end. In our house and
crossing our plates, by the end of last year there was absolutely nothing
that hadn’t been produced from within 100 miles.”

And that means every meal, every glass of wine, every spice, except for
salt. The couple started their experiment during a long cold spring in
their Vancouver apartment. Their first attempts didn’t exactly work out.
They ate potatoes and turnips and kale. They lost 15 pounds in six weeks.
They pulled all-nighters canning hundreds of pounds of vegetables.

But Mackinnon says things really started to turn around. Their 100-mile
diet grew rich on trout and salmon, fuzzy melon, wild mushrooms and
pumpkin-flower honey.

“A whole year of eating unprocessed foods made from scratch, picked at their
seasonal peak. We felt fantastic for the entire year. The year of the 100-Mile Diet was almost certainly the most diverse diet I’ve ever eaten.”

Mackinnon says he found nearby farmers growing delicious rare varieties of
tomatoes and apples that wouldn’t be economical for supermarkets to sell.

The ranks of local eaters are growing. A similar group of 100-mile eaters
sprung up independently in San Francisco. They call themselves “locavores,” as in local
and omnivore.

And there are the 80 thousand members of Slow Food, a movement to defend traditional
foods and ways of cooking. They’re all firing back against one-stop shopping, but these
people say being truly devoted to local food is like an extra part-time job.

That’s because our food systems are not designed to be local. Rich Pirog
heads up the marketing and food systems program at the Leopold Center for
Sustainable Agriculture. He says after World War II, farmers were
encouraged to expand and specialize in just a couple of products such as
corn and soybeans:

“We’ve seen our food system become more specialized, food is traveling
farther distances, and as we have moved into the last two decades, we’ve
seen that shift to be even more global.”

Pirog says chances are, your supermarket apples are more likely to come from
China than your local orchard. He says pushing back against the global food
system is no easy feat, but he doesn’t think most locavores want to cut off
global trade:

“But what they’re advocating is, I would say, is an incremental approach where
in season we provide more of the food that we are able to grow.”

Pirog says reviving 10 to 20 percent of local food sources could boost local
economies.

So, locavores near you are canning food instead of buying cans because they
think it might just be better tasting and it might be better for the earth.

For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

LOCAVORES SPROUT NEW WAY OF EATING (Short Version)

There’s a trend among some food buyers. People are
signing up for a diet that means they can’t get what they need
from the supermarket. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams
explains:

Transcript

There’s a trend among some food buyers. People are signing up for a diet
that means they can’t get what they need from the supermarket. The GLRC’s Rebecca
Williams explains:

These people are setting out to eat only foods that are grown and produced
near their homes. A lot of times that means tropical fruit, chocolate and
coffee are off limits.

Writers James Mackinnon and Alisa Smith went on what they call the 100-Mile
Diet for an entire year. The couple wanted to challenge themselves to eat a
diet more friendly to the environment.

“Are we doing greater environmental good by eating out-of-season organic
apples from New Zealand in the winter? I would argue that that’s not a
compromise we need to make.”

Mackinnon says he worries about wasting energy by transporting food from far
away.

Farm researchers at Iowa State University say there are two opposing trends
at work. There are more people demanding locally grown food, but at the
same time, imports of produce from countries such as China continue to grow
steadily.

For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Upgrading Tired Hospital Food

Two gourmet chefs managing the kitchen at St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth are adding organic vegetables to the menu. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
Sharon McKeever takes a pot of soup off the stove in the kitchen at St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth. Food managers are adding hormone-free milk and organic fruits and vegetables to the menu. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
St. Luke's Hospital recycles food service items like large cans and jars. The kitchen also saves unused meals for the local food bank, and sends food waste to the compost pile. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Some hospitals are trying to heal the food that they serve. The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill takes us to one hospital that’s making efforts to spice up their menu:

Transcript

Some hospitals are trying to heal the food that they serve. The GLRC’s
Stephanie Hemphill takes us to one hospital that making efforts to spice
up their menu:

(Sound of elevator)

St. Luke’s is the smaller of Duluth’s two hospitals. Their motto could be
“we try harder.” Several years ago, the hospital put two chefs in charge
of the housekeeping, laundry, and food.

In the kitchen, there’s the usual industrial stoves and dishwashers, and a
long assembly line where workers fill the trays for patients, based on
what they’ve ordered.

“The patient fills out the menu, I’ll have this entrée and that salad and this
beverage; then as the tray moves down the conveyor belt, they look at the
menu and put on the appropriate products.”

Mark Branovan was a gourmet chef at restaurants in California’s wine
country. In that part of the world, they take their fresh fruits and
vegetables very seriously.

“We did very little of our produce buying from the big distributors; we
had local guys that would grow lettuce for us, and herbs for us, and tomatoes…
anything we wanted. So that just kind of rolled over for us into, if
we can do it for a restaurant, why can’t we do it for a hospital?”

It’s harder to do in this part of the country, where you can grow lettuce
for about half the year and you’re lucky to get a tomato at all. But
Branovan and his colleague, LeeAnn Tomczyk, decided not to let that
stop them.

Tomczyk was a chef in a trendy restaurant in Wisconsin before she took
the job at the hospital. She says when she first came here, she was
appalled at some of the things on the menu.

“YOu know the patient was able to pick a jell-o salad and a piece of cake.
Well, to me jell-o is a dessert but to them it was their salad and that
was their vegetable, and that wasn’t right.”

Tomczyk and Branovan started to add more fruits and vegetables,
including organic items, to the menu, but they learned to pick their
battles.

“When I tried to change some of the casserole dishes, and some of the
traditional northern Minnesota fare, I was met with some serious
resistance from our customers and our patients who said, ‘Yeah, we have
tater tot hot dish on our menu because we like it.'”

One of the first items to change was the milk. Now the hospital serves
hormone-free milk to patients in the rooms and workers in the cafeteria.
Tomczyk says she’s convinced hormone-free milk and organic food are
healthier. She says an organization devoted to helping people heal, like a
hospital, needs to think about healing in broad terms, even globally. She
says buying local food avoids long-distance transportation, with its heavy
reliance on polluting fossil fuels.

“And the introduction of pesticides and herbicides, and that getting into
our water systems, it’s that whole cycle, and we’re using more and more
these days, and I think it’s just got out of hand.”

The hospital is also committed to reducing waste. It freezes unused
portions and gives them to soup kitchens and homeless shelters. It sends
its food waste to the city compost pile.

St. Luke’s is a member of a hospital buying group that negotiates prices
with big producers like Pillsbury. Each hospital is supposed to buy a
certain percentage of its food through the buying group. When Branovan
and Tomczyk asked the distributor for hormone-free milk, the distributor
didn’t carry it.

“We had to actually get a waiver that says they will allow us to buy off-
contract.”

Branovan got a similar waiver to buy organic fresh fruit, and greens for
the cafeteria salad bar. He hopes to add more organic and locally-grown
foods.

Branovan says St. Luke’s is the first hospital in the region to ask the
buying group to supply hormone-free milk and organic vegetables, but
hospitals and schools on the west coast and east coast are doing it on a larger
scale.

James Pond is editor of Food Service Director, a trade magazine.
He says the movement will grow.

“The pricing advantages will in some ways level out, where if it becomes
important enough to the clientele, the food service operators will respond
by providing products in this manner.”

Some hospitals organize a farmer’s market to serve their workers, as a
way to introduce them to organic and local foods. Then they add those
foods to the cafeteria and patient meals. At St. Luke’s, they feature
organic food at company parties.

For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Cargo ‘Sweepings’ Called Into Question

Every year freighters wash two hundred million pounds of refuse into the Great Lakes leaving the equivalent of underwater gravel roads along shipping lanes. The practice is called “cargo sweeping” and it’s allowed in spite of U.S laws and an international treaty banning dumping in the lakes. The GLRC’s Charity Nebbe has more:

Transcript

Every year freighters wash two hundred million pounds of refuse into the
Great Lakes leaving the equivalent of underwater gravel roads along
shipping lanes. The practice is called “cargo sweeping” and it’s allowed
in spite of U.S. laws and an international treaty banning dumping in the
lakes. The GLRC’s Charity Nebbe has more:

The dumping occurs when cargo ships pump water over the deck and
through loading tubes to wash away any refuse that has collected from
the loading and unloading process. Industry insiders say the practice is
necessary to protect the safety of the crew and the integrity of the cargo.

James Weakley is President of the Lake Carriers’ Association.

“I’m very confident that what we’re putting over the side are naturally
occurring substances… and we’ve been doing this practice for hundreds
of years and as yet we haven’t seen an environmental harm.”

Critics are concerned about toxins that might be carried in the coal, iron
ore, and slag jettisoned by the ships, and they’re concerned about the
habitat that might be buried under the refuse.

This year the U.S. Coast Guard is reviewing the 1993 interim policy that
allows cargo sweeping, but as of yet no scientific study has been
commissioned.

For the GLRC, I’m Charity Nebbe.

Forest Service Takes Heat on Timber Land Sales

The pine marten is a member of the weasel family that makes its home in yellow birch trees. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)
Yellow birch trees can be used for lumber and paper, but they are also home to wildlife. (Photo courtesy of the Virginia Department of Forestry)

Environmentalists and the U-S Forest Service often fight over the best way to balance between cutting timber for lumber and paper, and preserving wildlife habitat. Lately, the battle is over whether government just looks at each tract of land where it sells timber or whether it looks at the cumulative impacts of logging on National Forests. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Environmentalists and the U.S. Forest Service often fight over the best
way to balance between cutting timber for lumber and paper, and
preserving wildlife habitat. Lately, the battle is over whether
government just looks at each tract of land where it sells timber or
whether it looks at the cumulative impacts of logging on National
Forests. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

When some people look at a stand of trees they see lumber for a house or
wood for paper.

“Let’s go to the yellow birch.”

But when Ricardo Jomarron spots a stand of yellow
birch trees, he sees a valuable home for the pine marten – a member of
the weasel family. The marten is endangered in some states.

“The great thing about yellow birch is that it has a propensity to become
hollow while staying alive. So you have this wonderful den for pine
marten and other species to rear their young that isn’t going to blow over
in a windstorm.”

Jomarron is standing in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in
northern Wisconsin that’s near the border with Michigan. Last year,
Jomarron’s group, the Habitat Education Center won a federal court case
that has blocked timber sales on about 20-thousand acres in the million
and a half acre Chequamegon- Nicolet.

A judge ruled the Forest Service had violated the National
Environmental Policy Act by not considering the cumulative impact of
logging on other forest species. Logging not in just one place, but many
can have a larger impact on some wildlife that the judge said the Forest
Service didn’t consider.

But it’s not just the act of cutting down the trees that worries the
environmentalists. It’s the loss of shade that some plants need to survive
and new logging roads crossing streams where erosion damages trout
habitat.

The Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center is representing the
Habitat Education Center. Attorney Howard Learner says the case is not
about banning logging in the national forests. He says it is about
restoring a system that he argues has gotten out of whack.

“In part because the Forest Service was looking at one timber sale and what the
impacts of that were, and then they’d look at another one and what the impacts of that were, and
they didn’t look at the overall impact – and what was the forest rather
than the trees.”

The Forest Service eventually decided not to appeal the judge’s rulings to
stop the disputed sales in this one forest. It’s taking another look at the
cumulative impact of the proposed deals, but the Forest Service says it
didn’t approve the timber sales without getting advice from state and
tribal experts on water and wildlife.

Chequemegon-Nicolet forest supervisor Anne Archie says her agency
has done a good job. She says if you really want to study the total effect
of forest management, look back a century when loggers cut everything
in sight.

“70 to 100 years ago there was no national forest. It was shrub land and
burnt over grassland. Now the National Forest is there that provides a
habitat for the species. So cumulatively in 70 to 100 years, we’ve been
growing the habitat for the species that Habitat Education Center…we’ll
we’re all concerned for those species.”

But Habitat Education Center and other environmental groups say the
Forest Service still isn’t doing a thorough job of determining the impact
that logging might have. The environmentalists and conservation groups
say the agency’s follow-up study on the Chequemegon-Nicolet is like
Swiss cheese with many more holes than substance. Depending what
happens at the end of the current comment period, the groups could ask
the judge to keep the lid on the timber sales.

Logging companies that cut and mill the trees from the forest are not
happy about the legal battles.

James Flannery runs the Great Lakes Timber Company. He says if you
want to look at the cumulative impact to the forest, you should look at
the cumulative impact to the economy of the area.

“Part of the money generated from forest sales comes back to
communities. If we have no forest sales and there’s thousands of acres of
forests land that we harvest I’m more worried about the income of these
communities, which will be zero.”

But the environmental groups argue the broad expanse of the forests
need to be protected from multiple timber sales that cumulatively could
cause wider ecological damage. They say ignoring the health of the
forest ignores another important industry of the area: the tourism that
brings a lot of money to the north woods.

For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Tag: james

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