An outfit from American designer Rogan Gregory, which is made of 100% certified organic cotton. The collection arrives in Target stores on May 18th (Photo courtesy of Target)
If you want to buy organic clothes, chances
are you’ll have to order them over the Internet.
But that’s about to change. Lester Graham reports a
big retailer will soon be selling eco-friendly clothes:
Transcript
If you want to buy organic clothes, chances
are you’ll have to order them over the Internet.
But that’s about to change. Lester Graham reports a
big retailer will soon be selling eco-friendly clothes:
The big-box retail store, Target, will soon be carrying a line of environmentally-
friendly clothes for women.
Tim Craig is Editor in Chief for the magazine “Retailing
Today.” He thinks if Target starts carrying eco-friendly clothes, other retailers will take
notice.
“Without a doubt there will be some me-too-ism. And they watch each other very
carefully. Certainly, Kohls and Target go back-and-forth as to who has the leadership position and I
wouldn’t put it past them to have some one-upsmanship, if you will, in the area of
offering sustainable, organic product.”
Craig says it’s unclear whether there’s a demand for those kinds of clothes. But for
women who want eco-friendly clothing, being able to see, touch, and try on clothes
before buying them might persuade them to skip ordering on the internet and instead shop at
the store.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
A Honda FCX Concept and Honda's hydrogen refueling station. Critics say fossil fuels are still used to produce hydrogen, meaning there's still pollution. (Photo courtesy of Honda)
Lots of people in the automotive industry expect hydrogen to be a major
fuel source in the future. Cars that run on hydrogen don’t emit
greenhouse gases from the tailpipe. In fact, they don’t emit anything
except water. It might sound like magic, but there are some costs to
fueling the future on hydrogen. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Lots of people in the automotive industry expect hydrogen to be a major
fuel source in the future. Cars that run on hydrogen don’t emit greenhouse gases from the tailpipe. In fact, they don’t emit anything
except water. It might sound like magic, but there are some costs to
fueling the future on hydrogen. Julie Grant reports:
There are a lot of young guys checking out the hybrid cars on display at
this exhibit. Sales associate Chris Beckham is putting on his tie as
he walks over to the sleek, futuristic cars Honda hopes to lease to
consumers as soon as next year:
“It’s a fuel cell-powered vehicle. It runs on hydrogen. The only
emissions it has is water. So, it’s a really great vehicle for the
environment.”
Beckham hopes he gets a chance to lease one:
“What do you think, are you ready to drive one of these?”
“Absolutely. I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these. If you ever get thirsty,
just stand behind the car with a cup.”
Most cars available today, even those that run on alternative fuels,
still emit at least one kind of pollution: carbon dioxide.
David Robillard and his two sons are looking at cars at this exhibit.
He’s worked at Ford Motor Company for 36 years. He thinks hydrogen
will be the long-term energy solution because it doesn’t emit any pollution
from the tailpipe:
“All leaders in market going to try to be first in that segment, and I think
it’s going to be huge. I think 10-15 years from now, it’s going to be a
revolutionary mass transportation system that we have.”
That’s music to Steve Ellis’s ears. He’s Honda’s manager of fuel cell
marketing and says there’s a need to transition from an oil-based
transportation system to hydrogen. Ellis says hydrogen will be a
cleaner alternative:
“Only hydrogen offers the opportunity to have zero carbon emissions from
the vehicle – zero CO2 emisssions AND zero CO2 emissions from the
fuel.”
Ellis sees research and development of hydrogen cars as a noble goal.
But not everyone thinks hydrogen is going to be the climate change savior:
“From one standpoint, I think it’s great. From another standpoint, I
think we also need to check other options as well.”
Paul Erickson is a leader of hydrogen research at the University of
California at Davis. He’s director of the school’s Hydrogen Production
and Utilization lab. Erickson remembers curling up on the couch as a kid, his lungs burning from all
the ozone pollution in southern California, and he wanted to clean up the
air. But he doesn’t think hydrogen is the best solution that’s
currently available:
“There may be other options that are not as say, politically saavy, but
are options that from a technological standpoint make a lot more
sense.”
It takes energy to create the hydrogen used to run a car. With today’s
technology, that energy is almost always natural gas, but it could be
any fossil fuel. Erickson says those cars don’t reduce energy use or
pollution:
“You’re taking, let’s say some fuel – that could be coal, that could be
any type of energy source – and you convert that energy into hydrogen
and you ship that to the user… it gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling
saying I’m not part of the problem. But you know what? All you’re doing is
shifting that pollution upstream.”
Some engineers say that’s not necessarily a bad thing – that it would
be easier to control pollution coming from a few power plants than
from the millions of cars emitting greenhouse gases today. But Honda’s
Steve Ellis says hydrogen cars don’t create as much pollution as gas-powered vehicles. Even though nearly all of them need fossil fuels to
produce the hydrogen:
“Even with that method of doing it, we have over 50% reduction when you
factor in in wheel-to-well emissions compared with today’s gasoline cars.”
(Grant:) “50% cleaner?”
“50% CO2 reduction.”
Ellis says hydrogen can be made using renewable fuel sources such as
solar, ethanol, and methanol, but so far it’s not cost-effective. In
the meantime, Honda and other companies expect to start producing some
consumer model hydrogen cars that use fossil fuels in the next few
years.
Mixed paper (including "junk" mail) gets trucked to recycling facilities
like this one for recycling. First, it's unloaded in big piles, then pulled
up a conveyor belt for sorting. (Photo courtesy of the City of Ann Arbor)
Workers pull out contaminants from the mixed paper as it whizzes by. The paper then falls into a bunker, and is pulled up another big conveyor belt. (Photo courtesy of the City of Ann Arbor)
Finally, a machine packs the paper into giant bales weighing about one ton apiece. If there's a local market for the paper, it might be made into paperboard for products such as cereal boxes... but much of it is sold to companies overseas, particularly in China. (Photo courtesy of the City of Ann Arbor)
If it seems like your mailbox is stuffed with more shiny credit card offers and catalogs than ever before, you’re right. The U.S. Postal Service says the volume of advertising mail outpaced first class mail for the first time last year. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports… city waste managers and environmental groups are concerned that all that mail is going to add up to a lot more waste:
Transcript
If it seems like your mailbox is stuffed with more shiny credit card offers
and catalogs than ever before, you’re right. The U.S. Postal Service says
the volume of advertising mail outpaced first class mail for the first time
last year. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports… city waste managers and
environmental groups are concerned that all that mail is going to add up to
a lot more waste:
(Sound of squeaky mailbox opening)
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like no one sends me letters anymore.
Which means my mailbox is all coupons and catalogs and pizza ads. That’s
not all bad, but honestly, most of it goes right to the shredder.
(Sound of shredder)
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, that’s a pretty common
reaction. The EPA points to one study showing that 44 percent of advertising mail
is thrown away without being opened or read.
And there’s a lot coming in. Last year, marketers and non-profit groups sent
about 101 billion pieces of mail. That’s billion with a “B.”
You might call this junk mail, but people in the business have a more
affectionate name for it: direct mail.
Pat Kachura is with the Direct Marketing Association. She says direct mail
yields a very high return on investment.
“Marketers yield about a 7 dollar return on investment for every dollar
spent on catalog marketing, and about 15, almost 16 dollars return for every
dollar spent on non-catalog direct mail marketing.”
The Association’s annual report says those hefty returns are based on an
average of just 2.7 percent of people responding to the ads they get in the
mail. Last year, that meant more than 600 billion dollars in sales.
So, it’s profitable for marketers to fill up your mailbox.
But critics say there are hidden costs that marketers aren’t paying. Some
of those costs also arrive in your mailbox in the form of a bill from your
city for solid waste disposal or recycling.
(Sound of paper pouring into bunker from conveyor belt)
If your city accepts mixed paper for recycling, your junk mail comes to a
facility like this one where it’s sorted and packaged into giant bales
weighing one ton each.
Bryan Weinert is the solid waste coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor,
Michigan.
“We end up getting about $70 a ton back in the value of the junk mail that’s
recycled. But remember it’s costing the city roughly $125 a ton or so to
pick it up.”
Weinert says his city is lucky because it has double the nation’s average
recycling rate. He says communities that don’t have a recycling program
bear even higher costs to dispose of mixed paper.
In this case, the bales of paper get made into Kellogg’s cereal boxes.
Tom Watson is with the National Waste Prevention Coalition. He says it’s
good when there’s a local market for recycled junk mail, but much of it
actually gets sent overseas.
“The unwanted mail, the mixed paper, generally has a very low value, that is often
shipped to China and it comes back to us in the kind of mottled packaging found on
the products that we buy from China. So, it comes full circle but it’s not
very efficient, all the costs of the transportation and recycling.”
Watson says it’d be much more efficient to cut back on all that mail in the
first place.
The Direct Marketing Association does offer an opt-out service. The group
says their members aren’t allowed to send any new mailings to people who
sign up. The fastest way to sign up is online, but you have to pay a $5
charge.
Tom Watson with the National Waste Prevention Coalition says that charge
might put people off. He says he’d like to see a national Do Not Mail list.
One that isn’t controlled by the industry.
“It’s very common in other countries, you can’t send mail to someone unless
they say in advance, yes I want to receive that mail from you.”
You might expect that the folks at the Direct Marketing Association aren’t
fans of the Do Not Mail list idea, but they’re not the only ones.
“What is our position on that? (laughs) I wouldn’t like that to occur.”
George Hurst is the brand manager of direct mail for the Postal Service.
It’s his job to get direct mailers to send more mail. That’s because it’s
the second largest source of revenue for the Postal Service, in the tens of
billions of dollars.
Hurst says new laws aren’t needed. Instead, he says marketers just need to
know their audiences.
“The ones that don’t do it too well, and just blanket the earth with a message,
God bless ’em, we love the postage. But you gotta know that if you’re
talking to someone who is say, 100 miles away, about coming to your
dry cleaners, you’re probably missing the mark.”
But critics say consumers deserve to have more say over the mail they bring
into their homes. They say marketers make so much money from the mail they
send… that for that small chance you might be interested in a coupon book or
sale notice, you shouldn’t have to pay the cost to throw it away or recycle
it.
The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand
acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural
communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service
directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and
shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
The goal of the plan is to raise 800 million dollars for schools that have
lost money generated by timber sales, but lawmakers from both parties
say auctioning off forest land is short-sighted. Environmental groups say
it’s one of the latest attempts by the Bush administration to give oil,
timber and mining interests access to pristine natural areas.
Amy Mall is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“These lands are part of America’s natural legacy. Some of them are really wild
areas where there is very high-quality wildlife habitat. They might be
areas where a lot of people recreate. They might go hunting or fishing.
Or they might just think that these areas should remain wild.”
An agriculture department official described most of the land proposed for sale
as isolated and expensive to manage.
The pine marten is a member of the weasel family that makes its home in yellow birch trees. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)
Yellow birch trees can be used for lumber and paper, but they are also home to wildlife. (Photo courtesy of the Virginia Department of
Forestry)
Environmentalists and the U-S Forest Service often fight over the best way to balance between cutting timber for lumber and paper, and preserving wildlife habitat. Lately, the battle is over whether government just looks at each tract of land where it sells timber or whether it looks at the cumulative impacts of logging on National Forests. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Environmentalists and the U.S. Forest Service often fight over the best
way to balance between cutting timber for lumber and paper, and
preserving wildlife habitat. Lately, the battle is over whether
government just looks at each tract of land where it sells timber or
whether it looks at the cumulative impacts of logging on National
Forests. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
When some people look at a stand of trees they see lumber for a house or
wood for paper.
“Let’s go to the yellow birch.”
But when Ricardo Jomarron spots a stand of yellow
birch trees, he sees a valuable home for the pine marten – a member of
the weasel family. The marten is endangered in some states.
“The great thing about yellow birch is that it has a propensity to become
hollow while staying alive. So you have this wonderful den for pine
marten and other species to rear their young that isn’t going to blow over
in a windstorm.”
Jomarron is standing in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in
northern Wisconsin that’s near the border with Michigan. Last year,
Jomarron’s group, the Habitat Education Center won a federal court case
that has blocked timber sales on about 20-thousand acres in the million
and a half acre Chequamegon- Nicolet.
A judge ruled the Forest Service had violated the National
Environmental Policy Act by not considering the cumulative impact of
logging on other forest species. Logging not in just one place, but many
can have a larger impact on some wildlife that the judge said the Forest
Service didn’t consider.
But it’s not just the act of cutting down the trees that worries the
environmentalists. It’s the loss of shade that some plants need to survive
and new logging roads crossing streams where erosion damages trout
habitat.
The Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center is representing the
Habitat Education Center. Attorney Howard Learner says the case is not
about banning logging in the national forests. He says it is about
restoring a system that he argues has gotten out of whack.
“In part because the Forest Service was looking at one timber sale and what the
impacts of that were, and then they’d look at another one and what the impacts of that were, and
they didn’t look at the overall impact – and what was the forest rather
than the trees.”
The Forest Service eventually decided not to appeal the judge’s rulings to
stop the disputed sales in this one forest. It’s taking another look at the
cumulative impact of the proposed deals, but the Forest Service says it
didn’t approve the timber sales without getting advice from state and
tribal experts on water and wildlife.
Chequemegon-Nicolet forest supervisor Anne Archie says her agency
has done a good job. She says if you really want to study the total effect
of forest management, look back a century when loggers cut everything
in sight.
“70 to 100 years ago there was no national forest. It was shrub land and
burnt over grassland. Now the National Forest is there that provides a
habitat for the species. So cumulatively in 70 to 100 years, we’ve been
growing the habitat for the species that Habitat Education Center…we’ll
we’re all concerned for those species.”
But Habitat Education Center and other environmental groups say the
Forest Service still isn’t doing a thorough job of determining the impact
that logging might have. The environmentalists and conservation groups
say the agency’s follow-up study on the Chequemegon-Nicolet is like
Swiss cheese with many more holes than substance. Depending what
happens at the end of the current comment period, the groups could ask
the judge to keep the lid on the timber sales.
Logging companies that cut and mill the trees from the forest are not
happy about the legal battles.
James Flannery runs the Great Lakes Timber Company. He says if you
want to look at the cumulative impact to the forest, you should look at
the cumulative impact to the economy of the area.
“Part of the money generated from forest sales comes back to
communities. If we have no forest sales and there’s thousands of acres of
forests land that we harvest I’m more worried about the income of these
communities, which will be zero.”
But the environmental groups argue the broad expanse of the forests
need to be protected from multiple timber sales that cumulatively could
cause wider ecological damage. They say ignoring the health of the
forest ignores another important industry of the area: the tourism that
brings a lot of money to the north woods.
The Blanding's turtle is protected by federal law. It's illegal to buy or sell them. (Photo courtesy of Michigan DNR)
The federal government and several states in the region have used undercover agents and other tactics to crack down on people who violate wildlife protection laws. An Ohio man is the latest person to be caught and convicted by the operation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has more:
Transcript
The federal government and several states in the region
have used undercover agents and other tactics to
crack down on people who violate wildlife protection laws. An Ohio
man is the latest person to be caught and convicted by the operation.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has more:
A Columbus man has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for illegally buying and selling fifty-three Blandings turtles, protected by federal law. Over the past three years, fifty-seven other dealers in the region have been convicted for illegal trading in turtles, snakes, and lizards.
Jim McCormack of the Ohio Natural Resources Department says Ohio’s population of Blandings turtles has been decimated by wetlands destruction along Lake Erie. He says the thousand or so that survive must be protected so they don’t go extinct and prompt a domino effect on other animals and plants.
“We don’t want to see anything, whether it’s as obscure as some rare lichen or moss to something as showy and obvious and noteworthy as that turtle, to disappear.”
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois classify the Blandings turtle as “threatened,” and Indiana classifies it as “endangered.”
Now that the river otter's population is recovering, some worry that they are plundering fish farms. The proposed solution to this problem is stirring up some debate. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
There have been many wildlife success stories in the region. For instance, the numbers of white-tailed deer and Canada Geese have rebounded so strongly that many consider them pests. Now, another animal is being added to that list. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports on the rebound of the river otter:
Transcript
There have been many wildlife success stories in the region.
For instance, the numbers of white-tailed deer and Canada Geese
have rebounded so strongly that many consider them pests. Now,
another animal is being added to that list. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports on the rebound of the river otter:
In the late 1980’s river otters were so rare in Ohio that wildlife officials imported 123 of the animals and released them along rivers and streams. Now, it’s estimated that Ohio has more than 4,000 river otters. Dave Scott helps track the Ohio numbers for the Natural Resources Department.
“River otters are a really neat success story. And like some other wildlife things, they’ve done better than anticipated.”
In fact, so much better that the otters in Ohio are now being blamed for eating up fish in stocked ponds and in farm lakes where fish are raised for sale. That’s why wildlife officials are now proposing a trapping season here next winter. Trappers value river otters for their fur and back the idea of a trapping season but animal protection activists oppose it. They say the foothold traps that are used are inhumane.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.
With its ability to breathe out of water and wriggle its way over land during dry spells, the media has dubbed the northern snakehead "Frankenfish." Its appearance in Lake Michigan is scary to scientists. (Photo courtesy of USGS)
A few weeks ago, a Chicago fisherman caused a stir when he found a northern snakehead fish. The discovery set off a frantic search to find out if yet another invasive species is threatening the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:
Transcript
A few weeks ago, a Chicago fisherman caused a stir when he found a northern snakehead fish. The find set off a frantic search to find out if yet another invasive species is threatening the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:
Just before Halloween, the so-called Frankenfish reared its ugly head… filled with sharp teeth… in Chicago’s Burnham Harbor on Lake Michigan. And it’s still a mystery as to just how it got there.
Although the snakehead is arare item in some Asian cuisines, there’s a more common suspicion amongst local experts and hobbyists. That snakehead was probably a pet that outgrew its tank, and instead of the traditional farewell down the toilet, it was set free in Lake Michigan. Free to eat through the Lake’s food web.
Local pet store manager Edwin Cerna says that’s why he stopped selling the fish years before they were banned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. He remembers one day, when he was adjusting a tank, he accidentally got in between a snakehead’s lunch and its mouth.
“He bit me in the hand… made me bleed. It hurts. It’s got a nice strong jaw and that’s why it’s so dangerous because it can kill big fish, literally cut them in half. It’s almost like a big old killer whale, like a miniature version of it.”
But why on earth would anybody buy a vicious fish that can grow up to three feet long in the first place? Jim Robinett is with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. He says he’s a fish geek.
“I gotta say, as a little fish, when you first buy them, they’re really attractive; they’re neat little animals, but they eat like crazy. They’re voracious.”
Robinett knows not to be fooled by the little guys because what happens next is the perfect plot for a B-horror movie. He says the snakehead fish grows quickly, eventually eating everything in its tank. If it doesn’t die from overgrowing that tank, its owner might be tempted to dump it into a nearby body of water where it will keep eating its way up the food chain. Robinett says that’s the fear in Lake Michigan.
“They could potentially start picking off small salmon and lake trout, which is native to these waters here, they’re not real discriminating, they’ve been known to take things as large as frogs, some small birds, even small mammals that happen to get in the way there close to shore. They’ll eat anything they get their mouth on.”
Most hobby fish don’t last long in Chicago’s cold water. But the northern snakehead is different. The snakehead is native to northern Asia, and the Lake Michigan Federation’s Cameron Davis says that makes the fish feel right at home around here.
“It’s a lot like us Midwesterners, it just kind of hunkers down and… that’s part of the problem with the snakehead is that it can live under very extreme conditions. Which means it’ll out compete those other fish, and that’s a tremendous problem.”
Snakeheads have another edge on other species. The fish guard their eggs, giving their young a better chance of reaching maturity. But perhaps the most peculiar thing about snakeheads is that they can breathe. In addition to its gills, they have an organ that works like a lung and allows it to breathe air. It’s able to live up to three days as it uses its fins to wriggle across land in search of another body of water.
But looking down into the murky waters at Burnham Harbor, Davis says we shouldn’t run screaming yet. It’s not exactly a horror film scenario.
“I don’t think that the snakehead is going to come and grab our children out of schools and eat them or anything like that. But it is a problem for those of us who like to fish for yellow perch and whitefish and some of the things that make the Great Lakes so fantatstic, could really be threatened by this fish getting into Lake Michigan.”
Other invasive species cause an estimated 137-billion dollars of losses and damages in U.S. waterways each year. Cameron Davis says simply banning the local sale of fish like snakeheads hasn’t been enough to keep the Great Lakes safe.
“We’ve got to stop imports of these kinds of fish into the United States. We can’t protect the Great Lakes unless we’re checking these things at the door when they come into the country. It’s that simple.”
Davis is pushing for the passage of the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act. The bill would allocate a total of 174-million dollars to develop new technology for identifying and eliminating the invaders if and when they arrive.
So far, local authorities ahven’t found another snakehead near the banks of Lake Michigan, but Cameron Davis says the initial find just proves how hard it is to regulate what comes into the country’s largest body of fresh water.
Standing on the dock at Burnham Harbor, Davis looks out over the dark waters and shakes his head.
“It’s just an indicator that we’re in a race against time right now. Let’s hope that if there are more than one out there, that they haven’t hooked up.”
If they have, he says, it could truly be the stuff horror movies are made of… at least, for the other fish in the Great Lakes.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jenny Lawton in Chicago.
The proposed Annex 2001 agreement is the subject of lively debate as to whether it will help or hinder the conservation of the Great Lakes (Photo by Jeremy Lounds)
Officials from the eight states and two provinces in the region have proposed two agreements that would regulate the use of Great Lakes water. They’re known as the Annex 2001 Implementing Agreements. Response to the proposed agreements has generally been positive. But for some in the region, they’re seen as a slippery slope. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston is worried that the proposed agreements will lead to unlimited diversions in the future:
Transcript
Officials from the eight states and two provinces in the region have proposed two agreements
that would regulate the use of Great Lakes water. They’re known as the Annex 2001 Implementing
Agreements. Response to the proposed agreements has generally been positive. But for some in
the region, they’re seen as a slippery slope. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne
Elston is worried that the proposed agreements will lead to unlimited diversions in the future:
In theory, the proposed Agreements are supposed to provide a framework for using the water of the
Great Lakes. In reality, they’re about as leaky as a sunken lake freighter. The framework’s
there, but they fail to impose an overall limit on the volume of water that can be diverted,
or who can take it.
Not only that, but proposals to take less than a million gallons per day out of the basin won’t
require a region-wide review, several of these smaller withdrawals could eventually add up to a
whole lot of water. And whether it’s one large pipe or a lot of tiny ones, the end result is the
same.
Given that the Great Lakes basin contains 20% of all the fresh water on the planet, diverting
some of it shouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, only 1% of that water is renewed each year.
It would be a good idea to first figure out how much water can be taken without disrupting the
ecological balance of the Lakes. Only once that’s been done should we be looking at allowing
large-scale withdrawals.
And then there’s the threat of trade challenges. Each state or province that approves a water
taking permit won’t be paid directly for the water. Instead they’ll recieve a funding to upgrade
sewage treatment plants or to improve local habitats for example. Recently, a Canadian non-profit
asked for legal opinion about the Agreements. The response was that linking the approval process
to funding for public works basically means that the water is being sold, and under the terms of
NAFTA, once you’ve identified something as a commodity, you can’t restrict its sale.
Canadians should be particularly concerned about these Agreements. The Council of Great Lakes
Governors drafted them. And although the premiers of Ontario and Quebec have signed off on them,
in the end, neither province has the right to veto the decisions made by the Council. In my book,
that’s a lot like being invited to dinner and then being asked to leave before the main course.
And the reverse is true too. If Ontario or Quebec approves a withdrawal, states in the U.S.
wouldn’t have the ability to veto the decision. We share these lakes. If we are all called on
to protect the Great Lakes, then we all need to have an equal voice. That’s why our federal
representatives in Washington D.C. and Ottawa need to draw up a binding international agreement
on water withdrawals.
If nothing else, the proposed Agreements have made it clear that the Great Lakes must be
protected. And with 40 million users already relying on this irreplaceable resource, we clearly
need something better than these Agreements currently have to offer.
Host Tag: Suzanne Elston is a syndicated columnist living in Courtice, Ontario.
Spotted Knapweed seed heads - Land managers work hard to control or prevent invasive plants like this one from taking root. New research may help their efforts. (Photo by Barry Rice/The Nature Conservancy)
New research indicates that some invasive plants spread rapidly because they don’t have natural enemies to keep them in check. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush explains:
Transcript
New research indicates that some invasive plants spread rapidly because they
don’t have natural enemies to keep them in check. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mark Brush explains:
The research found that some foreign plants thrive in North America because
they’ve escaped their natural enemies. In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers found some of the enemies the plants escaped were
in the soil. They looked at the invasive plant spotted knapweed. They found the
plants are not only free from microbes that might eat their roots, but they
also found microbes in the areas the plants invaded that actually help them
grow.
Ray Callaway is one of the researchers at the University of Montana.
He says regulations are needed to stop these kinds of invasions:
“I think we ought to have much stronger restrictions on the movement of
horticultural plants and so on from across continents. I think we’re
playing with fire.”
The majority of plant invasions come from the horticultural trade. Policymakers are now
working on a protocol to monitor the importation and sale of non-native plants.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark
Brush.
An outfit from American designer Rogan Gregory, which is made of 100% certified organic cotton. The collection arrives in Target stores on May 18th (Photo courtesy of Target)
