National Parks Get a Little Green

  • Junior Rangers-to-be explore the beach at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

There was a time – not that long ago –
when a lot of the National Parks in the
country were strapped for cash. They
were cutting staff and cutting services.
But, Mark Brush reports, now Congress
is investing more in the parks:

Transcript

There was a time – not that long ago –
when a lot of the National Parks in the
country were strapped for cash. They
were cutting staff and cutting services.
But, Mark Brush reports, now Congress
is investing more in the parks:

It started changing in the last year or two of the Bush Administration. The Bush White House realized that the National Park System was coming up on its 100th Anniversary in 2016.

No one wanted the Centennial marred by crumbling roads or Parks that were understaffed. So Washington pledged to increase the overall budget for the National Park Service by 100 million each year until the Centennial.

And folks like Tom Ulrich say Congress has been making good on that pledge. He’s the deputy superintendent at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan.

“A few years ago our discussions weren’t, you know, ‘Well, we got a little bit of extra money how are we going to spend that?’ They were, ‘We have to cut from last year. What are we going to cut?’ And so it’s nice to have those discussions change.”

Ulrich says a lot of National Parks are also getting some money from the stimulus package passed earlier this year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Conversations With China About Climate Change

  • President Barack Obama addresses the opening session of the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Listening at left are Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, center, and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo, left. (Photo by Chuck Kennedy, courtesy of the White House)

The Chinese are in Washington in high-level talks with the Obama administration about – among other things – energy and the environment. Lester Graham has more on that:

Transcript

The Chinese are in Washington in high-level talks with the Obama administration about – among other things – energy and the environment. Lester Graham has more on that:

Opponents of the climate change bill in the U.S. like to remind us that China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. China likes to point out the U.S. didn’t even sign the Kyoto Protocol.

“We’ve been each other’s biggest excuse for the past five, eight years about not acting on international commitments.”

That’s Jennifer Turner. She’s Director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Turner says things are changing.

Recently China and the U.S. started talking about how they can help each other. And, she says, while China’s not talking about climate change a lot, it is talking about energy efficiency.

“China has actually been doing a lot over the past eight years on lowering their CO2 emissions, pushing energy efficiency more, for trying to ensure their own energy security and to lessen the health impacts of pollution.”

While the U.S. has been stressing climate change.

The governments have figured out they’re working on the same problem, just looking at it a little differently.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Finding a Home for Old Nukes

  • President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign documents on nuclear arms reduction before their news conference at the Kremlin in Moscow Monday, July 6, 2009. (Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

President Obama has reached what he’s calling a “joint understanding” with Russia on reducing the number of nuclear arms. But as Mark Brush reports this agreement doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be dismantling a lot more nuclear weapons:

Transcript

President Obama has reached what he’s calling a “joint understanding” with Russia on reducing the number of nuclear arms. But as Mark Brush reports this agreement doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be dismantling a lot more nuclear weapons:

As it stands now, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia will take warheads off of a delivery system, like a missile.

So, unless things go farther with this treaty, the warheads will still be kept in storage. And as it turns out, there are already thousands of these warheads kept in both countries.

Hans Kristensen is the Director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists.

He says even if the warheads get dismantled, there’s still the sticky issue of what to do with all that radioactive plutonium.

“The plutonium cores of those weapons, most of them, are still stored. We have something in the order of 15,000 warhead cores. An enormous amount of plutonium.”

The radioactive plutonium can be reprocessed and used in nuclear power plants.

Kristensen says the U.S. bought plutonium from old Soviet warheads – and that fuel is used nuclear power plants here in the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Interview: Presidential Advisor Van Jones

  • Van Jones, speaking on the far right, at a White House event called "Investing in Our Clean Energy Future" (Photo by Jason Djang, courtesy of the White House)

The economy is bad. New scientific reports indicate global warming is worse. And the Obama Administration is trying to tackle both problems through creating green jobs. Lester Graham talked with one of the President’s advisers about that:

Transcript

This is The Environment Report. Well, the economy’s bad and global warming is getting worse. There’s a lot of talk about creating jobs in a new clean energy sector. Van Jones is President Obama’s special advisor for green jobs, enterprise, and innovation at the White House council on environmental quality.

Lester Graham: Mr. Jones, back in 2007, when you were in the non-profit world in California, we aired a report where you said we need a new sort of environmentalism:

Van Jones (from 2007 clip): We need less about the Birkenstocks and the tofu, although that stuff is all beautiful, but it’s more about the hard hat, the lunch bucket, more of a working class, “we can do it” environmentalism I think is the next step to a new environmental revolution.

Graham: Now that you’re in the White House, what are you advising the president to do to take the first steps in that direction?

Jones: Well, I think that if you look at what the President has done, we’re moving right in that direction. We had to do two things: we had to get the public investments right and we did that with the recovery package, where depending on how you do the math, we did between 20 and 60 billion dollars in clean energy efficiency. That’s the biggest single investment in clean energy in the history of humanity. So that public investment side we nailed down and now we got to get the public rules right, and that is our climate and clean energy jobs bill that was voted on the recently—through the house successfully. The future started on Friday, as far as I’m concerned, when you had a chamber of congress step forward and say, “We are gonna change the rules so that clean energy can compete and we are gonna make sure that all sectors of America—rural, industrial—have a chance to transition effectively. But we are gonna move into this clean energy economy. And that’s where the jobs come from—when you get the public rules right and the public investments right you get a boom that is sustainable and lasting. We saw that in telecom, we’ve seen that over and over again, and that’s where we’re going.

Graham: You’ve mentioned a lot of times about, we’ll see more jobs in harnessing energy from the sun, wind, water, smart biofuels, geothermal and advanced geothermal. And that climate change bill would do that, but it faces a tough time in the senate. How will the fate of that legislation affect growth in those green jobs areas?

Jones: Well, I think the senate is going to show the same courage at the end of the day that the House did. The President has been very clear over and over again that if we want the jobs of tomorrow, we’ve got to make the products of tomorrow, and the products of tomorrow will be advanced vehicles, advanced cars, and also advanced energy—wind turbines, solar panels, and all that stuff. And I think the senate has to make a choice: does it want to stay on the sinking ship of yesterday and have the United States fall further and further behind in the race for clean energy, where China is spending 12 million dollars an hour to corner that market on every renewable technology. So we’ll be importing wind turbines, solar panels, smart batteries from them, or are we going to suit up and get in this race. And I think the Senate, looking at the same facts the House just did, is gonna step up and match the President in his leadership and vision.

Graham: During the debate in the house last Friday, we heard a lot about the loss of jobs because of higher cost of energy, because of the reduction of the use of fossil fuels. How much might the creation of green jobs offset the loss of jobs because of what the conservatives and opponents of the bill say we’ll see?

Jones: I mean, everybody who has looked at this objectively—I mean, there’s some reports out there that are circulating from extreme ideological groups, that are kind of masquerading as these reports, you hear a lot of, “Oh you’ll lose two jobs for every one green job.” All that stuff has been debunked. The Wall Street journal looked at that stuff and said the methodology is flawed. What every serious study shows is that you will create many more jobs in a clean energy economy—you’ll have more work, more wealth, and better health for Americans when we are producing the technologies of the future. There are just not that many more jobs available in some of the legacy sectors. But, we can put… we have a wealth of solar power, wind power, and other power in this country that we’ve never tapped. The challenge facing America is simply this: can we tap our clean energy power centers and connect them to our population centers. We have a sun belt in this country that is a wealth of solar power but it doesn’t stop there—really on rooftops across America. We have wind potential in this country—gigantic wind potential—untapped. Not just in the plains states, but off our coasts, up in the Great Lakes area, in our mountains. These are potential power centers for the country. If you tap our clean energy power centers, connect them to our population centers, you create jobs in rural America, urban America, you advance our resource and technology agenda, you get our scientists engaged and you unleash innovation and entrepreneurship on this problem. And that’s how we’re not only going to beat the global warming problem, it’s also how we’re going to beat the global recession by putting Americans back to work.

Graham: Who do you envision getting these jobs? Are we talking about out of work, blue-collar workers getting green-collar jobs or are we talking about low income folks who need training?

Jones: Well, the great thing about this green wave that President Obama is talking about is that it’s a green wave that can lift all boats. You’re talking about jobs from the GEDs to the PHDs and back again. And you’re talking about giving somebody who, maybe they were working in the automotive sector and they’ve been thrown out of work, well, Hilda Solis just put 50 million dollars, our secretary of labor, toward retraining those workers and giving them the opportunity to become green workers. If you know how to make a car, you probably know how to make a wind turbine and other things, with a little bit of retraining. If you were a home builder—we’re probably not going to be building am lot of homes in the next 12 months, 18 months—but we have five billion dollars in the recovery package for helping those home builders and others go into the work of rebuilding homes, upgrading homes, for energy efficiency, weatherization, retrofitting building. If you’re a farmer, if you’re in rural America, if you like at the recovery package, if you look at the climate bill there are opportunities to grow smart advanced biofuels, to put upwind turbines on your acreage, to become a part of the solution by grabbing carbon out of the air with your tilling and with your agricultural practices. Every part of America can play a role from the GEDs to the PHDs. The other thing that’s so important: get people on the ground floor, low-income people, people who are marginalized, people who have not had good economic opportunities—let’s get them in on the ground floor so that they can… maybe this summer their installing a solar panel, next summer if that firm grows, they can become a manager, and then an owner, an inventor, an investor. Green pathways to prosperity are available if we move now, seize the opportunity, and make sure all Americans get a chance to play.

Graham: When you talk to homeowners, many of the middle class homeowners get all excited about the gee-whiz stuff of solar panels on the roof, maybe a backyard wind turbine, but most people skip the first step, and that is weatherization. You’ve been talking about weatherization for not just homes, but buildings in general for a while now. How much employment could there be in just that sector alone?

Jones: Well, if we got serious and aggressive and said we wanted to retro-fit the majority of our building stock, you’re literally talking about millions of jobs. And what’s so exciting about that is we are an advanced industrial country, we have a lot of building stock, but it was built using what are now outdated technologies, outdated materials. The chance to go back through all of those buildings and blow in clean, non-toxic insulation, replace ill-fitting windows and doors with the new high-performance windows, putting in the high-performance boilers and furnaces—all that is work, but it’s work that pays for itself in energy cost savings. So you’re talking about going back and upgrading our buildings and cutting unemployment, cutting energy costs, cutting pollution from our power plants, which will have to work less hard. And at the same time, you say “How are you going to pay for it?” Well, it can pay for itself through the energy cost savings. That’s why the President but 5 billion dollars, as opposed to the last term’s 200 million, five billion into energy efficiency for people of moderate income, because we know it’s not just the solar panels, which everybody likes, the gee-whiz stuff as you said, it’s also the caulking guns. It’s also those existing technologies that right now are sitting on the shelf. You’ve got workers sitting on the bench—stand those workers up, let them take those technologies off the shelf, and get out there and retrofit America, save money on energy bills and also put people to work.

Graham: Conservatives, some members of Congress, some think tanks have expressed some concern that businesses, ne’er-do-wells, will grab government money saying their creating green jobs when in reality it simply might be the difference between and janitor or a lawyer working for a bank, and a janitor or a lawyer working for a solar panel installer or environmental group. What are you doing to make sure we’re actually creating green collar jobs with the taxpayer money that’s being used to kick-start those jobs?

Jones: Well, you know, one of those things is that we have more commitment to transparency and accountability in this program, the recovery program, than in the history of the Republic because we have the technology now that makes this stuff a lot more possible. We’re very confident that we’re going to be able to make sure that we get the maximum benefit to the American people out of the recovery dollars. I think that sometimes we don’t worry about the right things. Often the upshot of that is that therefore the government should sit back and do nothing, we should let people pay too-high energy bills, we should let workers go idle, we should continue to pump massive amounts of carbon-pollution, heat trapping pollution, into the atmosphere, and continue to let Asia and Europe get all of the jobs of tomorrow. And I think the problem with that way of thinking is that it has nothing to do with the way Americans have been for the past 200 hundred years. This is the one country in the world that has always leaned forward into change; we’ve always led the change. Talking about the industrial revolution, the information revolution, the space race—we weren’t afraid of the future. We went out and defined the future, created the future. And for some reason we’ve had stagnation in our energy sector, which we’re now finally busting through. We’re shattering that old logjam that we’ve had where we were told that if we tried to do right by our grandchildren environmentally, to give them the best possible future, we would be starving our children economically. We would have to take care our children economically or our grandchildren environmentally but we couldn’t do both. Well, Barack Obama has shattered that old logjam, that false choice, he says no we can actually do great by our children economically, grow our economy, but do it using the clean and green and new technologies that will also take care of our grandchildren environmentally. And that’s the breakthrough. You know, you’re always going to have naysayer’s but they’ve never won in American politics, and they’re not going to win on this one either.

Graham: I’m wondering if there’s anything you think we should be talking about that I haven’t asked you about so far?

Jones: Well, I just think that the courage of the president to actually run for office talking about environmental issues as he did, talking about clean energy jobs and green jobs as he did, and then to actually use his political capital to get it done, is something that is extraordinary. I think sometimes we take this stuff for granted. But I’m someone, again, coming from outside of electoral politics, more working at the community level, I’ve always seen politicians come and they make all these promises to the community and as soon as they get elected you never hear from them again. Here’s an administration I’m proud to be a part of, that made a bunch of promises around healthcare, made a bunch of promises around the environment, and the economy, and education, and we’re actually beginning to deliver. And my big hope is that not only do we restore our economy, and restore our environmental health, we can begin to restore people’s confidence that government and community and people working together can actually solve tough problems again. This is not the only tough problem we’re going to have to solve in this century but I hope we’ll be able to set a good example on this one.

Graham: Van Jones is the special advisor on Green Jobs to President Obama. Thanks for talking with us.

Jones: Well, thank you.

Graham: That’s The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Van Jones is a special advisor on green jobs, working with President Obama. He spoke with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

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Interview: EPA’s Lisa Jackson

  • Lisa Jackson is the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)

Some members of Congress feel they’re being coerced into approving a Climate Change bill that would force industry to reduce greenhouse gases. Republicans and some Democrats feel the Obama Administration is telling Congress to either approve legislation or the Environmental Protection Agency will use its authority to restrict greenhouse gases. Lester Graham spoke with the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, about that perception:

Transcript

Some members of Congress feel they’re being coerced into approving a Climate Change bill that would force industry to reduce greenhouse gases. Republicans and some Democrats feel the Obama administration is telling Congress to either approve legislation or the Environmental Protection Agency will use its authority to restrict greenhouse gases. Lester Graham spoke with the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson about that perception.

Administrator Lisa Jackson: They want to say that it’s EPA’s action that’s compelling them to be forced to address energy and climate change legislation. I certainly hope that’s not the case. We are actually in a race here to move to a greener energy economy. And the rest of the world is certainly doing it. And I always tell people that if you don’t want to do it for the environmental reasons, you need to look at the economics and where the world is going, and realize we need to break our dependence on fossil fuels that come from out of our country. We need to move to clean energy. That should be the imperative. I hope it becomes the imperative.

Lester Graham: There’s a new treaty coming up to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the UN Climate Change Conference will meet in Copenhagen in December for a new climate change agreement – if Congress does not pass climate change legislation by that point, how will it affect the standing of the United States in those talks?

Administrator Jackson: Well, certainly it’s fair to say the eyes of the world are upon us, to some degree. Each country is dealing individually with their own situation on energy and climate, and then obviously those are big multi-lateral talks. But I do think people are watching to see if the United States is in this game of clean energy and addressing carbon.

Graham: If Congress does not pass a measure this year before that conference, but there’s a likelihood of it passing next year, will that change – I’m just trying to figure out how we enter into those negotiations if we don’t have a solid plan for reducing greenhouse gasses.

Administrator Jackson: I know lots of people are trying to figure out whether or not the United States will be at the table and in a big way. It certainly is the most important thing to be able to say to the rest of the world, is that not only President Obama is clearly behind this, but the Congress representing the people of the United States has moved to embrace new energy policy, and clean energy, and low-carbon. We’re not there yet, obviously. I’m still optimistic, despite all the other discussions going on, because I know that there’s been real progress made to date.

Graham: You’re just a few months into the job, and already seeing a little heat from Congress and big, big challenge – how do you feel about the job and what do you hope to accomplish in the first year?

Administrator Jackson: I already know that it’s the best job I’ll ever have. I understand that the push and pull of the system is that we’re going to have some dialogue on issues that are of great concern to members of Congress, to the American people, to various stakeholders, and I’m eager to have those conversations. And I think as long as we keep in mind that we’re going to follow the best science we can, we’re going to follow the law, we’re going to be honest, we’re going to be transparent, we’re not going to hold information back. You know, I think that was the most damning criticism of EPA – that there was information out there that might have protected the environment or the American people that was held back. And that time and trust, we have to now re-earn. So that’s what we’re about.

Graham: Administrator Jackson, thanks for your time.

Administrator Jackson: Thank you so much, Lester. Nice talking to you.

Lisa Jackson is the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She spoke with The Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

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Stores Required to Label Some Foods

  • This rule requires stores to tell you what country some of your food comes from Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Starting this week, supermarkets are officially required to tell you where some of your meat and produce comes from. But as Rebecca Williams reports it can get confusing at the store:

Transcript

Starting this week, supermarkets are officially required to tell you where some of your meat and produce comes from. But as Rebecca Williams reports it can get confusing at the store:

This rule requires stores to tell you what country some of your food comes from.

The rule covers things like beef and pork, chicken, and vegetables.

Supermarkets have already been adding these labels over the past few months.

Deborah White is with the Food Marketing Institute. The group represents supermarkets. She says they don’t like being forced to label specific products – and the law is quirky.

“The law applies, for example, to chicken but not turkey. It applies to peanuts and pecans but not almonds and walnuts and those were decisions that Congress made.”

And there are other quirks. Frozen peas have to be labeled and so do frozen carrots. But a bag of peas and carrots mixed together doesn’t have to be labeled.

The new agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, says he wants to fix these quirks. He’s asking the food industry to voluntarily add more information to labels than the rule now requires.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Opening Up New Waters for Whale Hunts?

  • Mother-calf pair of "Type C" orcas in the Ross Sea. (Photo by Robert Pitman, NOAA)

Japan kills more whales than any other country in the world. A new proposal would allow Japanese whalers to hunt off their county’s coasts. Mark Brush reports – some think opening up these waters to whale hunts is a bad idea:

Transcript

Japan kills more whales than any other country in the world. A new proposal would allow Japanese whalers to hunt off their county’s coasts. Mark Brush reports – some think opening up these waters to whale hunts is a bad idea:

The International Whaling Commission passed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. But it allowed some countries to kill whales for what it calls scientific study.

Japanese boats kill hundreds of minke whales in the southern ocean under this designation. Critics say there’s nothing scientific about these hunts.

Now, the Commission wants to stop Japan from killing whales in the southern ocean. Phasing out these so-called scientific whale hunts. But in exchange, they might let the country openly hunt whales off its own coasts.

Jonathan Stern is with the American Cetacean Society. He says whale populations could take a hit, if Japan is allowed to start hunting in these waters:

“I’m just afraid once their fleet starts operating. They’re going to want to take more whales and more different species of whales.”

Japan has long maintained that these hunts are part of their cultural heritage. The International Whaling Commission will meet next month to decide the issue.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Obama’s Budget Address & Green Recovery

  • President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on February 24 (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)

President Barack Obama outlines his budget tonight before a joint-session of Congress. Lester Graham reports many people will be watching for more investment in what’s be called the “green recovery”:

Transcript

President Barack Obama outlines his budget tonight before a joint-session of Congress. Lester Graham reports many people will be watching for more investment in what’s be called the “green recovery”:


The stimulus package includes money for making government buildings and some homes more energy efficient… and pursuing alternative energy such as wind and solar power.

Robert Heilmayr is a research analyst with World Resources Institute. He says so far the Obama administration has recognized there are long term payoffs in green investments.


“The key next step that I think is missing and I’ll really be paying attention to as Obama addresses Congress is whether he recognizes the stimulus is only the first step, that comprehensive energy and climate policy is necessary and should be a priority moving forward as a follow-up to the stimulus is a big question.”


Heilmayr says the long-term savings in energy conservation will help businesses and everyone else by keeping fuel prices lower in the short-term and give us a step up when the world markets start taking greenhouse gas emissions seriously.


For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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President Calls for Profitable Green Energy

  • President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on February 24 (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)

Health care and education are always
top priorities in a Presidential budget.
But last night President Barack Obama
told Congress in his budget address,
“It begins with energy.” Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

Health care and education are always top priorities in a Presidential budget. But last night President Barack Obama told Congress in his budget address, “It begins with energy.” Lester Graham reports:


The President reminded us the recent stimulus package included doubling the supply of renewable energy in the next three years, investments in basic research – including energy, a better power grid and making buildings and homes more energy efficient.


“But to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.”


And to do that the President called on Congress to pass legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution. A carbon cap and trade program would make fossil fuels more expensive… and encourage solar, wind and other renewable energy.


Climate change legislation opponents say a carbon cap-and-trade program would be a jobs killer. By tying it to creating new green jobs, President Obama hopes to challenge that argument.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Commercial Fishing Gets Failing Grade

  • Countries are getting bad grades because there’s a lot of over-fishing going on. (Photo by Stephen Ausmus, courtesy of the USDA)

A new study out in the journal Nature grades countries on their ocean
fishing practices. Rebecca Williams reports even the top countries are not
getting a passing grade:

Transcript

A new study out in the journal Nature grades countries on their ocean
fishing practices. Rebecca Williams reports even the top countries are not
getting a passing grade:

The US, Canada, and Norway are some of the countries doing the best job.
That means they’re fishing in a responsible way.

But they all come in at 60%. That’d be a D, maybe a D-plus.

Tony Pitcher is the main author of the study.

“Wasn’t very encouraging actually that even the top scoring countries were
not really that good. So it wasn’t anything to write home about – we were
at the top but it wasn’t a great field. At the bottom end some countries
were just disastrous. More than half the countries didn’t even pass the
40%.”

Countries are getting bad grades because there’s a lot of over-fishing going
on. There’s illegal fishing. And there’s a big problem with nets and traps
getting lost. They can snare marine mammals, birds and fish.

Tony Pitcher says it’s not always easy to know where your fish came from.
But he says you can look for a blue and white label when you’re shopping.
It’ll say Marine Stewardship Council on it.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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