Dragonflies are one of the insects tricked by false light (Photo courtesy of the EPA)
Bugs are getting confused by the
reflections from manmade structures.
Rebecca Williams reports on a new study:
Transcript
Bugs are getting confused by the
reflections from manmade structures.
Rebecca Williams reports on a new study:
If you’ve ever noticed swarms of insects hovering over your car, there’s a
good chance they’re mistaking it for water.
Smooth, dark surfaces like cars and asphalt reflect polarized light. That’s
what bugs see – and that tricks insects such as dragonflies.
Bruce Robertson is an author of the study in the journal Frontiers in Ecology
and the Environment.
“Asphalt actually reflects polarized light more strongly than water and so it
looks more like water than water! And so these organisms are thinking
they’re finding a place to breed and hunt and lay eggs and mate when in fact
they’re finding a place that’s very dangerous.”
Robertson says these bugs swarm over buildings and roads in huge numbers,
and can die of exhaustion.
But he says it might be possible to stop tricking the bugs. Things like
adding white curtains to dark windows or adding a little bit of gravel to
asphalt to make the surfaces reflect less polarized light.
If you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home,
those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent (Photo by Jessi Ziegler)
Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:
Economists looked at utility bills of homes in California on the hottest days
of the year.
Geoffrey Donovan is with the Forest Service Research Station.
He says, if you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home,
those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent.
“So putting a tree somewhere it’s going to cast shadows at the warmest time
of the day. The other thing you want to think about is winter sunshine.
Particularly on the south side of a house you may want to put a deciduous
tree as opposed to an evergreen tree so in wintertime you’ll get some
sunshine through that.”
Donovan says how close you put those trees to your house matters too. For
the most energy savings, shade trees should be within 40 to 60 feet of your
home.
The Adopt-A-Watt program allows people to sponsor clean energy (Photo courtesy of Adopt-A-Watt)
A new program gets businesses and
groups to pay towns to switch to alternative
energy. Lester Graham reports it’s a
little like an “Adopt-A-Highway” program:
Transcript
A new program gets businesses and
groups to pay towns to switch to alternative
energy. Lester Graham reports it’s a
little like an “Adopt-A-Highway” program:
Imagine seeing a bank of solar panels that power nearby street lights, and a sign
underneath which recognizes the company that sponsored the project.
Thomas Wither is the founder of the National Adopt-A-Watt program.
“Our program mimics the very successful “Adopt-A-Highway” program. Only instead
of giving supporters community recognition for picking up litter alongside the road,
we have come up with a means of giving community recognition for supporting clean
energy and the funding for alternative fuels.”
Wither says several airports are among the first to use the “adopt-a-watt” program.
Sponsors get the benefit of being connected to clean energy – like solar power – and
airports, towns, and other government entities get the cost of using clean energy
subsidized by those sponsors.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
imothy D. Sands, at left, director of Purdue's Birck Nanotechnology Center in Discovery Park, and graduate student Mark Oliver, operate a "reactor" in work aimed at perfecting solid-state lighting, a technology that could cut electricity consumption by 10 percent if widely adopted. Purdue researchers have overcome a major obstacle in reducing the cost of the lighting technology, called light-emitting diodes. (Photo by David Umberger, courtesy of Purdue News Service)
Unless you like to live by candlelight,
you have to buy lightbulbs. But the options
out there aren’t that great. Jessi Ziegler reports how all that might change soon:
Transcript
Unless you like to live by candlelight,
you have to buy lightbulbs. But the options
out there aren’t that great. Jessi Ziegler reports how all that might change soon:
Plain-old incandescent lightbulbs are not efficient. That’s
old news.
And fluorescents? The color is funny and they have toxic
mercury in them.
So, what option is left?
LED lights. They’re as efficient as compact flourescents
minus the mercury.
The problem? They’re one-hundred-dollars-a-bulb
expensive.
But scientists at Purdue have been working on a way to
cut that cost.
Researcher Timothy Sands says in about 5 years, LEDs could
cost the same as the other bulbs.
“So, the nice thing about it is you can save energy, and
actually save money over the long haul – even though the
initial cost is very high right now, without changing what
you’re used to, or without lowering your standards for
lighting.”
And Sands says another big advantage of LEDs is you’d only
have to change the bulbs every 15 years.
For The Environment Report, this is Jessi Ziegler.
Researchers have started a project to document firefly sightings (Photo by Don Salvatore, courtesy of Museum of Science, Boston)
Scientists want your help counting
fireflies. Mark Brush reports researchers
hope to answer a commonly asked question:
Transcript
Scientists want your help counting
fireflies. Mark Brush reports researchers
hope to answer a commonly asked question:
People often ask, ‘Why don’t we see as many fireflies anymore?’
Don Salvatore is an educator at Boston’s Museum of Science. He says he and other
researchers don’t have a good answer. They don’t even know whether there are fewer
fireflies or not.
So Salvatore and a few bug scientists started up the Firefly Watch Project. They’re
asking people to help them out by spending a few minutes in their backyard.
“So what we want them to do is to go outside at night and then for a ten second period
count the number of fireflies they see. As well as that we ask them to just key in on a
couple of fireflies and give us just a little information.”
Salvatore says they hope to discover whether thinks like frequent lawn mowing, light
pollution, and pesticides are harming firefly numbers.
Many couples are trying to be more environmentally-conscious with their big day (Photo courtesy of Kentucky State Parks)
At least two million weddings will be held
in the US this year. Many of them will be
extravagant, limousine-led events. But some couples’
walk down the aisle will more like a stroll on an
environmentally-friendly path. It’s known as a green
wedding. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
At least two million weddings will be held
in the US this year. Many of them will be
extravagant, limousine-led events. But some couples’
walk down the aisle will more like a stroll on an
environmentally-friendly path. It’s known as a green
wedding. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
A big budget wedding with limos, large reception halls and high catering bills can put a lot of
stress on the bride and groom. It might get at least one of the betrothed some scream time on
the cable TV show ‘Bridezillas’.
“Alright guys, I need my bridesmaids: Jackie, Amy, Kelly, Andrea, Harley, and Deb.”
But other couples are aiming for a more low-key, ‘we love each other and we love the planet’
approach to their happy day. Some wedding planners are paying attention.
“Again it only holds about 100 people, so you have cut your wedding list down, which is actually
a good thing for green as well, because then you’re not producing as much transportation cost.”
That’s Tanya Van Kirk of the company Point Zero Events. She not only had a green wedding
herself, but now advises couples on their way to the altar on how they can be more energy and
environmentally conscious. She says the green wedding movement is small but growing.
“I’ve had a couple of requests from brides. This is definitely a topic that’s coming up more often,
and I just choose to pursue that option myself, so I’m going to encourage as many brides and
event people as I can to take part in it.”
Van Kirk says a green wedding may be the right thing for environmentally aware couples in a
tight economy. She says besides maybe choosing smaller venues, they might go electricity-free
and use natural light. Other recommendations are: to register for gifts at an eco-conscious store
or website, buy locally-made wedding supplies, and consider using caterers that offer organic
food.
“We use local eggs, organic butter.”
At a recent bridal fair, Lisa Malmarowski of Outpost Natural Foods hawked her store’s version of
green catering. She contends it’s not necessarily more expensive than a regular caterer.
“You can really customize things to people’s budgets. So, if someone wants a very simple
wedding which also sorta fits into a green theme, we can do that very simply. And we’re really willing
to work with people – if they want to use things like their own dishes, or make some of the food
themselves, and we’ll supplement it.”
Some women with weddings scheduled for next year say they are hoping to be as green as
possible.
Katie Spaulding says one of her first steps may be her choice of wedding invitations.
“I like the idea of recycled paper, doing invitations like that. And I know that’s a huge trend right
now, and I’d consider doing that as well.”
Wedding planners warn it can be more difficult to convince the groom to go along with a green
wedding.
But bride-to-be Casey Kircher isn’t having that problem with her fiancé, Chris Verdig.
He seems ready to say ‘I do’ want green.
Chris: “It sounds fantastic. I’m just the groom.”
Casey: “I think that’s his catch phrase – ‘sounds fantastic’ – anything I ask.”
Well, that might be a good start toward their life together. And that green wedding might turn into a green partnership.
For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.
(music) “I see skies of blue, and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”
Photograph of illuminated incandescent-replacement fluorescent bulb. (Source: Jdorwin at Wikimedia Commons)
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs are one of
those classic environmental dilemmas. They’re very
efficient – they use as little as one fourth of the
energy a traditional lightbulb uses. But there’s
a twist: they have a small amount of the toxic chemical
mercury in them. Rebecca Williams takes a look at
what to do if a lightbulb breaks in your home:
Transcript
Compact fluorescent lightbulbs are one of
those classic environmental dilemmas. They’re very
efficient – they use as little as one fourth of the
energy a traditional lightbulb uses. But there’s
a twist: they have a small amount of the toxic chemical
mercury in them. Rebecca Williams takes a look at
what to do if a lightbulb breaks in your home:
You can’t get around it – right now there has to be mercury in compact
fluorescent lamps, or what the experts call CFLs. The bulbs can’t produce
light without it. But mercury is toxic. It can cause brain damage and
developmental problems in fetuses and young children. And that worries
people.
The good news is: the amount of mercury in compact fluorescents is very
small. On average there are about 5 milligrams of mercury in a CFL.
That’s about what would fit on the tip of a ballpoint pen.
Jeff Krcmarik is an expert on household hazardous waste.
“There’s 100 times more mercury in a thermometer than in one CFL.”
Krcmarik says there’s absolutely no reason to panic if a bulb breaks in your
house. You just need to be careful cleaning it up.
So, let’s have the experts walk us through it. First, we’re going to have to
smash a light bulb.
“Well we have a compact fluorescent light bulb here and what we’re going to
do is break it and then bring over our methylmercury gas vapor detector to
show what exactly the exposure issue is with a broken CFL.”
Okay, here we go. And kids – don’t try this at home.
(sound of lightbulb breaking)
(high pitched whining sound of vapor detector)
“This is what we use to identify hot spots in mercury spills. Dan’s going
to wand over it.”
Dan is Dan Moody. He’s the guy with the vapor detector.
“Right now we’re showing about 936 nanograms. We like to see below
300 to 400 nanograms for mercury in the environment, particularly in a residential setting or anywhere children
would be spending time.”
Very quickly, the reading’s dropped to 304 nanograms. That’s because we’ve
got the door open and the room is vented. Moody says that level’s not
something to worry about for your average adult.
The problem is the mercury can linger in your house if you don’t clean it up
the right way.
Most importantly the experts say never, ever use a vacuum. Vacuums can
spread mercury vapor through your house.
Deb Stahler is a researcher with the Maine Department of Environmental
Protection. She recently tested the best ways to clean up broken
fluorescent bulbs.
So, when you break a bulb:
“Make sure that your pets and children and other extraneous people are out of the
room. Open a window and leave the room yourself for a little while.”
Wait about 15 minutes to let the room air out before you clean up the broken
bulb.
“So when you go back in the room then I’d recommend having stiff paper, like
index cards or even just a deck of cards, to pick up the bigger pieces.”
Here’s where good ol’ duct tape comes in. You can use it to get the last
little shards of glass off the floor. Then, put all your materials into a
glass jar with a lid, seal it up, and take it out of the house.
Although some states don’t allow it, in most states, it is legal to throw
the broken lightbulbs in the trash.
And when you go to the store to replace those lightbulbs, you do have some
choices.
Alicia Culver is with the National Green Lighting Campaign. She says
manufacturers are trying to find alternatives to mercury in fluorescent
bulbs. But for now, the best you can do is try to buy ones with lower
mercury levels.
“We’re encouraging consumers to not just buy the cheapest CFL but to look
for ones that are Energy Star rated. And Energy Star is starting to put a
mercury limit on lightbulbs that they’ll qualify and rate.”
So, the bottom line? Culver says compact fluorescents are still the best
lightbulbs to buy.
Because they’re so much more efficient, compact fluorescents cut back on
electricity use. And that reduces demand on coal-burning power plants: by
far the biggest source of mercury we’re adding to our world.
Photograph of illuminated incandescent-replacement fluorescent bulb. (Source: Jdorwin at Wikimedia Commons)
On Saturday night from 8 to 9 the World Wildlife
Fund is asking you to turn off your lights for Earth Hour.
Lester Graham reports sitting in the dark is supposed to
make you think about how you contribute to global warming:
Transcript
On Saturday night from 8 to 9 the World Wildlife
Fund is asking you to turn off your lights for Earth Hour.
Lester Graham reports sitting in the dark is supposed to
make you think about how you contribute to global warming:
The World Wildlife Fund is organizing the Earth Hour. Some have questioned whether
what some might consider a “publicity stunt” will really make a difference. Joe Pouliot is
with the group.
“Well I wouldn’t characterize this as a stunt. Climate change, unfortunately, hasn’t been getting a huge amount of attention. But because of the activities of Earth Hour, people are really beginning to focus on the challenges of climate change.”
Earth Hour wants you to shut off your lights for an hour because lot of electricity comes
from coal-burning power plants. They put out a lot of carbon dioxide, a main
greenhouse gas. Pouliot says people, organizations and cities on six continents are
participating in Earth Hour, including the cities of Toronto, Altlanta, Chicago, Phoenix
and San Francisco.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
A new report says true wilderness is vanishing. The authors say we
might need to rethink conservation. Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
A new report says true wilderness is vanishing. The authors say we
might need to rethink conservation. Rebecca Williams reports:
The report in the journal Science says we might need to think
differently about how we protect wild areas. There are very few places
left on Earth that haven’t been touched by people.
The authors say that as of 1995, only 17% of the planet’s land area had
remained untouched. They’re defining true wilderness as places without
any people, roads, crops or lights detectable at night by satellite.
They say there’s some land set aside in wilderness preserves…
but it’s just 1% of Earth’s land area.
The authors of the report include two Nature Conservancy scientists.
They say population growth might make traditional views of conservation
unsustainable.
They argue we might have to focus more on managing nature and the
services it provides… instead of trying to keep people out of
wilderness areas.
A newspaper investigation of mercury levels in canned tuna has prompted a probe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
A newspaper investigation of mercury levels in canned tuna has
prompted a probe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Last year the FDA updated its mercury warning. It said that canned light
tuna is low in mercury. Now, in response to a Chicago Tribune series,
the agency says it will take a closer look at mercury levels.
The newspaper reported the tuna industry is using yellowfin – a
potentially high-mercury species – to make about 15 percent of the light
tuna sold every year. The Tribune reported varying levels of mercury in
light tuna products, and that most cans containing yellowfin tuna are not
labeled as such.
Environmental groups have demanded tougher restrictions on mercury in
tuna and more specific labeling requirements so people know what
they’re eating.
A lobbyist for top tuna producers has said light tuna is not a health risk,
but said the industry would cooperate with the FDA investigation.
High levels of mercury can cause neurological and learning problems in
children.
Dragonflies are one of the insects tricked by false light (Photo courtesy of the EPA)
