Humans Evolve – Fast!

A new study says modern humans are in the evolutionary fast lane. Scientists say world
population growth is leading to beneficial genetic mutations. Chuck Quirmbach has
more:

Transcript

A new study says modern humans are in the evolutionary fast lane. Scientists say world
population growth is leading to beneficial genetic mutations. Chuck Quirmbach has
more:


Some scientists contend modern culture and conveniences have basically halted human
evolution. But anthropologist John Hawks says that’s not so. He’s been analyzing data
from an international gene-cataloguing study. He says many genes have rapidly changed
within the last 5-thousand years. For example, Hawks says one positive development is
that humans have more genes that fight off some diseases:


“Things that resist malaria, things that resist smallpox, things that are resistant to new
diseases that have emerged in the last 10,000 years.”


Hawks says there have also been changes related to what some groups can eat and drink,
for example, many northern Europeans can now drink milk their whole lives. The study
of genetic change is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Clean Coal to Use More Water?

Government researchers say more water will be needed for power plants in the future.
Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

Government researchers say more water will be needed for power plants in the future.
Mark Brush reports:


Power plants use a lot of water – often millions of gallons an hour. A lot of that water is
cycled through the plants and released back into lakes and rivers. But there’s also a lot
that is used up – mostly evaporating into the air.


The Department of Energy predicts that energy needs in the U.S. will increase 22% by
2030. The increase in power generation will drive an increase in water consumption.


And researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory say a lot more
water will be needed. That’s because of the pressure to build coal-burning power plants
that strip carbon dioxide from their emissions to slow global warming. The researchers
say the technologies needed to do this will use a lot more water. They predict that
freshwater consumption at power plants will increase as much as 50%.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Kid Allergies on the Rise

New research suggests that kids today have a harder time outgrowing
milk and egg allergies than kids in past generations. Rebecca Williams
reports:

Transcript

New research suggests that kids today have a harder time outgrowing
milk and egg allergies than kids in past generations. Rebecca Williams
reports:


Milk and egg allergies are the two most common food allergies in the
US.


Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center followed children
with milk or egg allergies for more than 13 years. They found that
both types of allergies were harder for today’s kids to outgrow.


Dr. Robert Wood directs Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at Johns
Hopkins. He says these allergies tend to last into middle school, and
sometimes into high school or college years:


“In my 20 years of practicing pediatric allergy my impression would be
that there really is a tendency toward more severe allergy and that the
disease of food allergy is behaving differently than it used to
behave.”


Dr. Wood says it’s not yet known why this could be happening. But he
says researchers are focusing on finding ways to better treat these
aggressive allergies in kids.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Green Goo Finds New Home

  • Sandy Binh works for the Waterkeeper Alliance. She's kept a close eye on water quality problems in western Lake Erie. She and her neighbors are worried about the emergence of a new algae in the Lake - Lyngbya wollei. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Life along the water can be pretty nice – sunsets, strolls along the
beach, and boating. It’s no wonder more Americans are moving closer to
big lakes. But it’s not all fun at the beach these days. Mark Brush
brings us the story of one lake shore community that seems to be stuck
with a green gooey invader:

Transcript

Life along the water can be pretty nice – sunsets, strolls along the
beach, and boating. It’s no wonder more Americans are moving closer to
big lakes. But it’s not all fun at the beach these days. Mark Brush
brings us the story of one lake shore community that seems to be stuck
with a green gooey invader:


For many people living along the western edge of Lake Erie, seeing
algae is nothing new. Lake Erie is the shallowest and warmest of the
five Great Lakes. Algae like to grow here. But the cold winter months
usually kill off what grows over the summer.


(Sound of lake)


That’s not the case for a new type of algae that has spread through
this area in the last year. Jerry Brown has lived and paddled his
boats along these shores for years. We’re standing next to a beach
that is piled with mounds of dried green and brown algae three feet
high:


“It’s like a carpeting that grows on top of itself and becomes matted –
and it appears to dry but it doesn’t deteriorate. What used to be my
wonderful seafront, and waves lapping up against my seawall, is now
what I call my lower forty because it’s a field.”


The algae are known as Lyngbya wollei. Residents have been
warned not to touch it because it might cause skin rashes.
Lyngbya algae are common in Florida and some other southern
states. It probably hitched a ride up here from a pleasure boat.


(Sound of tractor)


Just down the road Brown’s neighbor is John Pastorek. He’s using his
tractor to lift a water pump out of the Lake. He uses the pump to water
the lawns around his house. Recently, his pump stopped working. It’s completely
covered by the dark green goop:


“And so the pump can’t suck through that. So now I’ve gotta clean
that off of here so that the filter can once again work. But it’s a short
term solution because it’s going to fill back up again.”


Pastorek says he’d love to find a way to get rid of the algae. What
he’s not aware of is that he might be contributing to the problem.
His house is surrounded by green lawns:


“You know my wife and daughter just returned from Ireland and yesterday
they said, ‘Boy, this looks just like Ireland. It’s so green.'”


It’s that green because it gets treated with fertilizers by a lawn care
company. The invasive algae feed on fertilizers that are washed off
the land by rain. I’m here with Sandy Binh of the environmental group
the Waterkeeper Alliance. She’s also Pastorek’s neighbor.
And she tries to convince him to tell his lawn company to stop using
phosphorus as a fertilizer:


“It will be just as green. It will not change it a bit. In fact
Lowe’s now on their Scott’s products that they sell – there’s no
phosphorus. I checked this year. A lot of companies are adopting it because they know it’s not needed. It can actually have less cost because they don’t have to put that in it. It doesn’t have any effect on your
lawn – there’s no reason to have it.”


Binh says to stop the invasive algae – one of the most important things
people can do – is to stop giving it nutrients such as phosphorus.
These nutrients come from a lot of places. They leak from septic
systems. They come from sewage treatment plants. And they wash off
farm fields and lawns:


“We really need to get it out of dishwasher detergent, to get it out
of lawn fertilizers, to work with the agricultural community to reduce
it. We need to find out what’s causing it quickly because we don’t
want to become the old poster child where Lake Erie is really having major
problems.”


Researchers say phosphorus isn’t the only problem. They say people
need to cut back on on another of the algae’s favorite food – nitrogen.
Hans Paerl is with the Institute of Marine Sciences in North Carolina.
He says once these mats of algae get started – it can be tough to stop
them, because they can start to make their own nutrients:


“In many ways – once that bloom gets going it becomes a sort of self-
fulfilling prophecy. The bottom line is we need to think about
nitrogen as well as phosphorus as far as ultimately controlling and managing these blooms.”


(Sound of lake)


Back at the lakefront, boater Jerry Brown says he hopes they can solve
the problem soon:


“You now, I’m seventy years old. I’ve been here 40 years. I love
living on the lake and I no longer have any use for the lake. I’m very fearful that this won’t be corrected and
that I’ll end my days not being to use the lake that I love so much.”


To stop the spread of these kinds of algae it will take cooperation
from farmers, cities… pretty much everyone. Anything we put on the
land or in our pipes flows into the water. But at the moment, most
people don’t seem to know that they’re a part of the problem and
nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen continue to pollute the
water.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Great Lakes Record Lows

  • Lower water levels on the Great Lakes make some channels such as the Muskegon River too shallow for big freighters to enter fully loaded. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The Great Lakes are hitting new record low water levels. The water is so low that
big 1000-foot cargo ships are running aground. There’s debate about
whether this is just part of the historic ups and downs of the Great Lakes, or if it’s the
effects of global warming. Lester Graham reports from Lake Michigan’s Muskegon
River, a trouble spot for some of the big ships:

Transcript

The Great Lakes are hitting new record low water levels. The water is so low that
big 1000-foot cargo ships are running aground. There’s debate about
whether this is just part of the historic ups and downs of the Great Lakes, or if it’s the
effects of global warming. Lester Graham reports from Lake Michigan’s Muskegon
River, a trouble spot for some of the big ships:


Here at the end of the pier next to the lighthouse, it’s cold, it’s icy and it’s windy. And
it’s hard to imagine a ship navigating its way into this channel, but ships do on a
regular basis to bring coal to a power plant. This year, however, some of the ships
have ended up aground here simply because of lower lake levels and more sediment
in the channel:


“There’s been three this summer here in Muskegon. They go hard up on the sand.”


Dennis Donahue is the marine superintendent for the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s Lake Michigan field station at Muskegon, Michigan. He
says this year’s groundings of cargo ships just hasn’t happened that often in the
past:


“Well, we haven’t had a grounding here, certainly in the last 15 years due to water
levels.”


Lester Graham: “So what’s happening here? What’s going on?”


Donahue: “Well, there’s a couple of things, we’ve got the water levels dropping and
then we’ve got some weather patterns that are carrying sediment to the mouth of the
Muskegon River. So, those two compound and create shoal areas.”


So lower water and a rising bottom mean channels are more shallow. That means
ships have to carry less cargo, and that costs the shippers reportedly a million
dollars per ship per year.


Scientists have been monitoring the dropping lake levels for close to a decade now.
At NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab, Deputy Director Cynthia
Sellinger says she’s been seeing a trend in the weather that’s causing the problem:


“We’re having a lot less precipitation and a lot more evaporation. And that’s
impacting the water levels on the lake.”


Less snow pack and rain mean less water filling the lakes, and with warmer winters
Sellinger says there’s less ice cover to protect the lakes from massive evaporation.
Historically, about 50% of the lakes’ surfaces have been covered by ice. These
days, it’s more like ten to 20%. Cold air hits the warmer water and
carries it away. For Lake Superior alone, a one-inch drop is more than 500 billion
gallons. During the past decade, Superior has lost nearly 13 trillion gallons.


“The upper lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, are very close to their record low.
So, it’s approaching an extreme. Superior reached its record low in 1926 and just
this year it broke the record low for September. So, 2007 now is a new record low
for Lake Superior. Lakes Michigan and Huron are approaching their record low.”


Sellinger and her colleagues are not ready to say global warming is causing the
lower lake levels. It might just be a part of a long cycle of ups and downs of the lakes.
But the lower water levels do fit some of the computer model predictions about
global warming.


Lower lake levels causing problems for big cargo ships and marinas catering to
recreational boaters are problems enough. But, some environmentalists say if lower
water levels are caused by global warming, the pressures on the water in the Great
Lakes likely are going to get a lot worse. Andy Buchsbaum heads up the National
Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office:


“The hidden threat of global warming is that not only does it affect Great Lakes water
levels simply because of increased evaporation or increased temperatures changes
precipitation, but the threat it makes to Great Lakes water levels is even greater.
Because global warming, global climate change, is having massive effects already
and is likely to have even greater effects on water supplies in the Southwest, the
Southeast and all over the country. And as those pressures increase, the pressure
to divert Great Lakes water will increase exponentially.”


We don’t know whether new diversions to dry areas of the country could cause as
much of a problem as less precipitation and more evaporation of the Great Lakes
already do. But, it would certainly aggravate the problem. The effects of water
levels dropping further mean more economic hardship for shipping and tourism. And
environmentalists say ecological damage to coastal habitat that fish and other
wildlife need to survive could be on a scale that’s not been seen on the Great Lakes
in recorded history.


For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Farms Keeping Up With Chefs

  • Jesse Meerman is a 4th generation Dutch dairy farmer in West Michigan. He's the family cheesemaker. Here, he's cutting a big vat of curdled milk into cheese curds. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Chefs are always dreaming up the next big dish. Lately, it’s been
trendy for restaurants to showcase locally-grown farm products and meat
from livestock that’s been raised on a pasture instead of in a feedlot.
But Rebecca Williams reports just because something’s hot in the
kitchen… it doesn’t always mean a better payoff for farmers:

Transcript

Chefs are always dreaming up the next big dish. Lately, it’s been
trendy for restaurants to showcase locally-grown farm products and meat
from livestock that’s been raised on a pasture instead of in a feedlot.
But Rebecca Williams reports just because something’s hot in the
kitchen… it doesn’t always mean a better payoff for farmers:


(Sound of water running, dishes clanking)


It’s 11 am at Sweet Lorraine’s Cafe. But it’s not too early for beer.


Chef Lorraine Platman is whipping up the first batch of her new fish
and chips. She’s using locally-milled flour and locally-brewed beer:


“I shouldn’t give you my whole recipe because it’s going to be an
absolutely fabulous beer batter. But it’s got a little baking
powder… the beer is what accelerates it and makes it nice and
crispy.”


(Sound of whisking)


Platman owns the three restaurants that bear her name, so naturally she
calls the shots. For her, this means getting ingredients close to home
and as close to nature as possible. Platman says fresher food tastes
better.


But it’s also about how a product performs when you cook with it. She
swears by the eggs she gets from local chickens that are raised without
antibiotics or hormones.


But Platman says it’s not easy getting local ingredients year round
especially during northern winters, so it means being flexible:


“I have a vivid imagination so I come up with some weird ideas but they
work and the guests really like them. They get very excited when they see
either Michigan grass-fed beef or chicken on the menu, they’re just enthused
by it and we’re buying from our neighbors so it makes us feel good I
think.”


Platman says the restaurant industry is competitive and always
changing. You have to serve food that excites people. She says chefs
pay a lot of attention to what their guests like.


The National Restaurant Association recently surveyed chefs around the
country. Locally-grown foods, organic produce and meats and cheeses
from grass-fed animals all made the top ten list. They’re expected to
stay trendy for at least the next year.


For the farmers who grow these products, all of this can look appealing
on paper. Smaller family farms are slowly disappearing in favor of
much bigger operations. Getting into new markets can mean staying in
business. But many small farmers say there’s a gap between the promise
of new markets in restaurants and the reality.


(Sound of cheese-making)


Jesse Meerman raises pastured dairy cows three hours west of Sweet
Lorraine’s Cafe. His farm supplies the Cafe with organic cheese.
Meerman is the family cheesemaker. He’s cutting a big vat of cheese
curd into millions of tiny pieces:


“Today we’re making Gouda cheese and a variety of it is Leyden, which has
caraway seeds in it.”


Meerman says they used to only sell their milk. But they wanted to
make more money by selling aged organic Dutch cheeses. They sell to
retail stores, farmers’ markets and restaurants. With the help of a
distributor they’re starting to get on menus in Chicago.


Meerman says restaurants are by far the toughest new markets to break
into:


“Being a farmer, it’s completely opposite of the way I am because we’re
connected to the land… this is our place, you know? We want to have our
business right here and we’re so stable and to a fault almost, because
farmers don’t change, that’s one of our biggest flaws. And chefs –
they’re opposite, they’re always changing. And it’s hard to keep up
with them.”


Chefs say they just want what they want when they want it. They’re not
always willing to wait for farmers to catch up.


Rich Pirog is with the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. He
says farmers need some help to adapt to chefs’ changing needs. He says
more investment in infrastructure at the state and local level would be
a start:


“We need to be able to make the case for investment in these types of
foods and if we can’t make that case then it’s likely we won’t see local
foods be able to scale up to the levels that I think people are wanting them to be
available in every store, at every restaurant.”


Pirog says farmers also need to have something solid to take to the
bank. They need to prove to their banker that these new restaurant
markets are real before they can get loans. They need loans to buy new
equipment that helps them produce more or different products for chefs
– and to keep quality high.


But mostly, whether or not restaurants can become sustainable markets for
farmers depends on the whims of chefs.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Beet Juice on the Road

  • The new de-icing product, GeoMelt, would use less salt than other methods of de-icing roads. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s been rising concern in recent years over the environmental impact of
road salt. The salt helps melt ice on the roads, but it corrodes cars and
damages bridges and concrete. Now, there’s a new way to help de-ice
roadways, and it comes from sugar beets. Dustin Dwyer reports:

Transcript

There’s been rising concern in recent years over the environmental impact of
road salt. The salt helps melt ice on the roads, but it corrodes cars and
damages bridges and concrete. Now, there’s a new way to help de-ice
roadways, and it comes from sugar beets. Dustin Dwyer reports:


The product is called GeoMelt, and it mixes with a salt brine to drop the freezing point
along roads. This method uses less salt than the traditional way of de-icing roads.


Chris Duffy is a GeoMelt salesman. He says it’s essentially de-sugared sugar beet
molasses. And it doesn’t require any new chemical processes:


“It’s considered a co-product of the sugar process. And, you know, what they were using
it for was a cattle feed. And we just have come up with a different use for it.”


GeoMelt also helps cut the amount of salt washing onto farmland where it can ruin crops.
Duffy says thousands of cities in every northern state are now using the sugar beet-based
product.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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Epa to Regulate Mercury in Steel Industry

  • Cars to be recycled must have any mercury switches removed before they are melted, under new rules. (Photo by paytonc @ Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a new rule for steel
manufacturers could prevent the release of about five tons of mercury into
the air each year. Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a new rule for steel
manufacturers could prevent the release of about five tons of mercury into
the air each year. Tracy Samilton reports:


Mercury switches are no longer made, but 35 million remain in older vehicles. Rick Otis with the U.S. EPA
says those vehicles will all be crushed and recycled by steel furnaces in about ten years, and that creates a
sense of urgency:


“Otherwise that mercury is going to be disseminated into the environment.”


Steelmakers agreed last year to voluntarily contract only with dismantlers who remove the switches. The
new rule makes it mandatory. But it could be tough to achieve the goal of an 80% recovery rate. Many auto
dismantlers operate on a shoe-string, with little money to train workers to remove the switches. Auto and
steelmakers have kicked in some money to pay dismantlers for each switch recovered. But environmental
groups say it’s not nearly enough.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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Energy Bill by the Numbers

  • George W. Bush signed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. (White House photo by Chris Greenberg)

The energy bill signed by President Bush has a little bit of something to make almost
everyone happy. Lester Graham reports on some of the highlights:

Transcript

The energy bill signed by President Bush has a little bit of something to make almost
everyone happy. Lester Graham reports on some of the highlights:


The Energy Independence and Security Act is massive, but it can be boiled down to
just a few numbers. First, 35 miles per gallon by 2020… That’s when automakers
have to increase the fleet average by ten miles per gallon.


Second, 36 billion gallons by 2022. That’s when ethanol producers have to increase
production by a factor of five. And two-thirds has to come from sources other than
corn.


And these numbers – 100 watts, 60 watts – those kinds of incandescent lightbulbs
are to be phased out, replaced by more energy efficient lighting.


Most environmental groups can find something to like in the bill. Farmers like it for
the ethanol mandates. And big oil companies like the Act for what’s not in it:
billions of dollars of proposed taxes blocked by Republicans in the Senate.


For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Lcv Releases 2008 Election Guide

  • The 2008 Presidential Primaries Voter Guide "takes a critical look at candidates' plans for dealing with global climate change." (Image courtesy of the LCV)

An environmental group has come out with an online voter guide for the
presidential primaries. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

An environmental group has come out with an online voter guide for the
presidential primaries. Rebecca Williams reports:


The League of Conservation Voters released its Voter Guide to show how
the candidates stack up. They consider the candidates’ voting records
and their plans to tackle the big issues. Everything from Superfund
clean-up to energy. But especially global warming:


David Sandretti is with the League. He says all of the Democratic
candidates have aggressive plans for controlling greenhouse gasses. He
says Senator John McCain comes out way ahead among the Republican
candidates:


“He has a plan, he has supported a plan, he’s been working on this for
years. And his Republican rivals just simply don’t have that kind of
record.”


Sandretti admits candidates without a federal or state voting record
are hard to compare to candidates with a long Congressional record.
But his group considers their records as mayors or governors.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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