Summary: Protecting art from climate change.
Kyle Norris looks at how climate
change is affecting the preservation
of artworks and artifacts.
Also, the last remaining in-tact
mountain in Coal River Valley is
now being blasted. Lester talks
with the Center for Biological
Diversity about mountaintop removal
mining.
And... following the trail of Dow
Chemical and dioxin contamination.
Shawn Allee walks along the river
downstream from Dow Chemical Plant.
He finds out what these toxins mean
for people living in the area and why
clean-up has yet to happen. More…
Climate changes in the future could destroy our past.
This is The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.
Preservationists are worried climate change could destroy valuable art and cultural artifacts. Kyle Norris reports that art conservationists are looking at ways to protect the art.
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.
((((STING)))
This is The Environment Report.
When a community is told there's toxic waste in the area ... it hopes to get the problem behind it as soon as possible.
That's NOT how things worked out with dioxin contamination in Central Michigan.
Dioxin's been there for at least 30 years but the Dow Chemical company, the federal government and the state of Michigan are just now hashing out final cleanup plans.
Shawn Allee's been looking at this for us ... there's a lot of ground to cover, right?
Yes, we're spending the next week on this.
We think it's important for people outside Michigan to understand a few things about the dioxin contamination there - like, how how long it's been around, why it's taken so long to clean, and what it's like to live with it.
Before we get to that, ... what is the dioxin contamination there - and why worry about it?
We're using "dioxins" as a shorthand for a class of chemicals.
They include dioxins, furans, and some PCBs, too.
They act the same way in the body.
The government suspects they cause cancer and some developmental, immune, and reproductive diseases.
Where exactly is the dioxin contamination we're talking about in central Michigan?
It's downstream from a Dow chemical factory in Midland.
The dioxin got into fifty miles of two rivers and out into Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes.
It's led to higher-than-normal levels of dioxin in soil in homes and parks.
It's in the bodies of fish and wildlife, and it's in the blood of people.
Where'd this come from?
These dioxin-like compounds were by-products of burning or creating chemicals in insecticides, and herbicides.
One of the herbicides was in Agent Orange - the defoliant used in the Vietnam War.
So, this is legacy pollution - not new stuff coming out of the Dow plant?
That's right.
You talked to a lot of people about this issue - who's first?
First we'll hear from a government official who made national news about this 26 years ago.
He's disturbed this problem's still around.
Talk to you then, Shawn.
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