Some members of Congress feel the timing is right for the long-anticipated federal legislation to help restore the Great Lakes. A bill introduced in the Senate recently proposes EPA monitoring of Great Lakes water quality. Now, a bill being introduced in the House proposes a four billion dollar Great Lakes Restoration Fund. And it has strong political support. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports:
Transcript
Some members of Congress feel the timing is right for the long-anticipated
federal legislation to help restore the Great Lakes. A bill introduced in the
Senate recently proposes EPA monitoring of the Great Lakes water quality.
Now, a bill being introduced in the House proposes a four billion dollar
Great Lakes Restoration Fund. And it has strong political support.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports:
A critical report by the General Accounting Office prompted
Congress to start a coordinated recovery plan. The bipartisan
bill on the Senate side would pay for more reliable monitoring of
water quality. And the House bill now being introduced – also bipartisan –
would supply four billion dollars to help restore the environmental health of the lakes.
The Great Lakes Trust Fund is modeled after a multi-billion dollar
federal plan to rehabilitate Florida’s Everglades. Congressman Thomas Reynolds of New York
is one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
“We’ve seen, from increased levels of toxins and bacteria that are
killing wildlife and closing beaches, to invasive species that are
attacking an ecosystem. The Great Lakes need more than help – they need funding.”
Reynolds says he believes the backing is there to pass the legislation –
and that federal help is long overdue.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
Lawn pesticides are killing a lot more than grubs and weeds, according to the National Audubon Society. They want to let people know that if they use the chemicals, they are unintentionally killing birds. And they’re possibly putting their families at the same risk. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has more on the educational campaign:
Transcript
Lawn pesticides are killing a lot more than grubs and weeds, according to the National Audubon
Society. They want to let people know that if they use the chemicals, they are unintentionally
killing birds. And they’re possibly putting their families at the same risk. For the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium, Joyce Kryszak has more on the educational campaign:
People throughout the region have been scooping up dead bird corpses and sending them off for
testing since the West Nile Virus first hit. But research shows West Nile is usually not to blame.
Studies done on about eighty thousand dead birds found in New York state showed aesthetic
lawn care products were the leading killers.
William Cooke is a regional coordinator for the Audubon Society. He says the toxins from these
common product rivals the chemicals used on golf courses and farms.
“We’re going to have our kids play on this, we’re going to have the dog play on this, and then come
into the house? People are not connecting between the pesticides they put down and the impacts.
And we’re doing this for a green lawn?”
Cooke says the national educational campaign hopes to alert more than a million people to the
dangers of pesticide use. It will also tell people how to find and use organic alternatives to
maintain a healthy lawn and environment.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
Hunting season for pheasants in most areas doesn’t begin until fall. But the work begins now to make sure there are plenty of pheasants available when the season starts. One state’s environmental conservation program makes pheasant chicks available to anyone who wants to raise them for later release. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has more on the program’s rather unusual partner:
Transcript
Hunting season for pheasants in most areas doesn’t begin until fall. But the work begins now to
make sure there are plenty of pheasants available when the season starts. One state’s
environmental conservation program makes pheasant chicks available to anyone who wants to
raise them for later release. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has more on the
program’s rather unusual partner:
There are plenty of people you’d expect who are interested in raising the baby pheasants.
Farmers, hunters, 4-H club kids and wildlife lovers, certainly. But for the last two years, the
program has gotten a lot of help from… Attica prisoners. Inmates at the upstate New York
correctional facility raise a couple thousand of the chicks each year. James Snider is a state
wildlife biologist. He says, hardened criminals or not, they’re giving these baby birds lots of
TLC.
“Basically you’re taking a day old chick, which was hatched the day before, out of an
incubator, brought in and certainly you know, those first two or three weeks some
of the critical things are keeping them warm, because they don’t have a mother to take care
of them. You know, it’s a continuation of food and water all the way up until finally
they grow their adult flight feathers.”
Snider says it’s also a beneficial program for the prisoners, who take a lot of pride from their role
as nurturers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
Lawmakers in one state are looking at possible incentives to help farmers expand into the lucrative alternative crop market. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has details:
Transcript
Lawmakers in one state are looking at possible incentives to help farmers expand into the
lucrative alternative crop market. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has
details:
New York once had a robust agricultural industry. But it’s taken some hard hits in recent years,
mainly from falling dairy prices. It’s nudged many farmers out of the business – and left fallow
thousands of acres of fertile soil. But state legislators think there may be a cure in the multi-
billion dollar herbal supplement business. They’re working on a plan that would provide
economic incentives to help farmers establish so called “grow zones” for alternative crops, such
as the popular herbal supplement, ginseng. Jim Hayes is a Western New York Assemblyman.
He says it would be a unique partnership that could reinvigorate the state’s farming industry.
“We’re trying to listen to scientists, and doctors, and farmers, and economic development people
to establish a protocol on how to get this thing started. And certainly it’s an area
that is just expanding nationwide, and we believe we should be capitalizing on here in New York
state.”
He says the program would also benefit consumers by developing high standards and controls for
herbal product purity and potency.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
Enter the keyword “sustainability” into any Internet search and dozens of web pages instantly appear – filled with words used to describe the ambiguous theory. Conservation, egalitarianism, and biodiversity to name just a few. But what does the environmental buzzword really mean? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak was at a recent forum on sustainability in search of a definition, and she spoke with some of the world’s leading ecologists:
Transcript
Enter the keyword “sustainability” into any Internet search and dozens of web pages instantly appear – filled with words used to describe the ambiguous theory. Conservation, egalitarianism, and biodiversity to name just a few. But what does the environmental buzzword really mean? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak was at a recent forum on sustainability in search of a definition. And she spoke with some of the world’s leading ecologists.
The impressive line-up of speakers included such notables as Jane Goodall, David Suzuki and Paul Hawken, people who certainly need no introduction with environmentalists, and for good reason. These three experts on ecology have more than a century of combined experience. Yet, when asked to define the subject they were invited to talk about – sustainability – their responses were well…less than definitive.
Paul Hawken is a best-selling author on corporate environmental reform, who isn’t usually uncertain with words -especially crucial words about the environment. But Hawken was quick to admit there are simply too many ways to describe sustainability. And, he says even the most commonly used definition falls short.
“As you can tell from my reciting of it, it’s not a definition I warm to at all – because it’s not a definition you wake up in the morning and say, ‘uh, man, I’m so happy to be alive, and what I’m going to do today, is to meet the needs of the current generation in a way that doesn’t compromise future generations. It’s so flat, and non-dynamic.”
Hawken says that sustainability, by its very nature, is a multi-dimensional concept. Which resources get used, and how much, from where, to produce what goods and services, for which people, and then what to do with the waste – and how do we fix what we’ve already ruined? Hawken says the answers to these tough questions require a broad understanding. And he says, in an increasingly more specialized world that makes a clear definition much more difficult to nail down.
“Most of us have been, or are educated, in schools that ask us to specialize and to really focus on one area of knowledge. Sustainability really cuts across all denims – from not just economy and ecology, but biology, sociology, psychology, forestry, geology, chemistry, physics…In a sense to really be conversant in sustainability you have to have a working knowledge of a lot of different subjects.”
Milling about the convention floor we find David Sukuzi, perhaps the most conversant proponent of sustainability. The award winning geneticist and broadcaster stops occasionally, chatting casually about bio diversity, reductionism, or maybe genetic polymorphism. But then, Suzuki is well known for easily making such complex science understandable. So, how does Suzuki define sustainability?
“I don’t know what sustainability means. We’ve changed the world so much that we can’t rely on nature’s abundance and productivity. We’ve already added thirty percent more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than existed two hundred years ago. We have no idea what that’s going to do. So, we don’t know what is going to compromise or not compromise. We know that we are trashing the natural world on which we ultimately depend.”
Any hope for a definition would seem to be lost. As would be any hope for sustainability itself. But Suzuki says, although there are big question marks, sustainability is the only option.
“We’ve got to pull back. We’ve got to protect as much wild nature as we can where it exists – and keep our fingers crossed.”
Jane Goodall is known for her monumental faith in nature. Forty years of research has earned her a reputation for an unfaltering commitment to social and environmental causes. Goodall admits that as the indigenous peoples of the world have vanished, so too, she says, has the true definition of sustainability – “to make only what is needed to sustain life.” But Goodall says we must not give up on that principle.
“That’s very dangerous for us, if we’re thinking about a sustainable world and a world that will be there for our grandchildren. We mustn’t let up. We must continue to work for the things, which we think, are important. If we have the ability to influence some little area of the community and the environment around us, then that is what we must do.”
And all the experts agree. They say that “urgency” is now the most important word in any definition of sustainability. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.