Climate Bill Critique & Panther Habitat

Climate change, Congress and civil rights.

This is The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.

This year, next year, eventually a climate change bill will work its way through Congress and President Obama has indicated he’ll sign it. One of the nation’s civil rights group says a climate change bill will force the working poor to reduce their standard of living.

A climate change bill, will mean more expensive energy until the nation can transition from fossil fuels like coal and oil to renewable energy such as biofuels, wind and solar. Roy Innis is the Chairman of the civil rights group Congress of Racial Equality. He says higher energy costs will hurt the working poor. Democrats say they’ll get rebates to offset the additional costs. Innis doesn’t like the idea.
“We don’t want energy welfare. This is our new civil rights battle: how to have abundant and available, reliable energy at a reasonable cost.”

And Innis says we have that now.
The Obama administration says climate change legislation will eventually lead to cheaper energy for everyone and reduce the cause of global warming—which –in the end-- could cost people a lot more.



(((STING)))

This is The Environment Report.

People are killing Florida panthers. It’s usually not intentional. But Rebecca Williams reports biologists are trying to figure out how to keep panthers and people from running into each other:


There are only about 100 Florida panthers left in the wild. They’re endangered. If you live down here... it’s one thing to know there are panthers hunting for food in the Everglades... but it’s something else when they visit your backyard.

(tropical birds singing)

Rebecca Galligan says she came home from work one day... and found her dog Riley had been killed.

“The scratches on the body and the way he’d been killed it was pretty obvious it was some sort of wild cat.”

Two days earlier something had killed her neighbor’s sheep. Then a dozen goats got killed.

A biologist decided the predator was a panther. In the past few years in South Florida... more people have been losing pets and farm animals to hungry panthers.

Galligan calling to dog: “C’mere, have a seat!” (Roscoe sniffs the mic)

Now, when she’s away, Rebecca Galligan keeps her dogs Roscoe and Sable in a little panther-proof house. It’s made out of steel and chain link fencing.

“We just can’t destroy it all because we want to be safe.”

And a lot of people here think the panthers have a right to stick around.

But some say there’s a gaping hole in the law that’s supposed to protect panthers. The panther has never had what’s called critical habitat set aside. That means developers don’t have to consider the land panthers need to survive. Panther habitat or not... they can just build.

So panthers are getting crowded out by subdivisions and huge new cities.

Andrew McElwaine is president of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. He’s asked the Obama Administration to officially give panthers that habitat.

“So the more habitat we take away we’re forcing panthers to move out.”

And as people move in... panthers are becoming roadkill.

Last year 10 panthers were killed by cars. So far this year... six more panthers have been killed.

(cars whizzing by overhead)

“There are some panther tracks here. There’s one there... and there...”

Mark Lotz is a panther biologist. We’re hanging out in an underpass below the highway. It was built for panthers.

CUT TO: “You know, panthers are part of the ecosystem. Without them there’s just something missing. In a way part of the wildness disappears.”

But if panthers keep running out of space... they could disappear.


LG possible outro to work with:

We asked Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar whether he’d set aside critical habitat for panthers.

“Yeah, we’ll have to get back to you on that.”

By the way… you can see photos and a link to a rare video of a Florida panther on our website… environmentreport.org.

I’m Lester Graham.