A proposed program would allow car owners to trade in their gas-guzzling clunkers and get a cash incentive towards a new, more efficient car. (Photo by Martin Hans, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
A proposed cash for clunkers program might jump start the auto industry and help the environment at the same time. Tamara Keith reports the idea is getting some traction in Washington DC:
Transcript
A proposed cash for clunkers program might jump start the auto industry and help the environment at the same time. Tamara Keith reports the idea is getting some traction in Washington DC:
The idea is: if you bring in your old gas guzzler, you’d get money to buy a new fuel-efficient car. The gas guzzler? Straight to the junk yard , getting older, smog belching vehicles off the road. John McEleney is the chairman of the national automobile dealers association. He says how much you’d get would be based on how fuel efficient the new car is. For instance, if you bought a car that gets 27 miles to the gallon:
“They might qualify for say a $3500 incentive. If they instead purchased a vehicle that was rated at 33 miles a gallon that incentive could then go to $5000.”
One big question is whether only American-made cars would qualify. That’s one of the issues congress and the white house will have to work out– Oh, along with figuring out where the money would come from. For the Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.
Tire experts say that your tire pressure does, in fact, effect your gas mileage (Photo by Karen Kelly)
Earlier this year John McCain
and Barack Obama traded jabs over how
important tire pressure was in saving
gas. Lester Graham reports the experts
say it does make a difference:
Transcript
Earlier this year John McCain
and Barack Obama traded jabs over how
important tire pressure was in saving
gas. Lester Graham reports the experts
say it does make a difference:
Tim Bent is the Environmental Affairs Director at Firestone Tires. He says you ought to
check your tire pressure.
“Many people don’t maintain their tires well enough. They don’t check their tire
pressure frequently enough. And that does result, not only in lower gas mileage, but
premature tire wear which could be a safety issue as well.”
Bent says you should check tire pressure once a month. How much of a difference can
it make?
“A couple p.s.i could result in a few percentage points in fuel mileage.”
And at today’s prices, that can add up at the pump.
Peter Stull making adjustments for prospective customers. Recumbent styles vary from very upright for easy cruising to very low-slung for serious speedsters. (Photo by Lucy Martin)
Trike bikes come with different configurations for wheels and steering. Reporter Lucy Martin took this under-the-seat steering model out for a spin. Recumbent trikes are very low but are completely self-supporting, no balancing is needed. (Photo by Craig Miller)
Bicycles are about as green as you can
get. They’re economical and provide great
exercise. But a lot of people draw the line
at hunching over those skinny, hard seats.
There are bikes that offer more ways to ride,
whatever your age or size. Lucy Martin reports:
Transcript
Bicycles are about as green as you can
get. They’re economical and provide great
exercise. But a lot of people draw the line
at hunching over those skinny, hard seats.
There are bikes that offer more ways to ride,
whatever your age or size. Lucy Martin reports:
“This pump gets used a lot, so sometimes it doesn’t want to stay on.”
(Sound of employee operating tire pump)
The air pump beats the gas pump every time. Bikes are pretty simple to use. No gas, no bus fare.
Check the tires and you’re good to go.
(Sound of blast of tire pump air)
A lot of people who don’t bike now wish they could too. And that’s where recumbent bikes can help.
(sound of entry bell chimes, door opens and closes)
“A recumbent is a bike where you sit down with your feet out in front of you and it’s comfortable like
your office chair. It’s comfortable like the chair you watch TV in. It puts you in a seated position like
the car you drive.”
That’s Peter Stull. Nearly 30 years ago he took a one-room school house and turned it into a business
called The Bicycle Man. The small store in Western New York has become a magnet for shoppers
interested in bikes that feel good.
Employee: “Where you guys coming from?”
Customer: “Ottawa, Canada.”
Employee: “Yeah? Locals.”
People regularly travel long distances to check out the extra-large selection.
“We have a couple kinds of customers. And one is the customer who is a serious road-bike geek for
decades and he just got a report, from the doctor, saying ‘you can’t’ because of wrist, neck, prostate –
something – you can’t ride anymore. Or, maybe runner, can’t run anymore. And they really want to
stay active. They come to us.”
Stull sees plenty of brand-new bikers too. They come in every age and shape. His motto is ‘Ride before
you decide’, because there are so many variables to consider.
“You know, if you look at a racing bike, you give up everything for speed. But did you want speed? Or
comfort? Or Durability? Or foldability? Or – would you like me to show you the compromises on our
design?”
Stull spends a lot of time testing and tinkering in the shop out back. He’s on a quest to build even better
bikes. No single style can do everything for everyone. But Stull says recumbents can solve a number
of common problems.
“If you’re uncomfortable–like have a pain issue on a traditional bicycle? This will probably eliminate
it. If it’s a hip or a knee issue, maybe it won’t help. If it’s a balance issue, then maybe a trike recumbent,
with three wheels.”
I had to try the cool trike bikes. I wasn’t sure what to expect. They were amazing. Really low and super
fast. But they need a lot of room to turn. Stull says trike bikes give some of his physically challenged
customers the bike freedom the rest of us take for granted.
(Sound of Stull greeting customers)
Saturdays get busy. I asked John and Deb Wegman why they bothered to drive 90 minutes from
Rochester.
John Wegman: “My wife. (laughter) Yeah. That’s it! Exactly!”
Deb Wegman: “Be honest.”
John Wegman: “Well, we wanted to try them because they’re supposed to be very comfortable and a
different kind of ride. And this is the place to come, because you can’t find them anywhere else. All
the other bike shops have maybe one. And you can test drive it in the parking lot for a hundred yards,
maybe.”
Lucy Martin: “And you’re about to go out on a ride of as long as you want?”
John Wegman: “Right. And we can come back and try another one, and do it again, if we want to.”
Recumbents are hard to find. They can cost a bit more too. But Stull says any good bike that’s cared
for should last for years.
(Sound of a car whooshing past.)
After maybe 20 minutes, John and Deb come back.
John Wegman: “That was a lot of fun – a very comfortable ride.”
Deb Wegman: “It was great! Yeah, I’m actually going to have them change the seat, on that one ’cause
I’m interested in the wider seat.”
Lucy Martin: “Try that bigger seat?”
Deb Wegman: “Yeah.”
The Bicycle Man carries basic recumbents all the way to slick racers. They sell regular bikes too.
Whatever buyers chose, Peter Stull recommends taking enough time to find the right bike for each
body. He says comfortable bikes get ridden. The rest just sit around and rust.
Recumbent bikes are beginning to catch on across the nation. But, active baby-boomers might just
make bicycle shops think about peddling more of them.
Some feel the Great Lakes are being ignored by Congress (Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, NOAA)
The Great Lakes might be the most ignored
resource on the continent. Great Lakes advocates
say they have not been able to get enough attention
or money from Congress. Rebecca Williams reports
one group is outlining what needs to be done to fix
the Lakes before climate change makes things worse:
Transcript
The Great Lakes might be the most ignored
resource on the continent. Great Lakes advocates
say they have not been able to get enough attention
or money from Congress. Rebecca Williams reports
one group is outlining what needs to be done to fix
the Lakes before climate change makes things worse:
Washington D.C. is a long way from the Great Lakes. Most members of
Congress don’t live near the lakes. And many don’t understand just how big
they are.
Don Scavia used to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in Washington.
“I’ve spent 15 years inside the Beltway and I just know that the Great Lakes just don’t
have the same sense of urgency and importance inside the Beltway as some other places like the Chesapeake Bay and others have. Senators and
Congressmen don’t have boats on it like they do on the Chesapeake. I think
it’s a matter of if you haven’t been here, if you haven’t seen them, you
really don’t get it.”
These days, Don Scavia is a scientist at the University of Michigan. He’s a
co-author of a report on global warming and the Great Lakes. He says we
need to help the Great Lakes adapt to the changes that are already happening
because of global warming.
“The restoration strategy is put in place specifically to increase the
resiliency of the Lakes, increase the buffering capacity of the Lakes, to allow them
to adapt to this near-term climate change.”
Just about everyone around the Great Lakes has noticed that water levels are
dropping. Recreational boats can get stuck. Big cargo ships can’t get into
harbors. And they have to carry lighter loads when lake levels drop. That
means more trips, and, eventually, higher prices for all of us. And
climate change might make it worse.
On top of that, the Great Lakes are struggling with fisheries collapsing,
invasive species damaging the ecosystem, and pollution that’s never been
cleaned up.
Jeff Skelding is with the Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition.
“When Great Lakes effort began, we had a lot on our plate to deal with and
then we looked at the science of global warming and its impacts on the Great
Lakes it kinda froze us in our tracks. Now we’ve got global warming to
contend with.”
So, what do the advocates want from Congress?
There’s a $20-billion price tag on Great Lakes restoration.
Bits and pieces of it have gone before Congress. And there’s been some
progress on money for things like restoring wetlands. But for the most
part, most of the time, the Great Lakes just haven’t been a priority in
Washington.
Rahm Emanuel is a Congressman from Illinois. He holds a leadership position
among the House Democrats. He says he hopes the money will be approved by
Congress sometime soon.
“I don’t want another study, I don’t want to pay for another analysis, I’m
over studied, over analysis-ed. We know what it takes to fix it, we know
what the pollutants are, now we’ve got to put our money where our mouth is.”
Politically, the time might not get any better for Great Lakes advocates.
There’s a Census coming up and new Congressional district lines will be
drawn. The Great Lakes region will lose representation in the US House.
That means the Great Lakes states will lose clout in Congress.
So, the region’s members of Congress need to get a Great Lakes restoration
package to the next President before that happens. Great Lakes advocates
are hoping the next President – whether it’s McCain, Obama or Clinton – will
give the Great Lakes more attention, and money.
Mary Morran at Avalon International Breads in Detroit (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
Wheat harvest on the Palouse. (Photo courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)
Short supply and high demand for wheat means
prices are at record levels, and rising. But the high
cost of wheat is bad news for people who buy it. And
in North America, where most people’s diets are based
on wheat, that means just about everyone. Sarah Hulett
has this look at what’s behind the run-up in prices:
Transcript
Short supply and high demand for wheat means
prices are at record levels, and rising. But the high
cost of wheat is bad news for people who buy it. And
in North America, where most people’s diets are based
on wheat, that means just about everyone. Sarah Hulett
has this look at what’s behind the run-up in prices:
Jackie Victor is sitting on a stack of 50-pound bags of organic wheat flour inside the
bakery she co-owns. And these days, it’s a pretty expensive seat.
Victor says in the last year, what she pays for those bags of flour has doubled.
“So it’s a very scary time, and I don’t think just – really for the industry, although it is
scary for us – it should be a warning sign for the country that something here is amiss.”
In the fall, Victor raised her retail prices at Avalon International Breads in Detroit.
So a loaf of bread that comes out of this batch getting mixed by baker Kevin Boyer will
cost you 50 to 75 cents more today.
“This is the multigrain bread. This is our Motown Multigrain.”
Soon, one of those loaves will probably cost even more, because the price of flour keeps going up.
(forklift sound)
Avalon Bakery buys its flour from Dawn Food Products. Inside one of its central
warehouses, forklift operators move pallets of baking ingredients into tractor-trailors. It smells like a kitchen pantry. And that’s basically what this is: a gigantic
pantry full of baking ingredients that will be shipped all over the world.
Miles Jones points out a pallet full of wheat gluten, which is used in most commercially-produced baked goods.
“That’s vital wheat gluten there. The price of that vital wheat gluten, just as an example,
has about tripled here in the last six months.”
Jones is co-chairman of the board at Dawn Foods. He’s been in the baking industry for close to four decades, and he says he’s never seen prices so high.
There are several reasons for the spike in wheat prices. Drought and other bad weather
wiped out a lot of the global wheat crop over the past two years. And fast-developing countries like China
and India are consuming more food made from wheat.
And then there’s the ethanol factor. More farmers are planting corn to sell to ethanol
refineries. Jones says that’s gobbling up land that used to be planted with wheat and other
crops. And he says it’s put us on a dangerous path.
“The end results are in the paper every day. You can see the skyrocketing food prices. And when you start trading food for energy, that’s not a good trade long-term.”
With wheat prices at record levels, more farmers might decide to plant it this year. That would boost supply and bring prices down.
Bruce Babcock is an economist, and he heads the center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University. He says the test for that theory will be the amount of spring wheat that gets planted in April and May.
“The problem of course, for farmers, it’s not really a problem, it’s a great thing for farmers, is that they can pick wheat or soybeans or canola or any crop and the price is out of this world. So because the price of everything else is up so high, I don’t think we’ll see wheat increase as much as we would hope.”
Babcock says there is some good news on the global supply front. Australia and Argentina are expected to harvest a normal amount of wheat this year. Those are two major wheat producers that had a couple of years of terrible crops.
A big question will be whether farmers in the US and Canada will get the kind of weather they need and a bumper wheat crop this year.
Corn production in Colorado.
(Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)
With grain prices hitting record highs, a lot
of farmers are removing land from the federal Conservation
Reserve Program. The CRP pays farmers to stop growing
crops on poor land and instead grow trees or grass cover.
That creates habitat for wildlife. The US Department of
Agriculture, which runs the program, says the CRP is still
in good shape. Katherine Glover reports some conservationists
disagree:
Transcript
With grain prices hitting record highs, a lot
of farmers are removing land from the federal Conservation
Reserve Program. The CRP pays farmers to stop growing
crops on poor land and instead grow trees or grass cover.
That creates habitat for wildlife. The US Department of
Agriculture, which runs the program, says the CRP is still
in good shape. Katherine Glover reports some conservationists
disagree:
When the Conservation Reserve Program started in 1985, David Schoenborn was among
the first on board.
He stopped farming some of his land and let natural cover grow. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture paid him. Usually land that wasn’t the best farmland or land that was prone
to erosion was set aside for the program.
Conservationists say CRP has been great for reducing soil erosion, improving water
quality and restoring wildlife habitat.
But this year, for the first time, Schoenborn is letting some of his CRP contracts expire.
“It’s not a bad program, but the payments have to be more to keep them in line with the
rest of the farming economy.”
Corn and other grain prices are at record highs. So a lot of farmers are taking land out of
CRP and plowing it up. The program lost more than two million acres last September.
It could have been much worse. Originally sixteen million acres were set to expire in ’07.
But, in 2006 the USDA offered landowners the option to renew their contracts. About 80
to 85 percent of the land was re-enrolled.
The USDA is focusing its conservation efforts towards environmentally sensitive lands
and critical wildlife habitat.
Perry Aasness is the state director for the USDA Farm Service Agency in Minnesota.
“We’re not enrolling whole fields of land anymore, but there are still conservation
programs which we call the continuous CRP and that primarily focuses on really
targeting buffer strips, waterways, and that sort of thing.”
The targeted programs pay more than the general CRP contracts, making them more
attractive to farmers. Schoenborn, for example, is reenrolling eligible lands in these
targeted programs.
Altogether, the various programs have about 34 million acres enrolled. This is slightly
above the average enrollment for the past ten years, but less than the 39 million acres
authorized by Congress. Aasness says the program is still in good shape.
“I think the overall percentage of land going into production from CRP is pretty
minimal.”
But conservationists have a different perspective. They want to see as much land as
possible enrolled in CRP.
Dave Nomsen is with the conservation group Pheasants Forever:
“Frankly I think the program is more in doubt than it ever has been. It’s great that
farmers are benefiting from record crop prices but it’s making it a real challenge to keep
conservation as part of that agricultural landscape.”
And political pressure is part of that challenge.
The American Bakers Association even asked the government to let CRP contracts expire
early so farmers can plant more grain. This would hopefully lower the price of flour.
But a huge reduction in CRP acres is unlikely. Both Republicans and Democrats support
CRP.
Dave Nomsen with Pheasants Forever says the problem is finding enough money to make
it worth it to farmers.
CRP payments do change over time depending on the market. But Nomsen says they
haven’t kept up.
“It’s been lagging behind by several years. We just don’t have the money to raise it up to
an equal basis, but if we can get those payments high enough the long-term nature of the
contracts, the many, many other benefits of the program will hopefully sell the program
for farmers and landowners.”
Farmer David Schoenborn says payments vary, but generally he gets between 75 and 90
dollars an acre. By planting corn, he thinks he could make at least $400 an acre. But he’d
stay in CRP if payments increased just 30 percent.
That’s not likely. So chances are that more farmers will be putting land that’s set aside
for wildlife back into crops.
Wolverine display at Arctic Interagency Visitor Center at Coldfoot. (Photo from the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
The federal government announced that it will not put
the wolverine on the endangered species list. Steve Carmody
reports:
Transcript
The federal government announced that it will not put
the wolverine on the endangered species list. Steve Carmody
reports:
A federal court ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take a fresh look
at whether the wolverine should be listed. After the review, the agency
announced that it would not propose a listing for the animal.
Shawn Sartorius is the wolverine expert for the Wildlife Service.
He says the wolverine’s future is not dependant on the estimated 500 animals
that live in the lower 48 states.
“The healthy part of the population, the real genetically diverse and well connected population, is in Alaska and
Canada.”
Sartorius says between 15 and 20 thousand Wolverines live in Alaska and
Canada.
Wolverine numbers are down in the lower 48 states because they have been trapped for fur and
pushed out by development.
A former director of the US Fish Wildlife Service called the decision
“irresponsible.”
A newspaper investigation of mercury levels in canned tuna has prompted a probe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
A newspaper investigation of mercury levels in canned tuna has
prompted a probe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Last year the FDA updated its mercury warning. It said that canned light
tuna is low in mercury. Now, in response to a Chicago Tribune series,
the agency says it will take a closer look at mercury levels.
The newspaper reported the tuna industry is using yellowfin – a
potentially high-mercury species – to make about 15 percent of the light
tuna sold every year. The Tribune reported varying levels of mercury in
light tuna products, and that most cans containing yellowfin tuna are not
labeled as such.
Environmental groups have demanded tougher restrictions on mercury in
tuna and more specific labeling requirements so people know what
they’re eating.
A lobbyist for top tuna producers has said light tuna is not a health risk,
but said the industry would cooperate with the FDA investigation.
High levels of mercury can cause neurological and learning problems in
children.
Low-sulfur fuel is now available to everyone, even if they haven't realized it yet. (Photo by Pam Roth)
A quiet revolution of cleaner air began this year for cars
and trucks. Motorists might not know it, but they’ve been burning
low-sulfur fuel as part of a requirement under the federal Clean Air
Act. The requirement was put in place during the Clinton Administration.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:
Transcript
A quiet revolution of cleaner air began this year for cars and trucks. Motorists might
not know it, but they’ve been burning low-sulfur fuel as part of requirement under the
federal Clean Air Act. The requirement was put in place during the Clinton Administration.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:
Low-sulfur fuel is sometimes referred to as “green gas.” The gas isn’t really colored green.
But if it was, people might have noticed that they’re pumping different gas. For two years,
refineries in the United States have been investing millions of dollars to produce the new gas.
Dave Podratz is the manager of the Murphy Oil refinery in Superior, Wisconsin. He says his
refinery spent 26 million dollars to begin making the gas since October.
“It’s not the kind of thing you would notice, the average consumer going to the pump probably
wouldn’t even notice it watching tail pipe emissions, but the sufur dioxide emissions are
definitely going down.”
Podratz says the new fuel cut the amount of sulfur by 90 percent. And other tail pipe
emissions are going down as well. That’s because low sulfur fuel improves the efficiency
of your car’s catalytic converter, Which, in turn, reduces the amount of pollutants like
nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.
The automobile is a primary source of ground level ozone. As
Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston has
discovered, a U-S company has developed a new product that may one
day have us breathing easier:
A proposed program would allow car owners to trade in their gas-guzzling clunkers and get a cash incentive towards a new, more efficient car. (Photo by Martin Hans, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
