Climate change can affect temperature and humidity. And those changes can
damage art.
(Photo source: Aude at Wikimedia Commons)
Preservationists are worried climate
change could destroy valuable art
and cultural artifacts. Kyle Norris
reports thay are looking at ways to
protect these valuables:
Transcript
Preservationists are worried climate
change could destroy valuable art
and cultural artifacts. Kyle Norris
reports thay are looking at ways to
protect these valuables:
Climate change can affect temperature and humidity. And those changes can
damage art. Debbie Norris is the chair of the art conservation department
at the University of Delaware.
“Fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity can cause art
materials to crack and craze and deteriorate over time.”
Changes in the weather can also cause biological growth on artifacts. So,
for example, mold can grow on old photos or damage historic documents.
Some buildings that house art are very old and made of stone or wood.
Those building materials are deteriorating faster than they have in the
past. And many of those buildings are not equipped with heating and
cooling equipment advanced enough to control the climate inside the
buildings. That puts the collections they house at risk.
Map of the Great Lakes, the basin, and the 8 connecting states. (Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, NOAA)
The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Compact is an
agreement to stop shipping water out of the Great Lakes
basin. But all eight Great Lakes states and Congress
must approve it first. Lester Graham talked with Peter
Annin, the author of the book “The Great Lakes Water
Wars.” Annin says some of the states have been reluctant
to approve the treaty because Michigan has an image of saying
‘no’ to water requests from other states while putting
almost no water restrictions on its own towns and businesses:
Transcript
The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Compact is an
agreement to stop shipping water out of the Great Lakes
basin. But all eight Great Lakes states and Congress
must approve it first. Lester Graham talked with Peter
Annin, the author of the book “The Great Lakes Water
Wars.” Annin says some of the states have been reluctant
to approve the treaty because Michigan has an image of saying
‘no’ to water requests from other states while putting
almost no water restrictions on its own towns and businesses:
Peter Annin: “Michigan has been a laggard in monitoring and regulating its own domestic water
use. And so it’s seen by some other states as being somewhat hypocritical in the water debate.
For example, Minnesota, which is the most progressive domestically, if you’re going to withdraw
water from the Great Lakes at 10,000 gallons a day or more, you have to get a permit. In the state
of Michigan you can go up to 5 million gallons of water withdrawn from Lake Michigan per day
before you have to get a permit. 10,000 gallons in Minnesota, 5 million gallons in Michigan, and
this is what is causing tension between Michigan and some of the other Great Lakes states.”
Lester Graham: “Lets assume that all 8 Great Lakes states do pass this within the next year or
two, Congress then has to pass it – and many of the members of Congress are in those thirsty
Southwestern states. What happens then?”
Annin: “Yeah, that’s a really good point. We have to remember that the compact is just a piece of
paper until it passes all 8 Great Lakes legislatures and then is adopted by Congress. And there
are a lot of concerns among the general public, given that we have these dry-land states that have
a lot of problems with water perhaps opposing the Great Lakes compact. I’m not so certain that
that’s going to be an issue, because those states also have a lot federal water projects that come
up for renewal all the time that require the Great Lakes Congressmen to sign off on. And I’m not
sure they’re in a position, given how precious and important water is for them to survive on a daily
basis down there, that they’re really that interested in getting into a water fight with the Senators
and Congressmen in the Great Lakes basin. But, we’ll see.”
Graham: “I’ve looked at different models for getting Great Lakes water down to the Southwest,
and economically, they just don’t seem feasible. It would be incredibly expensive to try to get
Great Lakes water to the Southwest states, yet, State Legislators say again and again ‘oh no,
they have a plan, they know how it will happen.’ And as water becomes more valuable, they could
make it happen. How likely is it that there would be a canal or pipe and pumping stations built to
divert Great Lakes water, if this compact doesn’t pass?”
Annin: “It looks highly unlikely today, for the reasons that you just mentioned. It takes an
extraordinary amount of money to send water uphill, which is what would be to the West, and we’d
certainly have to cross mountain ranges if you’re even going to send it a shorter distance, to the
Southeast. To the point where it would be cheaper for many of these places to, even though it’s
expensive, to desalinate water from the ocean and then send it to inland places. But, you know, a
lot of water experts in the United States say ‘never say never’, because the value of fresh, potable
water is probably going to skyrocket in this century. We’re leaving the century of oil; we’re entering
the century of water. But, for right now, you’re absolutely right, it is extraordinary cost-prohibitive.
But let me say one other footnote here, it’s hard to find a federal water project in this country that
actually made economic sense.”
An invasive insect called the Emerald Ash Borer is spreading. It has already killed millions of trees in Michigan and Ontario, and the bug is continuing to spread into parts of Indiana and Ohio. Now, a team of scientists in Ohio has endorsed a new plan to counter the ash borer’s attack. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
Transcript
An invasive insect called the Emerald Ash Borer is spreading. It has already killed millions of
trees in Michigan and Ontario, and the bug is continuing to spread into parts of Indiana and Ohio.
Now, a team of scientists in Ohio has endorsed a new plan to counter the ash borer’s attack. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
Some ash trees in northwest Ohio have been infected with the ash borers… so the scientists are
supporting a plan by agriculture officials to order that ALL ash trees within a half mile radius of
the stricken trees be chopped down. Ohio insect expert Dan Herms is on the scientific panel
that’s urging quick action…
“12 million ash trees have already died in southeast Michigan, and so all these ash trees in Toledo
are inevitably doomed anyway. So the key is to try to get in front of this to prevent it from
spreading into the rest of Ohio and ultimately the rest of North America.”
Herms expects Ohio’s cut-down project to begin this winter. He notes ash trees are valuable as
timber… with Ohio’s crop having an estimated worth of one billion dollars.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.
Source: The Humanure Handbook. Jenkins Publishing, PO Box 607, Grove City, PA 16127
www.jenkinspublishing.com
Books can be powerful. Sometimes they can even change your life. As part of our ongoing series on individual choices that impact the environment— “Your Choice; Your Planet”—the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Curtis Gilbert brings us the story of one book that changed his mother’s life… a book that so profoundly affected her that she felt compelled to share its teachings with strangers. It wasn’t the Bible or the Koran… or “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” And the part of his mother’s life that it changed is one so exceedingly private that most people don’t even like to talk about it. He’ll explain:
Transcript
Books can be powerful. Sometimes they can even change your life. As part of our ongoing
series on individual choices that impact the environment — “Your Choice; Your Planet” —
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Curtis Gilbert brings us the story of one book that
changed his mother’s life…a book that so profoundly affected her that she felt compelled
to share its teachings with strangers. It wasn’t the Bible or the Koran… or “Chicken Soup
for the Soul.” And the part of his mother’s life that it changed is one so exceedingly private
that most people don’t even like to talk about it. He’ll explain:
There’s a sound — something familiar to everyone who lives in a Western, industrialized
country — but it’s a sound you’ll almost never hear at my mother’s house.
(sound of toilet flushing)
Five years ago, my mom turned off the to water to her toilet. She put a house plant on top
of the seat and opposite it built a five-gallon bucket in a box that took over all the duties
of its porcelain counterpart.
“Well I had seen ‘The Humanure Handbook’ in the FEDCO Seed catalog — and it just sort of
intrigued me. And I decided one year that I would read it since I was curious about it year after
year. And I read it and then I began to feel really bad every time I flushed the toilet.”
That’s because every time my mom flushed the toilet she was rendering undrinkable several
gallons of otherwise perfectly good water. And what’s more, she was whisking away valuable
nutrients that she could have just as easily returned to the earth.
That’s right… Humanure is a contraction consisting of two words: human and manure.
Here’s how it works: You use the humanure bucket in pretty much the same way you’d use a flush
toilet. Everything’s the same, except that instead of flushing when you’re done, there’s another
bucket right beside the humanure bucket and it’s filled with sawdust. You use a little cup to
scoop up some sawdust and then you just dump the sawdust in the humanure bucket when you’re
finished using it. That’s it. And the crazy thing, the thing that always surprises people when
I tell them about my mother’s humanure project is that it doesn’t smell bad.
“Anytime anything’s stinky in the humanure, you just cover it with sawdust and it doesn’t stink
anymore, except of course what is already in the air, which is like any toilet.”
Once a day my mom takes the bucket brimming with sawdust and humanure and dumps it into her
massive compost pile. There, it mingles with her kitchen scraps, weeds from the garden, and
just about every other bit of organic matter she can find… and in two years time the humanure
cooks down into dark, rich, fertile soil.
For the first couple of years, my mom was content just to operate her own humanure compost
heap and let her garden reap the benefits — but the more she did it the more of a true believer
she became. Strict adherence to the faith wasn’t enough for her anymore. She had to become a
missionary. She bought a case of Humanure Handbooks and set up a booth at an organic gardening
festival called Wild Gathering.
“And I think I sold one at that Wild Gathering. And then after that I was giving them away right
and left to my sisters and nieces and friends and whoever! And I used them all up and then this
last year I decided that not only was I going to get another box of Humanure Handbooks, I was
going to collect humanure at Wild Gathering!”
My mom knew she’d a lot of buckets for the project, so went door to door at the businesses
in town. She didn’t say what she needed them for, and luckily they didn’t ask. She collected eight
buckets full in all — not quite the payload she was hoping for. Attendance at Wild Gathering was
pretty low that year, due to rain, but relatively speaking, sales of the Humanure Handbook were
way up.
“I sold more at this last Wild Gathering. I think I sold five or six. And I gave one away for
Christmas this year to Natasha, who had been having plumbing problems. And I started my spiel and
she was really quite interested. And, I think we may have a convert there before long.”
Conversion. The ultimate goal of any evangelist. My mom admits that she doesn’t know of anyone
she’s actually brought into the fold — but she likes to think she’s planting seeds. Just
introducing people to the idea that there’s a alternative to flush toilets, she says, is a huge
step forward.
“This is really a shocking idea to a lot of people and a lot of people who come to the house will
not use it. I have to make the water toilet available to them.”
My grandmother won’t use it. Neither will my mom’s friend, Rochelle. And then there’s my
girlfriend, Kelsey. Last summer the two of us spent several days at my mom’s house in Maine
before taking a road trip back to where we live in Minnesota. After quietly weighing the
ramifications of sawdust versus water toilets, Kelsey finally decided to brave the humanure…
well, sort of.
Curtis: “So you used it for some things, but you’ve told me before that there were some things
that you couldn’t bring yourself to do.”
(laughing)
Kelsey: “No, I couldn’t. I did not have a bowel movement during our entire visit to your
house, over the course of four days.”
I’d like to think that Kelsey’s physical inability to make full use of the sawdust toilet
was an anomaly, that most people would have no problem going to the bathroom at my mom’s house
in Maine… But I doubt that’s the case. And that’s not the only reason I’m a little skeptical about
my mom’s vision of a world humanure revolution.
Curtis: “It occurs to me, and I’m about 100 pages into the book at this point, that this is
all well and good for people living in rural areas, but I live in a city. Where am I going to
put a compost heap?”
Mom: “You know, there could be chutes in buildings. There would have to be temporary storage.
Trucks would come in and take it out. Great huge compost piles would be built and it would work
down very… I think that where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
I’ll admit it; I’m still skeptical. I mean I believe in humanure, sure. But I also haven’t
put a house plant on top of the toilet in my big city apartment…and I probably never will.
Call me a summer soldier in the humanure revolution if you will, but when I go home to my
Mom’s next Christmas, I’ll be flushing with sawdust and I’ll be proud.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Curtis Gilbert.
Climate change can affect temperature and humidity. And those changes can damage art. (Photo source: Aude at Wikimedia Commons)
