State Seeks Ban on Styrofoam Carry-Out Cartons

  • California is seeking to ban Styrofoam carry-out containers (Photo by Renee Comet, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

This week, one state is voting on a bill that would make it illegal for restaurants to serve takeout food in Styrofoam. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

This week, one state is voting on a bill that would make it illegal for restaurants to serve takeout food in styrofoam. Rebecca Williams has more:


A number of cities have banned Styrofoam food containers – including San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. And now California lawmakers are deciding whether to ban the containers.


The bill says styrofoam is a big litter problem. And animals can choke on pieces of it.


The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency says styrene is a possible human carcinogen. Styrene is the stuff styrofoam’s made out of.


Jerry Hill is the Assembly member who introduced the bill in California. He says the American Chemistry Council and other groups are making it hard for him to get the votes he needs.


“You would think the world was going to come to an end if we were to prohibit and ban Styrofoam. It’s an industry that whether you look at the chemical industry, the restaurant industry that’s opposing it, and they are very vocal and very powerful.”


The opponents say there’s no reason for the ban, and they say it would be bad for the economy.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Hunters, Fishers Down

The numbers of people who hunt, fish and watch wildlife went down again in 2006, according to a survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

The numbers of people who hunt, fish and watch wildlife went down again in 2006, according to a survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Tracy Samilton reports:


The number of people who fished in 2006 was down 12 percent from 5 years ago.
Hunting numbers were also down a little, about 4 percent:


Jerry Leonard is an economist with US Fish & Wildlife Service. He says since 1996,
fewer people have been passing down the tradition of hunting and fishing to their
children. He says that isn’t great news from an economic standpoint:


“The money that is spent on wildlife-related recreation is huge. In fact, over 120 billion
dollars. That’s approximately equivalent to 1 percent of the gross domestic product in the
United States.


Still, even though fewer people are involved in wildlife recreation, spending on the
activities is slightly up from 2001, mostly due to inflation and higher license fees being
charged by states.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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Who Should Watch Big Farms?

  • Hog manure being injected into the ground and tilled under. The manure fertilizes the crops, but if too much is applied it can foul up waterways. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Big livestock operations can raise thousands of cows, chickens or pigs
under one roof. It helps keep the price of food lower. But neighbors
complain the government’s not doing a good enough job of monitoring the
pollution these farms produce. Rebecca Williams reports there’s a
debate heating up in several states over who should be regulating these
big farms:

Transcript

Big livestock operations can raise thousands of cows, chickens or pigs
under one roof. It helps keep the price of food lower. But neighbors
complain the government’s not doing a good enough job of monitoring the
pollution these farms produce. Rebecca Williams reports there’s a
debate heating up in several states over who should be regulating these
big farms:


The days of small farms with different kinds of livestock grazing in
the pasture are fading from the landscape.


They’re being replaced by farms that specialize in one kind of animal –
and raise thousands of them. They’re called concentrated animal
feeding operations, or CAFOs.


There are battles in several states right now over who should be keeping an eye
on the CAFOs. Usually, the state departments of environmental
protection have power under the federal Clean Water Act to enforce laws
and issue permits. But in the Midwest, in states such as Ohio and
Michigan, and in the West, in states such as Oregon and Idaho, they either have transferred or are working to transfer oversight power to the state agriculture departments – and get U.S. EPA approval.


Jerry Van Woerkom is a Republican state senator in Michigan. Right
now, the state Department of Environmental Quality – or DEQ – has the
oversight powers. But Senator Van Woerkom is sponsoring a package of
bills that would put most of the state’s big livestock farms under the
Department of Agriculture:


“Those people tend to be supportive and come with the attitude of we’re
going to try to work together to solve this problem. Whereas when they
work with the DEQ the attitude is more like we’re coming with a
hammer and if we find anything you’ve done that’s out of line, we’re
going to wop you with it.”


The CAFOs are in the spotlight because they can produce tens of
thousands of gallons of urine and manure each day. That liquefied
manure is eventually spread onto farm fields.


The Environmental Protection Agency says that waste can wash from
fields into streams and creeks. That can cause fish kills. Animal
waste has also gotten into drinking water and made people sick.


Lynn Henning runs a small farm. She says there are 13 CAFOs within a
10 mile radius of her Michigan farmhouse. She says the manure odors
are overwhelming:


“We can’t hang laundry when the emissions are in the air. We have
severe fly outbreaks. We’ve had family farmers that have been diagnosed with hydrogen
sulfide poisoning from emissions from the CAFOs.”


Henning says the current oversight system is weak. She says the
Department of Environmental Quality doesn’t have enough funding to
monitor the CAFOs. So that job often falls to residents like her. She
says putting the Department of Agriculture in charge of oversight would
make the problems even worse:


“The MDA has no enforcement authority and they promote agriculture in
Michigan. It’s like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
You can’t give authority to punish to an agency that’s promoting.”


But it could become a wider trend if the states that are proposing the
switch now actually make it happen.


Karla Raettig is an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project.
It’s a group that’s been critical of weakening environmental laws.
She’s been tracking trends in enforcement of livestock farms:


“I think the Farm Bureau and other really large industry advocates are
seeing a chance to get regulation that is perhaps more cooperative,
less regulatory and less on the enforcement side. It isn’t totally
nefarious but I think it could have outcomes that are not anticipated.”


Raettig says you have to wonder what will happen without the threat of
enforcement from an environmental agency.


But Senator Jerry Van Woerkom from Michigan argues that farmers are
more likely to do the right thing if they’re overseen by a friendlier
agency, as he proposes:


“I mean you’re not able to cover up problems that happen, it gets in
the newspaper, people know when problems happen. But I believe that the
agriculture department will work with people, especially if people are
getting a bad reputation. I think they will work with them and if
those people do get out of line, it’s back to the DEQ.”


Environmentalists and small farmers are worried about the idea of
states handing off oversight of CAFOs… from their environmental
watchdog agencies to their agencies in charge of promoting the business
of agriculture.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Nature Profile: Outdoor Worship

  • Outdoor enthusiast Jerry Sherman. (photo by Colleen Sherman)

People enjoy nature for all kinds of reasons. In our occasional series about people’s
connections to the environment, producer Kyle Norris spent time with a recreational
hunter and fisher who says that when he spends time in nature he never feels any
pressure:

Transcript

People enjoy nature for all kinds of reasons. In our occasional series about people’s
connections to the environment, producer Kyle Norris spent time with a recreational
hunter and fisher who says that when he spends time in nature he never feels any
pressure:


Jerry Sherman can fix anything, and he’s fixed a few things around my house. He’s
always carrying a coffee cup with him everywhere he goes. And he’s one of those guys
who wears those dark, working men jeans. And cowboy shirts with pearl buttons. We took a
walk the other day and talked a lot about fishing and hunting. I was wondering how he
got into those things:


“When I first started I was a foreman and I was under a tremendous amount of pressure
there’s always somebody in your face all day long. Either talking to somebody or on the
phone. So then, when you get outside and get away from people, you can be in your own
little world, and think whatever you want to think… there’s no body… what do I do here,
what do I do there.”


KN: Jerry has a couple of friends – actually they’re a pair of twins – that he likes to go
fishing with. But a lot of times it’s also about being alone:


“It’s both of those things. There are days that I want to be by myself and just go fish by
myself and there’s days that you feel that need to be with your friends. And that’s when
you want to fish with them. Good example, the other day, when we were fishing we spend
time together then all three of us go off in different directions. That does two things: it gives us
more area to cover, but we all enjoy fishing alone to a certain amount.”


I think Jerry and I feel similarly about nature. It makes us feel calmer. If he’s like me, it’s
kind of about being part of a bigger picture. So I asked him, what he feels when he’s alone in
nature:


“You’re feeling great and there are some times you just sit down and do some praying on
your own sometimes. And you can pray to God in your
own way and nobody’s putting any pressure on you…Well, in a church you kind of feel
like you’re sometimes pressured into praying a certain prayer for somebody, and you’re
out in nature you can pray for whatever you want and nobody’s looking at you or putting
any kind of pressure on you. Does that make any kind of sense? ‘Cause I think everybody
prays to a certain extent. Uh, I just find a rock and sit down and meditate. Maybe talk to
myself.”


Jerry said the last thing he prayed for was his family, which is funny because hunting
and fishing are ways for him to get away from his family:


“Well, there again a lot of the reason you go out there is to kinda relax and unwind. Kind of
retune your body and mind. And when you back to be around your family I’d say you’re
kind of relaxed and out from underneath all this pressure. You kind of get a chance to sort
things out.”


Like Jerry, maybe all of us need a chance to get away from everybody. And spend some
time in nature. And sort things out.


For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Commentary – Preach Truth About Global Warming

Some Christians take issue with their conservative brothers in faith when it comes to global warming. Commentator Gary Schlueter says he’s a Christian, but he doesn’t see anything wrong with believing in the science that indicates global warming is partly caused by human activity:

Transcript

Some Christians take issue with their conservative brothers in faith when it
comes to global warming. Commentator Gary Schlueter says he’s a Christian,
but he doesn’t see anything wrong with believing in the science that
indicates global warming is partly caused by human activity:


In Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, we are warned to beware of the two
children under Father Christmas’ long red robe, this boy ignorance and this
girl want, but especially beware of this boy. Race forward a century or so and
we have Reverend Jerry Falwell concluding, “I believe that global warming is a myth.”
I repeat, beware this boy, ignorance!


Reverend Falwell, an influential evangelical Christian leader, is not alone among
his contemporaries in preaching that global warming is a myth, or worse: some clerical
leaders say to believe otherwise could jeopardize one’s salvation.


The Interfaith Stewardship Alliance, the ISA, is a mixed bag of religious leaders,
scientists and policy experts who, through a dark glass, shine a Biblical light on the
issues of environment and development. According to the ISA, “most U.S. evangelicals do not
back the call for regulating greenhouse emissions.” I repeat, beware this boy!


Recently, a group of more moderate Christian evangelical leaders joined together to
form the Evangelical Climate Initiative. They say global warming is real, that humans are
causing it, and that we need to do something about it. The ISA stands firmly against them.
The question is, why?


Why, in the face of hard warnings on the cover of the conservative Time Magazine with headlines
that read to “be worried. Be very worried” about global warming? Why, when the NASA scientist who
warned us 25 years ago that human activity was changing the Earth’s climate now warns
us we have a decade before we pass the point of no return? Got that? Point of no return.
Ten years! Why, against the growing tide of public and clerical opinion that mankind’s
contribution to global warming must be stopped, do they tell their flock to be like
Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Newman and not to worry?


Are these Mad Magazine evangelicals antagonistic toward science because science brought
us the concept of evolution? Can they be so petty? Or do they see global warming as a way
to fulfill their direst prophecies of gloom and doom? Can they be so proud? Or is it their
sheer greed to gobble up Earth’s resources that brings them smiling sanguinely to the brink of
a disaster so profound the habititability of our entire planet is at risk? Can they be so selfish?
Selfish, proud, petty? Beware this boy!


This Earth is our only real sanctuary, it is a gift of God, how can it be of so
little concern to these anti-Earth evangelicals that they can continue to preach against it,
preach against God’s gift? I conclude, beware this boy, ignorance!


Host tag: Gary Schlueter is a former president of the Virgin Island Conservation
Society.

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