O Christmas Tree

  • Lauren and her potted tree. It will stay outdoors until Christmas Eve, when it will be brought in for 14 hours. (Photo by Jennifer Guerra)

It’s the holidays… which for some
of us means time to deck the halls
with boughs of holly and, oh yeah,
pick out a Christmas tree. We sent
reporter Jennifer Guerra to find out which tree is greener –
real or artificial:

Transcript

It’s the holidays… which for some
of us means time to deck the halls
with boughs of holly and, oh yeah,
pick out a Christmas tree. We sent
reporter Jennifer Guerra to find out which tree is greener –
real or artificial:

Lauren Northrop and her husband Tom are big fans of Christmas.

“We love celebrating it, I love decorating, but we always have this dilemma: what do we do about a tree?”

They didn’t want a plastic tree because it’s, well, plastic. And they didn’t like the idea of bringing a live tree into their house, only to have it die and then drag it out to the curb to be recycled.

So they skipped the Christmas tree thing altogether for the last four years. But then, their son Will was born in January.

“We decided that we have to have a tree because it’s, like, his first Christmas, and we want to have those family videos of him having his Christmas morning by the Christmas tree and opening his gifts, and just the whole experience because that was important to us growing up and we always had that.”

They bought a live, baby Christmas tree with its roots still intact. That way, when Christmas is done and the ground thaws, they can plant it in their backyard.

“I was planning to keep the tree inside until December 25th so that we could decorate it and put lights on it. When we went to buy it they said if you do that, it probably won’t survive. So keep it outside so the temperature is more consistent, bring it inside only for a short period of time. (Like how short?) As in December 24th. Will goes to bed, Tom and I are gonna be up decorating that tree and bringing it inside for about 14 hours.”

That’s probably way too much hassle for 14 hours of Christmas cheer. So a lot of people go for real, cut trees. Pat Fera would love to have a real cut Christmas tree in her house.

“But I’m very afraid of them. I had a friend of mine, this was back in the 60s, and she and her mother had gone to midnight mass and her father was home and he was sleeping on the couch and what woke him up was the sound of the tree just going wooosh.”

Apparently the TV shorted, it ignited the tree, tree caught on fire and the dad just made it out of the house. Fera says the ceiling was charred black and the whole place was smoke-damaged.

“Well yeah, if you’re not careful that’s certainly, yeah, a real tree is a hell of a fire hazard!”

That’s Bob Schildgen. He writes an environmental advice column for the Sierra Club called Hey, Mr. Green. So I called him up and asked him…

Guerra: “Hey, Mr. Green. Which is more environmentally friendly? Why don’t we tackle one at a time: let’s go with plastic trees. What do you think about those”

Schildgen: “Well, I don’t think they’re environmentally friendly for a number of reasons. One is that they’re made out of materials that use petro chemicals and metals and so forth. They get eventually tossed in the landfill, they have a life of about 9 years and then they’re tossed. They can’t be recycled.”

And since most plastic Christmas trees are made in places like China, they have to be shipped a very long way to end up in your family room.

So plastic is out.

Schildgen does like the idea of live bulb trees, but their survival rate once you plant them in the ground isn’t that great. So he says – aside from the fire hazard mentioned – real cut trees are a much greener option than plastic. With a real tree you’re using a renewable resource; the trees are raised on tree farms, so you’re not contributing to any deforestation. And they’re completely recyclable.

“I think another feature that I like about them is that, and this is not exactly an obvious environmental issue, but I think it’s very good for children to see something fresh, green, real, alive, and then watch it cycle as the needles fall off and it goes into its natural demise. I think that’s good for people.”

Schildgen says some farmers use pesticides on their tree, so if you’re concerned about that, you should look for local organic trees.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

Related Links

Salmonella Vaccine Coming Soon?

  • While a salmonella vaccine is in the works, researchers don't think it's suited for countries like the United States (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control)

Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:

Transcript

Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:

Salmonella poisoning affects about 20-million people worldwide each year and causes 200,000 deaths. A vaccine might sound like a good idea.

Arthur Thompson has been working on one at the Institute of Food Research in England. His group has found that salmonella relies on glucose for its survival. So they’re designing a vaccine to use that against the bacteria.

But Thompson thinks a salmonella vaccine should not be used to solve a problem that industrialized nations can already prevent.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate really, for something like this. I mean, I think in this case, it’s more a case of preventing the contamination in the first place, really.”

Thompson says the vaccine is better suited for people in developing nations where salmonella causes still causes typhoid fever.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

From the Trees to the Tank

  • Chuck Leavell plays keyboards for the Rolling Stones. But he also owns a plantation outside of Macon, Georgia, with 2500 acres of pine trees. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)

Finding alternative fuel sources in our country involves looking at what nature has to
offer. In the West, they’re harnessing wind and solar energy. In the Heartland, it’s sweet
crops like corn. Susan Mittleman reports, in the South, they’re looking to their forests to
make cleaner, greener fuels:

Transcript

Finding alternative fuel sources in our country involves looking at what nature has to
offer. In the West, they’re harnessing wind and solar energy. In the Heartland, it’s sweet
crops like corn. Susan Mittleman reports, in the South, they’re looking to their forests to
make cleaner, greener fuels:

Chuck Leavell plays keyboards for the Rolling Stones. But when he’s not on the road, he
spends his time on his plantation outside of Macon, Georgia, tending to some 2500 acres
of pine trees.

“This is our tree farm here.”

From this tranquil refuge of nature and wildlife, he sees these trees as a possible way to
reduce our dependency on foreign oil.

“The fact that we have such wonderful resources, our forest, and that we are
looking for new markets, gives us a lot of hope to be able to use our trees to make
energy products, whether its electricity or gasification processes or any matter of
liquid fuels.”

Cutting down trees and turning them into fuels might not seem like the greenest thing to
do.

But people like Jill Stuckey, insist it is.

Stuckey heads Georgia’s Innovative Center for Energy, and says there’s no better source
for clean fuel here, than the state’s 24-million acres of forest land.

“We grow pine trees like Iowa grows corn. And it’s a renewable source of energy.”

Stuckey says trees grow faster and are more accessible in Georgia than any place else in
the country.

“It’s a good thing. Because trees sequester carbon. And we harvest these trees and
plant new trees, so we’re continuously replenishing our supply.”

She says an acre of pine trees can yield about seven tons of biomass per year.

Biomass is basically any living thing that grows and then can be harvested.
And that stuff can be used to make ethanol, electricity, and bio-diesel.

(sound of a factory)

At a small factory down in Albany Georgia, that’s what John Tharpe is making here.

Tharpe is semi- retired electrical engineer, and has designed a machine that converts
pine-tree chips into bio-diesel. The fuel can be burned to power and heat homes and
businesses.

“We’re using biomass. We make an oil and a char and then we are also looking now
at making electrical energy. You can use it in any commercial burner, such as
steam, boilers, those types of things.”

He’s already begun selling his biodiesel technology to people around the world.

So, Tharpe is making for electricity and heat. Other companies are making plans to use
trees to run our cars.

Range Fuels is building the ‘first-of-its kind’ bio-fuels plant in Soperton Georgia – which
will convert wood chips into green transportation fuels, things like ethanol and methanol.

Ron Barmore is the company’s project development director.
He says their facility is designed to produce upward of 100-million gallons of fuel a year.

“Our belief is that we’ll be able to compete with fossil fuels, with oil prices in the 70-
80 dollar a barrel range. We think long term that’s a viable place to be.”

And long-term sustainability is what tree farmers and environmentalists like Chuck
Leavell are looking for, not just for green energy, but for other reasons as well.

“These trees, in the period we plant them and their growing, they’re cleaning our
air, our water, providing home and shelter for wildlife, that helps everyone.”

More than 100 companies are looking at ways to use Georgia’s trees, in some form or
another, to produce greener, cleaner energy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Susan Mittleman.

Related Links

The Great Vaccination Debate

  • There are parts of the country where up to 20% of families are saying ‘no’ to vaccines. (Photo by Bill Branson, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:

Transcript

Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:

Heather Waltz has a five month old daughter. Most Americans her age have already started a series of vaccinations – to prevent everything from Hepatitis B, to Diphtheria, to Polio.

But Waltz’s little girl isn’t going to get those shots. Her mom worries they could cause things like autism, juvenile diabetes and even cancer.

“I think the jury’s still out, as far as what the research says. But there is enough anecdotal sort of stuff to make me aware and decide that, really, right at this point, vaccinating wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

Waltz is among a small, but growing number of parents who are becoming skeptical of vaccines.

Lance Rodewald is director of immunization services at the Centers for Disease Control.

He says more than 90% of American children are vaccinated. But there are parts of the country where up to 20% of families are saying ‘no’ to vaccines.

“And that’s getting to a rate of lack of protection of children that really can be a fertile ground for the spreading of diseases like measles. And we actually saw that last year.”

In one case last year, Rodewald says a child who wasn’t vaccinated caught the measles in Switzerland and brought it back to Arizona.

“The parents didn’t realize that the child had measles – brought him to the pediatricians office where there were babies that were too young to be vaccinated that got measles. And then that particular outbreak went through four generations of spread, from child to child to child to child before it was able to be contained.”

Measles can cause more than just a nasty rash. In rare cases, it can lead to death. Measles still causes 200,000 deaths around the world. But it’s been almost eradicated in the U.S. because of vaccines.

Rodewald says many parents are concerned about vaccines today because of a ten-year old scientific article that linked the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella to autism. Rodewald says the science in that article proved to be wrong.

“The authors withdrew their names from the article. But this particular study set off a whole series of concerns about vaccines and autism that, to this day, is still talked about.”

Rodewald says many studies have been done and found no association, no cause and effect, between vaccines and autism.

It’s tough for parents to wade through all the information that’s out there these days. And there are so many vaccines to try to understand. Back in the mid-1990s, children were given 6 vaccines. Today, they’re supposed to get more than twice that many.

Mother Heather Waltz tries to keep up with it all and says she still plans to avoid vaccines.

Waltz: “For every bit of research and every article I find sort of helping me support my point, there’s a million other bits of research and articles saying that I’m a bad parent, or saying that I’m somehow damaging the health of the entire United States by not vaccinating my child. Just this idea that she could be a measles monster and just running around and infecting her classmates with measles or something like that, and that would be a terrible thing.”

Grant: “What do you think when you see that?”

Waltz: “It doesn’t make logical sense to me. Because to me, if you have 30 kids in a classroom, and my one isn’t vaccinated, wouldn’t my child be the one at risk? Not the public’s.”

But even if Waltz’s daughter doesn’t get vaccinated, she’ll probably be safe from these diseases. With so many other kids getting inoculations, most of the U.S. is not fertile ground for them to regain traction.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Acupuncture for the Masses

  • Some consumers choose alternative treatments, like acupuncture, because they want a smaller environmental footprint from their medical care. (Photo courtesy of the National Institutes of Health)

Acupuncture has been used as a medical treatment in Asia for thousands of years. It’s catching on in this country, but it can be pricey. Now a new kind of low-cost acupuncture clinic is springing up with a goal of bringing acupuncture to the masses. As Ann Dornfeld reports, this new type of clinic might just be healthy for the planet, too:

Transcript

Acupuncture has been used as a medical treatment in Asia for thousands of years. It’s catching on in this country, but it can be pricey. Now a new kind of low-cost acupuncture clinic is springing up with a goal of bringing acupuncture to the masses. As Ann Dornfeld reports, this new type of clinic might just be healthy for the planet, too:

Esther “Little Dove” John is lying on a treatment table with the same blissful smile as someone who’s just had a massage. Except she’s about to get stuck with a couple dozen needles.

“Anything in particular you want to focus on today?”

“I have tingling in my fingers and numbness in the toes.”

Acupuncturist Jordan Van Voast taps fine steel needles into John’s hands; then her stomach, her legs, and her ears.

“All of a sudden, my body just relaxed.”

This would be a typical scene from an acupuncture clinic. Except the recliner that serves as John’s treatment table is just one in a circle of ten. It’s a treatment model called “community acupuncture.”

Jacque Larrainzar is getting treated in a chair across from John. She used to go to a standard acupuncture clinic with private rooms. But she prefers the communal style of this Seattle clinic, called – wait for it – “CommuniChi.”

“The feeling is very different. Seeing other people relax and just giving themselves the opportunity to heal is, in itself– I think it helps you to focus on yourself and heal.”

Community acupuncture clinics are designed to make acupuncture affordable to people at all income levels, regardless of insurance. Patients pay a sliding scale fee – as little as 15 dollars per treatment. It’s 60 dollars or more at a standard acupuncture clinic. Community acupuncture keeps costs down through low overhead: using one treatment room and recliners cuts down on electricity and laundry costs. And CommuniChi co-owner Serena Sundaram says that also means a smaller environmental footprint.

“All of those things are really different even than a regular acupuncture clinic, which is already a smaller footprint than a Western practice.”

You don’t need big, high-tech equipment for acupuncture or even electricity — just a place to lie down and a handful of tiny needles.

Patient Esther “Little Dove” John says she’s glad that acupuncture doesn’t involve pharmaceuticals.

“If I were using the mainstream treatment for my condition, I’d be expelling those chemicals into the environment and the fish would be taking it and the birds would be drinking it.”

Scientists have found high levels of pharmaceuticals in the water downstream from water treatment plants. They’re worried about the effect on fish.

Emily Wong is a physician at the University of Washington Medical Center. She practices Western medicine, but also studied acupuncture. Wong says there’s extensive evidence that acupuncture helps with a lot of health problems where Western medicine falls short, like headaches, back aches, and nausea.

But, she says acupuncture is no panacea. She says some acupuncturists claim to be able to treat conditions like kidney stones without scientific evidence to support their claims.

“I see it as being more similar to, for example, physical therapy as a modality that treats many conditions quite well, and as an alternative to a surgical approach or perhaps a pharmacological approach to some conditions.”

If acupuncture works as well or better than a stay at the hospital or a prescription of drugs, it could have a lot lower impact on the environment. And if the new community clinics bring more people to acupuncture, it’s possible the earth will get a little relief too.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links