Julie Grant - The Environment Report

Giving the Electric Grid Some Smarts

The enhanced communication of the Smart Grid could help utility companies predict an overload on the power system. (Photo courtesy of Gastev CC-2.0)

Remember that huge blackout in the summer of 2003? Forty-five million people in the Midwest and Northeast US – as well as 10 million in Canada lost power. Julie Grant reports that the federal government and utilities are spending billions of dollars on what’s called a “Smart Grid” – in part, so we don’t have more large scale blackouts.

Transcript

Right now, electric power in the U.S. is generated by a relatively small number of very big power plants. That power is transmitted all over the place.

But this set up is increasingly running into problems. The demand for power is skyrocketing: from big American houses and TVs, air conditioners and computers. The grid is struggling to keep up. And it’s not always succeeding.

There have been more – and more massive – blackouts in recent years than in previous decades.

Universities, private laboratories, and utility companies are all looking at different aspects of making the electric grid smarter.

Chris Eck is spokesman for First Energy, which provides power in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He says there are so many ideas on how to improve the nation’s electrical system.

“Part of the challenge is defining the smart grid. I think there are different opinions out there about what it will and won’t include.”

The Department of Energy says the smart grid will change the electric industry’s entire business model. Instead of being a centralized, producer-controlled network – it will transform to become decentralized and consumer-interactive.

Ken Laparo works on these kinds of issues at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. He says a smart grid will get consumers more involved in planning their energy use.

“Right now, you have no idea what a killowatt hour is costing you in Cleveland on March 10 at 8:30 in the evening.”

Laparo says most of us just look at those little bars on our electric bills that show how much energy we used that month. But he says it doesn’t really mean much to us.

But companies are developing all kinds of products: smart plugs, smart thermostats, smart appliances, that tell you how much energy is being used – so customers can decide the best ways to reduce energy use – and to reduce their bills.

Utility companies might start charging more at peak energy times of day – and they will communicate those shifting prices to “smart” consumer devices in real time.

Laparo says these small slices of energy savings might not seem like a lot:

“But it’s the cummulative effect of what everybody is doing, no matter how small it is. When you add it up over millions of customers over days and weeks and months and years that the overall opportunity is huge.”

But there’s still a lot to be done. A decentralized system is going to need better communication. If every programmed refrigerator is constantly trying to optimize its energy usage based on the power’s moment-to-moment price — the electricity system will also have to be an information system. Each smart appliance and home meter, will have to be able to communicate with the energy companies.

If it works, this type of communication could help utility companies predict an overload on the power system – like the one that started the black out in 2003. Utilities today just predict when usage will be high. But a smart grid, they will actually know how high it is in real time.

Utilities will also have a better ability to fix problems in the system before they get out of control.
This is what some researchers call the Holy Grail of the Smart Grid. In the short term, they see consumers learning more about saving energy, and communicating that to the power companies. But in the long term, they want to be able to sense and manage the grid, to avoid those debilitating blackouts.

The 2003 blackout started because there was a high demand for power in one Ohio town. When that one generating plant went off line – it tried to get power from another plant, and overloaded the next plant, setting off a cascade of outages. More than 100 power plants shutdown that day.

First Energy spokesman Chris Eck says a smart grid could help prevent blackouts.

“As it is now, you might know you have circuits out and you have to send crews out to physically for a problem with these lines. With a smart grid, with enough sensors and feedback communication, you might be able to pinpoint before they get to the site. And they can isolate the problem and fix it quicker.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Deodorant Maker Fouls the Air

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) come out of our vehicle tailpipes, out of smokestacks, and they’re in a lot of every day products. (Photo courtesy of NinaHale CC-2.0)

The makers of a popular deodorant body spray have been fined more than a million dollars for polluting the air in California. Julie Grant reports it’s part of an increased effort to reduce air pollution.

Transcript

The makers of Axe body spray – popular among teenage boys – have been fined for causing environmental problems in California. Dimitri Stanich is spokesman for the California Air Resouces Board. He says California has specific low limits on how much air pollution can come from consumer products.

And if they get a tip that a product is over the limit – they head to the pharmacy.

“THE AIR RESOURCES BOARD HAS ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS THAT WILL BUY PRODUCTS OFF THE SHELF AND THEN TAKE IT BACK TO THE LAB IN SACRAMENTO. TECHNICIANS THEN WILL PIERCE THE CANISTER AND DETERMINE THE AMOUNT OF VOCS IN THERE.”

VOCs – that’s short for volatile organic compounds. VOCs come out of our vehicle tailpipes, out of smokestacks. And they’re in a lot of every day products: some aerosol sprays, most paints, even some cosmetics. Stanich says there are lots of reasons a manufacturer might use a volatile organic compound. In a product like Axe, he says the VOCs make it spray better.

“MOST OF OFTEN IT IS PART OF THE PROPELLENT USED TO FORCE THE PRODUCT OUT OF THE CANISTER AND INTO THE PRACTICAL PURPOSE THAT THE CONSUMER IS USING IT.”

And once those VOCs hit the air – from deodorants, tailpipes and smokestacks – they mix with the heat of the sun – and create ground level ozone. Pollution.

The multinational corporation, Unilever, owns the Axe brand. Stanich says that between 2006 and 2008, Unilever’s parent company, Conopco, sold more than 2.8 million units of Axe spray that failed to meet California’s clean air standards.

The state has fined Conopco 1.3 million dollars.

It’s all kind of a bummer. At least for some teenage girls.

Katie Schombeck and Julia Rombach say the boys locker room reeks of Axe. And they love it.

“YOU SMELL IT AND YOU’RE LIKE DRAWN TO IT, IT SMELLS SO GOOD.”

“I DO THAT ALL THE TIME. I REMEMBER HANGING OUT WITH GUYS, AND LIKE IF THEY SMELL GOOD I’LL BE LIKE ‘HEY COME HERE FOR A MINUTE’ AND SMELL THEIR SHOULDER AND BE LIKE ‘YOU SMELL GOOD.’”

“I’LL GIVE THEM A BIG HUG, JUST BECAUSE THEY SMELL GOOD.”

But these 16 years olds didn’t realize body spray could be bad for air quality.

“BUT IT NEVER REALLY DAWNED ON ME THAT AXE…I DON’T KNOW, YOU DON’T REALLY THINK ABOUT THAT.”

Compared to all those cars and trucks and smokestacks – it doesn’t seem like a little deodorant spray could cause that much of a problem. But Dimitri Stanich with the California Air Resources Board says all those little bits add up.

“WE SPRAY A LITTLE PERFUME HERE, WE SPRAY A LITTLE DEODORANT THERE, SOME WD-40 ON THE VEHICLES WE’RE WORKING ON. THE LIST GOES ON. EVERYTHING THAT’S A CONSUMER PRODUCT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CONTRIBUTE TO OZONE.”

Stanich says on peak ozone days, people have a harder time breathing, especially those with asthma.

California has a particularly bad ozone problem in its cities – and also has tougher clean air rules than most of the country.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to tighten federal air quality standards – to reduce ozone pollution everywhere else.

Julian Marshall is professor of environmental engineering at the University of Minnesota.
He says most health officials support tougher air standards.

But there are lots of ways to reduce exposure in your own home:

“BUYING LIMITED QUANTITIES OF PRODUCTS THAT EMIT VOCS, OR BUYING LOW VOC PRODUCTS. WHEN YOU GO TO BUY PAINTS FOR EXAMPLE THERE ARE LOW VOC PAINTS.”

To reduce exposure, Marshall says get rid of old chemicals and those you don’t need.

In the meantime, California officials say Unilever has corrected the problems with Axe – and reduced the emissions from its spray can. Making a lot of teenage boys – and some of their girl – friends happy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Salt in the American Diet (Part 2)

Health professionals often work to reduce their patients salt intake to reduce high blood pressure. Should the government get involved too? (Photo by James Gathany for the US CDC)

New research shows that Americans’ health
would benefit dramatically if we ate less
salt. But some people say it’s not the
salt in the saltshaker that’s the
problem. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

New research shows that Americans health would benefit dramatically if we ate less salt. But some people say it’s not the salt in the saltshaker that’s the problem. Julie Grant reports:

Darryl Bosshardt comes from a salt family. His grandfather started mining salt on their farm in central Utah. When Bosshardt hears about a new study that shows 100-thousand American lives could be saved each year if everyone reduced their salt intake by just a half teaspoon – he cringes.
He says salt is being given a bad name.

“And the challenge is, how we define salt.”

Most of the salt today all looks the same – perfectly pour-able, uniform bright white grains. It’s pure sodium and chloride, but Bosshardt, whose family owns the Real Salt Company, says it’s not the same as naturally occurring sea salt.

“Sea water occurs with many trace minerals. Over 50 to 60 trace minerals. It doesn’t occur, the salt in sea water doesn’t occur, as pure sodium and chloride.”

Bosshardt says those trace minerals help the body to process sodium, but most salt today looks perfect because the trace minerals have been taken out. He says when our bodies lack the minerals needed to process sodium; it raises blood pressure, which can lead to heart problems.

There are some books by holistic doctors that make these kinds of claims,but there’s not much science to prove this.

Most doctors today say salt is salt; sodium chloride. Our bodies need it, but not as much as much as most Americans are eating.

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s lead author of that new study on salt – the one that finds Americans could reduce deaths from heart disease by 100-thousand just by slightly reducing salt consumption:

“I don’t think we’re saying salt is bad and one of these other types of salt would be good. I think the newer types of salt that are on the market might have a lower sodium content for the taste that they have and so that would certainly be potentially beneficial.”

But Bibbins-Domingo says most Americans only get 6-percent of their sodium from their own saltshakers. The rest comes from processed foods and restaurants. So buying expensive sea salts with those trace minerals isn’t going to make much difference to most people. She says the problem is that salt is ubiquitous – people don’t even realize they’re eating it:

“If you start out with a healthy bowl of cereal with some milk, you’ve already consumed quite a bit of salt right there. If you have that healthy turkey sandwich or tuna sandwich, you have a bit of salt right there. If you have the marinara sauce with the pasta, you have salt there. So you realize that there are so many different ways, without you choosing items that we might clearly associate with a high sodium content, that there are a lot of places that we’re all consuming salt.”

Bibbins-Domingo supports efforts like the one in New York City. There Mayor Michael Bloomburg is urging food manufacturers to reduce the salt in their foods by 25% over the next five years.

Mark Kurlansky thinks it’s a terrible idea. He wrote a book called “Salt.” When laws curb smoking – that’s one thing. But salt is something different:

“You have to deal with the fact that people like salt. There isn’t the moral imperative of cigarettes because there isn’t a problem of second hand salt. If you don’t want to eat salt and the guy at the next table wants to eat it, it’s not going to affect you. It becomes an issue of government messing around with individual choice.”

But most people don’t realize they’re making that choice – there’s just so much salt in all the foods they buy. Other countries, such Finland and England, have worked with food manufacturers to lower salt content. In the UK, they cut sodium in foods by 10-percent. And researchers say the public didn’t even notice. They’re still studying to see if it’s actually improved health.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Salt in the American Diet (Part 1)

Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half. (Photo by Paul Goyette)

If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.

Transcript

When Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo sees patients with high blood pressure, she advises them to cut back the on the salt.

She says they often return to the office – happy to announce that they’ve cut out fast food and processed snacks.

“AND THEN I ASK THEM TO TELL ME WHAT THEY’RE EATING AND I AM AWAYS BLOWN AWAY WHEN THEY COME BACK WITH THESE NICE HEALTHY VEGETABLE SOUPS THAT ARE CHOCKED FULL OF SALT. AND SO ALL THE THINGS THAT THEY DON’T REALIZE ARE HIGH IN SALT ARE ACTUALLY STILL THERE IN THEIR DIET.”

Bibbins Domingo is associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s also lead author of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers at Stanford and Columbia University Medical Centers co-authored the study.

They did a computer simulation – to see what would happen if every American reduced their salt intake by a half teaspoon a day. That’s 3 grams.

“WHAT WE FOUND THAT IS IF WE WERE ABLE TO REDUCE SALT IN THE U-S DIET BY 3 GRAMS PER DAY, WE WOULD ANTICIPATE 100-THOUSAND FEWER DEATHS EACH YEAR, 100-THOUSAND FEWER HEART ATTACKS, AND MORE THAN 100-THOUSAND FEWER CASES OF NEW HEART DISEASE.”

Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half.

But not everybody puts that much stock in the new study.

Michael Alderman is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He says the government shouldn’t act so quickly based on this new study:

“WELL, IT’S INTERESTING THAT IT’S CALLED A STUDY, WHICH I THINK SORT OF SUGGESTS THAT THERE ARE REAL OUTCOMES AND REAL PEOPLE THAT WERE STUDIED. IN FACT, OF COURSE, WHAT IT IS A SIMULATION, A MATHEMATICAL MODELING.”

Alderman says there are lots of different findings when it comes to sodium consumption. And some show reducing salt intake could have actually have negative health effects:

“WE KNOW THAT REDUCING SODIUM INTAKE, BY AN AMOUNT SUFFICIENT TO REDUCE BLOOD PRESSURE, ALSO INCREASES SYMPATHETIC NERVE ACTIVITY, IT INCREASES RESISTANCE TO INSULIN…”

If we already ate low salt diets, the researchers in this latest salt study say those concerns might be valid. But Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says salt consumption in the U.S. is higher than is recommended, and it’s on the rise.

But she says there are high levels of salt in so many foods, it’s hard to avoid. Cereal. Bread. Lunch meat. Pasta Sauce.

And she says consumers can’t really reduce salt consumption without some changes by food manufacturers.

“RIGHT NOW THERE ARE NO CHOICES THAT ARE REALLY AVAILABLE THAT MIGHT BE LOWER IN SALT. I THINK THAT’S WHERE THE EFFORTS WITH THE FOOD MANUFACTURERS ARE ABOUT REALLY MAKING A RANGE OF CHOICES SO WE CAN EAT LOWER SALT, WHICH IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE RIGHT NOW.”

Some governments are responding. New York City has already started urging food manufacturers and restaurant chains to lower the salt in their foods by 25-percent over the next five years. Bibbins-Domingo says California is considering salt limits in foods the state buys for schools, prisons and other public institutions.

She also wants the Food and Drug Administration to require food makers to alert consumers when foods are high in salt.

In the meantime, Bibbins-Domingo advises her patients to look at food labels – and really look at the sodium content – so they know what they’re getting.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Being Green and Being Bad

Researchers find, for example, being a green shopper might lead to some not so green behavior. (Photo courtesy of USDA)

We might think it’s virtuous to
buy things that are environmentally-
friendly: recycled paper saves trees,
natural cleaners cause less pollution.
But new research finds that when we’re
good, we sometimes use that to excuse
being bad. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

We might think it’s virtuous to buy things that are environmentally-friendly: recycled paper saves trees, natural cleaners cause less pollution. But new research finds that when we’re good, we sometimes use that to excuse being bad. Julie Grant reports.

Nina Mazar wants more people to buy green products. She’s a marketing professor at the University of Toronto business school. And she thinks people should spend money on things that aren’t harmful to the environment.

But Mazar had some concerns. Research in other areas shows that if people do one thing they define as moral or virtuous – say, helping others or being politically-correct – they are more likely to transgress in other areas.

Mazar wanted to see if the same was true for buying green products.

“In our society, it seems at least, that green consumption is being moralized. And we thought, well, if it’s being moralized, maybe it can have some negative effects.”

That’s the key: if we moralize one behavior, Mazar says, we’re more likely later to do something negative.

So, first they did a survey, and found that, yes, people believe that consumers who buy environmentally-friendly and organic products are more likely to be ethical, cooperative and altruistic.

Then they tested it. They gave money to two groups of college students – one group was asked to buy products in a regular grocery store, the other in a store with mostly green products.

Afterwards, Mazar and her team set up a computer game. The students could see how much money they were making as they played – and they could easily cheat . When the game was over, they were told to take the amount they’d won out of an envelope.

“And what we found was that people who purchased in the green store, as opposed to the conventional store, cheated more on that particular subsequent task, and they actually took out more money out of the envelope than they were supposed to. So not only did they cheat, they also stole money from us.”

If students were totally accurate, they could have won $2.07. Those who had purchased green products went home with $2.90 in their pockets.

Mazar says this finding about green consumption fits right in with the theory called moral regulation or licensing.

“Whenever we engage in virtuous behavior, whenever we had done a good deed, we get a boost in our moral self worth, which will license us further down the road to transgress.”

This has been studied for years in the opposite direction. People who do something bad subsequently do good things to cleanse themselves.

But researcher Sonya Sachdeva says lots of new evidence is coming in that moral cleansing works both ways. She’s a PhD student at Northwestern University. And says she noticed this in herself when she started taking the bus to school.

“And at first, when I would take the bus, it took forever and I just wasn’t used to it. But the fact that I thought that I was doing this really good thing made me feel morally licensed.”

Sachdeva says each person has different things that make them feel this way.

Everyone in the green consumption study was a college student. Sachdeva says they might not be used to buying green products, so they get a boost of self worth when they do. And then might feel morally licensed to transgress: to cheat and steal.

But she says people who buy green and organic products all the time might not get that same boost of self worth and so might not have the backslide. In the same way her attitude toward riding the bus has changed.

“But over time, now that I’ve been taking the bus regularly for the past couple of years, I no longer get that same kind of warm glow feeling, because I’m used to it and my reference point has changed.”

The researchers say there is something practical we can learn from this. If we want people to be more environmentally friendly, the message should not be that be that this will make us better, more virtuous people. But it’s simply what we should do.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

No Paperless Office Yet

For five years, the environmentalist group Greenpeace held protests against the Kimberly Clark Corporation, maker of Kleenex tissues, for cutting Canada’s Boreal Forest and other forests around the world for its products. (Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)

When the computer-age took
off in the 1990s, lots of
people thought we’d use a
lot less paper. But that
hasn’t happened. Julie Grant
reports on why environmentalists
are so concerned about all
the paper we’re still using
in our offices and homes:

Transcript

Allen Hershkowitz knew that the computer revolution wasn’t going to lead to a paper-less society. He’s been a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the NRDC, since people first started using email.

“Very early on, even at NRDC, we started to see people printing out documents that would otherwise have been retyped or emails that shouldn’t have been printed out.”

Hershkowitz says Americans use 7-times more paper than the average person on the planet. And computer printouts are just the beginning. Packaging, cigarettes, tissues and toilet paper – Hershkowitz has seen firsthand the devastation the demand for all that paper it’s causing.

“Ancient forests, forests that have existed way before Christ and Moses and Mohammed, for 10,000 years, are being cut down for toilet paper. A product we use for 2-3 seconds. This does not make sense.”

Hershkowitz says this deforestation causes more global warming pollution than all the trucks, buses, planes and ships in the world combined. He scoffs at products like 3-ply toilet paper, and compares using them to driving a gas-guzzling Hummer.

In Europe and Asia, much more of the toilet paper is made from recycled paper. Americans get beat up in the international press for allowing their delicate buttocks to devastate the world’s forests.

For five years, the environmentalist group Greenpeace held protests against the Kimberly Clark Corporation, maker of Kleenex tissues, for cutting Canada’s Boreal Forest and other forests around the world for its products. Greenpeace’s campaign against Kimberly Clark took late night political comedian Stephen Colbert by surprise.

Colbert: “Now for starters, who knew toilet paper came from trees? I always assumed it came from cartoon bears.”

Greenpeace recently ended their protests. Kimberly Clark agreed that by next year 40% of the fiber in their tissue products would come from recycled paper. But while environmentalists support this concession, it does not please Mr. Colbert.

Colbert: “Have you seen recycled toilet paper? Environmentalists, I swear, if you take away my plush toilet paper, I’m just going to use the next softest thing – spotted owls.”

Most paper makers aren’t opposed to using recycled material in their products. Dan Sandoval is an editor at the publication Recycling Today. He says most cardboard boxes and newspapers are already made from recycled paper.

And that recycled toilet tissue? He says that’s usually made from old office paper. The stuff we use for printing and writing. But a lot of times office waste is all thrown together – and isn’t clean enough to be recycled into something new.

“You know, when you’re collecting it all together here, you’re going to get some telephone books, some post-it notes and things like that that people are throwing together. Plastic windowed envelopes. Some of that stuff is like, it’s kind of iffy on that. So you get more material, but the quality goes down.”

Sandoval says that means the paper mills have to invest in a lot more cleaning equipment. And some times it costs more than just cutting down trees. Still, he says the trend for companies around the world is toward more recycled content. Environmentalists want paper companies to move faster.

And they say consumers also need to do their part. In the office, they want people to print less, and at home, they’re asking people to stop buying toilet paper that’s 3 layers thick.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Time to Eat the Dog?

Meredith Mull loves dogs. She owns five and works as a groomer. She's not getting rid of any of her pets to help the environment. (Photo by Julie Grant)

We’ve all heard about the
environmental problems our
gas-guzzling cars and trucks
cause. But some researchers
say our vehicles aren’t the
biggest energy hogs. The biggest
energy users actually live
in our homes. Julie Grant
reports about the new book
‘Time To Eat The Dog?’ about
the wasteful ways of our pets:

Transcript

Robert Vale is sorry. He didn’t set out to incriminate Fido. He and his wife Brenda Vale specialize in sustainable living at Victoria University in New Zealand. And they just wanted to see how much of the world’s resources it takes to do things like eat, work, play sports, and own pets.

“The thing that most surprised us, and was the most unexpected was the scale of the impact of pets – which was really, really high.”

Vale says a big dog, like a German Shepard, actually has a bigger ecological footprint than an SUV.

To measure the ecological paw-print of pets, the Vales looked at the ingredients in common brands of dried pet foods. Based on recommended portion sizes, they calculated that a medium sized dog would consume more than 3 ounces of dried meat a day. To get that much dried meat, the Vales found, it takes nearly a pound of fresh meat. Add that up each day, and they concluded a medium sized dog eats about 360 pounds of meat a year!

Robert Vale says raising that meat – beef, lamb and chicken – has an environmental impact.

“And we did the calculation based on a dog eating chicken, which is a fairly low footprint meat, rather than say beef, which is a fairly high footprint meat. So, we tried to bias it in favor of the dog. But it still came out really big. It was a big surprise, really.”

Vale says the dog takes more than 2 and a half times more energy and resources than building and driving an SUV 6000 miles a year.

These numbers aren’t just coming from the Vales.
The New Scientist Magazine asked the Stockholm Environment Institute in England to calculate a dog’s paw-print, and the findings were almost exactly the same.

But none of this really computes with dog-lover Meredith Mull. She doesn’t understand why Robert Vale would even look into this.

“He must not have a pet. He must not know what it’s like to be loved by an animal and take care of it and have it give you nothing but respect and loyalty and love. He must not know what it feels like.”

The Vales don’t have any pets. They used to have cats and other animals. But when they died, Robert Vale says they felt they shouldn’t replace them and use more of the world’s resources just to give themselves a little more comfort.

“We are increasingly pushing up to a question of limits. What can we have, what, everything. I think to some extent, that’s why it’s unpopular. We’ve all been brought up to believe that not only can we have more of everything, but it’s our right to have more of everything.”

But some people think the Vales are barking up the wrong tree.

Chetana Mirle works on global warming issues at the Humane Society of the United States. She says instead of blaming dogs, people should look at what they, themselves are eating – and how that contributes to environmental problems.

“So to me, I felt like, ‘are you kidding me?’ Um, we’re worried about our pets, and what our pets are eating instead of what we’re eating, and what our consumption is about – which has such a huge disproportionately large impact on climate change and the environment in general.”

It’s not that the researchers want people to blame dogs and cats instead of themselves. They say they just want people to understand that each choice we make – right down to whether we have pets – has an environmental impact.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Part 2: Food Ads and Kids

Researchers say food advertisers convince kids they need different food than adults. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

Lots of people are concerned
that American children are
getting fat. More than one-
third are considered overweight
or obese. And some are pointing
the finger at those who manufacture
and advertise food for kids. In
the second part of our two-part
series on food and health, Julie
Grant reports on efforts to crack
down on food marketing targeted
at children:

Transcript

Have you ever tried going to the supermarket with a five year old? They’re cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and everything else on the shelves that’s colorful with big cartoon characters – strategically placed right at kids-eye level. So, They beg. They plead. Some even just grab what they want.

It’s called parent pestering.

Marion Nestle is Professor of Public Health Nutrition at New York University and author of several books on food politics. She says food advertisers convince kids they need different food than adults. And they want kids to pester their parents.

“I hear parents tell me all the time that the kids won’t even taste things because they say they’re not supposed to be eating that. They’re supposed to be eating chicken fingers, or things that come in packages with cartoons on them.”

Nestle says marketers are just trying to sell products – they’re not worried about obesity and other health problems caused by the processed food targeted to children. She’d like to see some big changes.

“If I were food czar, I would just say, ‘you can’t advertise to children, period.’ They’re not capable of making intelligent, adult decisions about what they’re eating.”

The Federal Trade Commission agrees the ads are a contributing factor to growing problem of childhood obesity. The FTC, the Food and Drug Administration and other government agencies will recommend changes to food marketing rules to Congress later this year.

Most people in the food and advertising industries say cutting off all marketing to kids would go way too far.

Elaine Kolish is Director of the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. It’s part of the Better Business Bureau. She’s been working with 16 of the major U.S. food manufacturers to change what is advertised to children.

Over the past few years, she says food manufacturers have spent millions of dollars to reformulate kids products – like cereals – to make them healthier.

“Before the initiative, cereals that were advertised to children might have had as much as 16 grams of sugar per serving. Now the maximum that anyone could have is 12 grams of sugar per serving. In fact, more of the cereals have less. So that’s a big improvement right there.”

And Kolish says advertising can actually help to get kids to eat healthier. For example, the McDonalds happy meal. Instead of offering kids French fries and a soft drink, the default happy meal now includes skim milk and apples – although it includes a side of caramel dipping sauce.

“I think now because of Burger King and McDonalds, alone, there’s probably more fruit advertising than ever before…and the sales and the trend data is really good. McDonalds has sold over 100-million orders of apple dippers in the last two years. That’s a lot of apples.”

But recent surveys at the University of Arizona and at Yale show that TV and online marketing toward children is still for foods that are not healthy for children. It’s mostly for things that are high in sugar, fat and salt.

Mary Engle is Associate Director for Advertising at the FTC. She says, for the most part, food companies have been taking foods that are bad for kids and only managing to make them less unhealthy.

“Whereas the proposal that the government group came up with is to only allow the marketing of truly healthful foods to children – foods that actually make a positive contribution to a healthy diet. So it’s much more limited which kinds of foods could be marketed to kids.”

Some food makers call the government proposal extreme. But government officials say they wouldn’t ban all ads – just those that encourage kids to eat bad food.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Part 1: Regulating Sweet Foods

Researchers say science is starting to show that people can become addicted to sugar, fat and salt. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

More people are becoming concerned
about the growing problems of obesity
and diabetes. Some even compare
foods that contribute to these health
problems to nicotine and tobacco. In
the first part of our series on food and
health, Julie Grant reports on efforts
to regulate foods that are bad for you
in the same way as cigarettes:

Transcript

Yale University professor Kelly Brownell has been watching for a long time as Americans gain weight. He says obesity and diabetes are creating debilitating health problems. And the food industry is largely to blame.

Brownell says science is starting to show that people can become addicted to sugar, fat and salt: the same stuff that’s in most processed foods.

“Certain parts of the brain get activated by food constituents, particularly sugar, that look like the same activation that occurs with heavily addictive substances like nicotine, alcohol or morphine.”

Brownell says the science is not definitive at this point. And he doesn’t expect it will ever show that donuts are as addictive as cigarettes. But he expects something similar. And so, he’s advocating that society treat these treats the same way as cigarettes: tax them. And put the money toward prevention programs.

Brownell is specifically pushing for a tax on sugary drinks. He says this approach worked for smokes, so why not soda pop.

“Oh, there’s no question about it. The rate of people smoking in the United States is about half of what it was in the 1950s and 60s. And that’s attributable to a number of things. But economists have figured that the taxes were the single most effective contributor to that.”

Brownell says California has held hearings on the idea, the New York state legislature is considering a tax on sugary drinks, and New Hampshire has just introduced legislation. And he says that’s just the tip of the iceberg. More sugar taxes are on the way.

We tried to reach the food industry’s major trade group: the grocery manufacturers association to comment for this story – but they didn’t respond. We also didn’t hear back from General Mills – a company that recently announced plans to lower the sugar content in its cereals.

We did speak with John Feldman. He’s an attorney who represents some of the major food manufacturers. He says they make foods that have salt, fat and sugar because people like them.

“There are products that people want to buy because they taste good or they are fun or they are attractive, of course. If they didn’t sell, people wouldn’t make ‘em.”

Feldman says any laws limiting or taxing certain foods must be based on scientific evidence: facts that show the foods are causing health problems. He says science hasn’t proven that with sugar, salt and fat.

Consumers at one Ohio supermarket also want sugary drink tax idea to fizzle out. College student Alicia Cobb is looking at the sweetened teas. She says beverages are only one of the reasons Americans are overweight.

“Well, so is McDonalds and Burger King and not working out and being a lazy bum.”

“How they think people supposed to live, taxing everything?”

Marie Holloway has a 12-pack of ginger ale in her cart. She says she’s not supposed to have sugar – because her doctor is concerned she’s developing diabetes.

“I only get a small income. By the time my doctor takes all of my money for copayments and doctor bills and stuff then I don’t have anything left because they’ve taxed everything so high. I think it’s terrible.”

Some TV pundits call the soda tax part of the Obama nanny state – telling people what’s good for them and limiting their choices. But those who support the sugar beverage tax say it doesn’t take away choice: it just helps people break what might be an addictive habit. One that’s costing everyone lots of money in health care costs.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Greening New Year’s Eve

The numerals for the New Year's Eve celebration on Times Square are brought in by pedi-cab. Just one of the many things that organizers say make this year's celebration more green. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Tonight, thousands of people will
gather in Times Square in New York
City to ring in the new year. But
with all those lights and all that
confetti dropping, some people
are concerned about all that waste.
Julie Grant reports on efforts to
make the party in Times Square
a little greener this year:

Transcript

(sound of pedicab)

When the seven-foot tall numerals 1 and 0 were delivered to Times Square earlier this month, they weren’t driven in on big gas guzzling trucks. They were pedaled in by human power – on pedicabs – which look more or less like a rickshaw.

That’s just one of the symbolic changes making new years greener.

The numerals themselves are saving energy.
There are more than 500 bulbs in the numbers. This year, the 40-watt halogen bulbs have been swapped out for 9-watt LED lights.

Susan Bloom is spokesperson for Phillips lighting – the company that made the switch. She says the numerals will shine even more brightly.

“Now they will deliver 80% greater energy efficiency, so, if you will, the times square ball numerals have gone greener than ever.”

Organiziers say the power for those lights is also greener – it’ll come from people pedaling stationary bikes in Times Square. Power from the bikes will be stored in batteries to light up the new year’s lights.

Oh, and about the ball.

In recent years, it’s been dropping its energy usage. Bloom says since 2007 they’ve doubled the number of lights, but since those are LEDs, the ball is still 80% more efficient.

Tim Tompkins is President of the Times Square Alliance. The Alliance is one of the event organizers. He says the time is right for the iconic celebration to go green.

“Times Square is always this place that’s kind of this mood ring for America that reflects whatever is going on. And certainly, in recent years, the country and world is getting greener and so it makes sense and is consistent with history that Times Square is going green in the way that the country is going green.”

There are a lots of other big entertainment events trying to reduce their environmental footprints.

Allen Hershkowitz is with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He’s been helping to green the Grammy’s, the Academy Awards, Major League Baseball’s World Series, and lots of other big events.

“When we talk about greening an event, like the Times Square event, New Year’s Eve in New York City, or the Oscars or the Grammy’s, we go category by category. Every category of operations, every purchase made, engenders an environmental impact.”

Hershkowitz looks for ways to reduce those impacts at each event – everything from finding fuel efficient transportation to get there, to buying paper products for the event made from recycled materials, to serving locally grown food. They’ve even started using recycled plastic to make red carpets.

But sometimes these efforts draw criticism. When the Democratic National Convention tried to go green in 2008,
press photos afterwards showed piles of trash outside the convention hall. People wondered if the recycling and other efforts really made any difference.

Hershkowitz says big events, such as the DNC or New Year’s at Times Square can make some environmental improvements. But their real impact is in the ideals they represent.

“Frankly, I think the biggest thing that Times Square can do on New Year’s Eve is what they’re doing – publicizing environmentalism. Saying, ‘hey, that ball is made with energy efficiency lighting’ to the 1-point whatever billion people that are watching that show.”

Hershkowitz hopes people look at that symbol and make changes in their own lives in 2010.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Author: Julie Grant

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