Electric utility companies say they’re reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. But
according to a recent study the power companies are actually increasing their emissions.
Kyle Norris has this report:
Transcript
Electric utility companies say they’re reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. But
according to a recent study the power companies are actually increasing their emissions.
Kyle Norris has this report:
Researchers studied a voluntary program run by the Department of Energy. In the
program, electric utility companies self-report their reductions of greenhouse gases.
Researchers then compared this information to the levels that companies actually
emitted. Tom Lyon ran the University of Michigan’s study:
“I think what it tells you is you can’t really believe what the company is saying. The
company will tell you the good stuff and not the bad stuff unless you force them to tell
you the whole truth.”
The study found that 60% of the companies claiming a reduction in their emissions had
actually increased their emissions. Lyon says that the study shows that the government
needs to require the companies to fully disclose all of their greenhouse emissions.
(L to R) Lorin Waxman, Cindy Waxman, Pamela Waxman, Bonnie Waxman, on their back deck. (Photo courtesy of Pamela Waxman)
Pamela Waxman (center) at the Pictured Rocks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (Photo courtesy of Pamela Waxman)
Fairy tales and slasher films suggest that
the woods can be a scary place. It’s a place where
someone or some thing could hurt us. In our
occasional series about people’s connections to
the environment, Kyle Norris talks to one woman
who has every reason to fear the woods, but has
come to reject that notion:
Transcript
Fairy tales and slasher films suggest that
the woods can be a scary place. It’s a place where
someone or some thing could hurt us. In our
occasional series about people’s connections to
the environment, Kyle Norris talks to one woman
who has every reason to fear the woods, but has
come to reject that notion:
Pamela Waxman spends every minute of her free time hiking,
camping, and backpacking through the woods. And when she’s
in the woods she smiles a lot. And talks slower and a little
easier than when she’s in her day-to-day life. She likes
exploring nature with other people. But she also enjoys going out
by herself, and she does a lot. And that really stresses-out her
parents.
“They’re worried that something’s going to happen to me,
something bad. That either I will be attacked or that I’ll break a
leg or something and there won’t be someone else to help me or to go for
help. They don’t want to lose me and they don’t want me to
suffer.”
For some people, there’s a great fear involved when women go
into the woods. Especially when women go into the woods alone. For Pamela’s
family, this concern is based in reality.
“Well, my sister was murdered out in nature attending to
something she loved. She was alone in a wooded area and
somebody attacked and killed her. So it’s easy to see a parallel
with me going out in woods and being alone in a wooded area.”
Pamela’s older sister, Cindy, was sexually assaulted and killed
in the woods near her home. She had just turned eleven. Pamela
was eight. It makes sense that Pamela may not enjoy being out in the woods, but that’s not what happened. Instead of avoiding the
woods, she embraced the woods:
“I do turn to nature as a place to be and it’s definitely linked to
fact that Cindy was murdered in sort of a wooded area in the
suburbs but still. I reject that. I’m not going to live that way.
I’m not willing to stay indoors and not go out because
someone might murder me in the woods. I don’t think that’s
rational. I don’t want to and will not live that way and I don’t
want to set the example for other people to do that.
“Like the first thing my parents did, like really soon after my sister
was killed was send me away to camp. Which seems totally ridiculous now, but… backpacking which I don’t think I’d ever done, backpacking, rock
climbing and repelling. Under the supervision of basically
a bunch of teenagers, 19-year-olds. For a week, in the High Sierras. Sounds insane. Was totally great. I’m so grateful they sent me because it would have been so easy to clamp down.
And be like no you’re staying with us so we can watch you.
But they didn’t so that. They sent me out into the woods.”
(Norris:) “Did nature help you heal from her death?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Have I healed from her death? Not really…”
But she keeps going back to nature. Today Pamela works at a teen
center. And she recently took a group of teenage girls on a
week-long camping trip. She said the girls would say things like
“I’m afraid of the dark,” or “the woods are creepy”:
“There’s a lot of fear. I think it’s an internalized fear about
violence, rape. I never hear, then they feel it and repress it, but I
never hear boys and men say that they’re afraid to be out in
nature.”
So helping young women feel safer and more comfortable in
nature has become one of Pamela’s personal goals. Pamela says
that nature has taught her about survival. It’s taught her about being normal. And
being fine.
Julia Sdao and Mitchel Vedder at the waterfront, one of the camp's most popular destinations. (Photo by Kyle Norris)
The Wizniewskis: 58 years of marriage and 58 years of running Varsity. (Photo by Kyle Norris)
The kitchen recycles their plastic cups by washing them in soap and water, and then applying a light bleach/water solution. (Photo by Kyle Norris)
Cleaning up after lunch. (Photo by Kyle Norris)
On "tie-dye" day, the camp is awash in yellow and purple swirls. (Photo by Kyle Norris)
The kids relax after lunch. (Photo by Kyle Norris)
A couple in their eighties has spent the last sixty years running
a summer camp for kids old enough to be their children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren. Kyle Norris has the
story of how the couple has stuck to the old ways of summer
camp, from outdoor activities to food:
Transcript
A couple in their eighties has spent the last sixty years running
a summer camp for kids old enough to be their children, grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren. Kyle Norris has the
story of how the couple has stuck to the old ways of summer
camp, from outdoor activities to food:
What you arrive at Varsity Day Camp, you’ll see a ton of kids
running around outside. They’re doing all kinds of fun kid
activities. Like this one:
(Sound of pogo stick)
Pogo stick jumping. Jane Selner is the assistant business manager at Varsity. Her
parents, the Wizniewskis – or Mr. and Mrs. Wiz for short – have
run this camp for nearly six decades:
“We pretty much keep it down to earth. No electronics. No cell
phones, no Game Boys. That type of thing. We like them to
really discover nature. The birds, the trees, the animals, the
frogs and fish.”
Varsity is known as an old-school camp. Its campers are
supervised but their day is pretty much unstructured. They’re free to roam-
about the camp’s twenty-or-so activity stations. And everything
happens outside at this South Central Michigan camp. Kids can
choose activities like archery, tetherball, a miniature hockey
game I didn’t really understand, swimming, and arts and crafts.
Mr. Wiz helps supervises the activities, and Mrs. Wiz cooks all
the food from scratch, just like she’s done for the past 58 years.
She says it’s your basic standard camp food. Here she is breezing
through the week’s menu:
“Sloppy joe’s, and we have PB & J sandwiches, celery sticks,
Kool-Aid and chocolate chip cookies (I make all my cookies).
Turkey salad with lettuce, peanut butter and jelly. Tortilla
strips. Warm cinnamon coffee cake, which we’ll have
tomorrow. Grilled cheese, the kids love grilled cheese. They’ll
sit down an hour before we eat. I’ll say we’re going to feed you –
I want to be first and dill pickles…”
Mrs. Wiz’s cooking is pretty popular with all the kids I’ve talked
to. Campers have been known to eat three, four, sometime even
five helpings of her lunches.
But the food is just your basic camp fare. Mrs. Wiz, doesn’t use
any special cooking techniques or fancy-pants ingredients. But
you know what, the kids just rave about the food. They just
love the stuff:
“I’ve had a mother call me and said, ‘Mrs. Wiz, how do you do your
hot dogs?’ I said I put them in a pan of water and boil them. It’s
just they’re so hungry out here. That they play so hard, that it
tastes very good to them.”
Down at the waterfront, eleven-year-old Mitchell is hanging out
with a couple of pals. He’s got sandy-blond hair, surfer shorts,
and a faded t-shirt. He tells me I picked a good day to come to
Varsity, because today is sloppy joe day. Mitchell says – and
this is a direct quote from his mouth – that the sloppy joe’s taste like a little
piece of heaven:
“I’ve been coming here for 5 years and everything’s good…I
think it has something to do with like cooking all day ’cause
they cook all day in morning and cook desserts and it’s all day
cooking, I think it’s made good.”
Six-year old Julia jumps out of her canoe and onto the sandy
beach. Julia says the sloppy joe’s are her favorite thing at camp,
hands-down:
“It’s good because it’s very sweet and hot. It’s very good.”
The sloppy joe’s, like everything else, are cooked in the camp’s
tiny kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Wiz could easily ship in food from a
food service. Or hire other people to do their cooking. “No way,
no how,” they both say. For them, homemade is the way to go:
“Summer camp food should be enjoyable, homemade I think. Because it
tastes good.”
Mr. and Mrs. Wiz not only want the kids to enjoy good food,
but they want them to enjoy time that’s unscheduled and not
filled with violin lessons, after-school clubs, and busy life
activites.
“There’s no pressure, free to choose activity, free to choose
whatever they want lunch, that’s the entire philosophy, that they enjoy themselves and don’t get hurt…And eating is part of the enjoyment.”
Through good food, fun activities, and the great outdoors, Mr.
and Mrs. Wiz teach the kids to open their senses. And to just be
kids in a simple place.
Oh, and as for the sloppy joe’s, I tasted them and they were
really good.
Audra Brecher, who lives in Manhattan, says the city lights are her stars. (Photo by John Tebeau)
Brecher works in an architecture firm, "recycling" buildings from more than 120 years ago. (Photo by Mark Brush)
Brecher shops at a farmer's market, where she can buy fresh fruit and vegetables from Hudson River Valley. (Photo by John Tebeau)
Big cities have skyscrapers, smelly subway stations,
and people from all over the world. In our
occasional series about people’s connections to the
environment, Kyle Norris talks with one big city
resident who says that the people and places of New
York City connect her to the world:
Transcript
Big cities have skyscrapers, smelly subway stations,
and people from all over the world. In our
occasional series about people’s connections to the
environment, Kyle Norris talks with one big city
resident who says that the people and places of New
York City connect her to the world:
Audra Brecher wears her chestnut hair in a Louise
Brooks bob. Actually, she’s a dead ringer for Louise Brooks,
that silent film movie star. She’s stylish
and snazzy.
Audra lives in Manhattan. Her apartment is above a
pizza parlor on a bustling avenue. She says in the
evenings, she hears blaring taxi horns and the thumping
techno music from the clubs on her block. But she
loves everything about the city: its sounds,
its architecture, and its people.
I once asked her if she ever missed nature. She said,
“The city lights are my stars.”
“Yeah, I don’t feel as if I’m missing anything. I don’t
feel maybe such a romantic feeling about stars, the
night sky. I feel maybe the same excitement when I
see the city lights and when I walk across Lexington
and I look north and I see the Chrysler Building lit
up and those beautiful, starry chevrons of the
Chrysler Building. I think maybe the feeling I have
looking at that, is what other people feel when they
look at the night sky.”
So here’s the deal. When I think of someone connected
to nature I picture a state park ranger. I picture a crunchy-
granola type. I do not think of someone who wears
fashionable clothes and wines and dines in the city. I
do not think of Audra. But Audra says she has a
better connection to the natural world than people in the
suburbs:
“I go to the Union Square market on Saturday and I
buy varieties of apple that have come from the
Hudson River Valley and I know my parents, who
live in the suburbs in Florida, they go to the grocery store
where they buy everything pre-packaged and already
cut up fruit. I feel like my experience is actually closer to
nature even though I’m in heart of Manhattan.”
Audra works in an architecture firm. She’s a historic
preservationist, and she’s studied architecture all over the
world. But she grew up in the Florida suburbs. And
what she saw there – the sprawl and development –
seemed wrong to her:
“What led me to do what I do is noticing how
unhappy I was with a suburban existence. Having to
get in car to drive somewhere, or looking at
expanses of parking lot in strip centers and
subdivisions with gated communities that are named after
the natural feature they replace. Like ‘Eagle’s Nest.'”
Those new developments seem wasteful to her. She
likes the idea of re-using materials. And this
connects her to nature. At her job, she’s always in
close contact with old buildings and old materials:
“Yeah, I love the materiality of them. I mean, I love
an old brick from 120 years ago. I love the building
materials and the craftsmanship from that time. I
love the idea of taking something that has been cast
aside and might not be used and giving it a new
purpose, giving it a new vitality. Taking a building that
somebody has abandoned and giving it a new life.
To me, that’s the ultimate recycling.”
Audra says although she’s not walking through the
forest and communing with nature, she feels
ecologically responsible in different ways. She either walks or takes public transportation to get someplace. She never drives a car.
“I’m not asking so much of the world in terms of
water and energy and resources and I feel like when
live in dense environment you are allowing for those
things to remain protected and safe. And pristine. So
I feel like a responsible citizen living in Manhattan
in many ways.”
This stylish city-slicker may not be the person
who pops in your head when you think of someone who’s connected to nature. But Audra’s
deeply connected to the world around her in her own way. She’s also aware of how we can use natural
resources in better ways.
The USDA's food pyramid. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
The USDA food pyramid shows the amounts and kinds of foods that are healthy to eat. But the food pyramid is not simply about eating right. Money and politics play a big role in this symbol. Kyle Norris takes a look:
Transcript
The USDA food pyramid shows the amounts and kinds
of foods that are healthy to eat. But the food pyramid is
not simply about eating right. Money and politics play a
big role in this symbol. Kyle Norris takes a look:
You’ve heard of the food pyramid, right?
“I can see the picture of the food pyramid… I think it’s how much of each type of food you’re
supposed to eat.”
“The food pyramid is like non-existent
in my day-to-day reality.”
“Yeah, I didn’t really understand what the point of the food pyramid was.”
The pyramid is a visual tool that the United States
Department of Agriculture created in the 1990s to help
people know what to eat. The USDA has advised
people about nutrition for a long time.
Throughout the past century, nutritional advice was
generally a message to eat more food and a wider
variety of food, and eventually people did eat more
food… too much food. And overeating and chronic
diseases became a problem.
In the late 1960s and early 70s, the
message about nutrition changed. The government said
scale back. Eat less. And this caused an uproar, and it
still does:
“Food companies are upset about it because they don’t
want the government telling people to eat less of the
products they manufacture.”
That’s Marion Nestle. She’s a professor of Nutrition,
Food Studies, and Public Health at New York
University. She also wrote the book “Food Politics:”
“This is health conflicting with business interests
basically, and since food companies, among other
corporations, fund election campaigns, elected leaders
need to listen to them. And since elected leaders control
what goes on in federal agencies, federal agencies need
to listen to elected leaders. That’s how our political
system works.”
Here’s what happens from that trickle down effect:
Corporations influence the food pyramid. So, the
pyramid’s wording of what and how much you should
eat gets watered-down and un-specific, so as not to
offend the food companies.
Here’s Nestle again:
“We don’t have an independent voice in the government
advising the public about diet and health because
if the government were to advise the public
about diet and health, it would have to tell people to eat
less junk food. And it can’t do that… Because the companies
that produce the junk food wouldn’t stand for it.”
It’s not only junk food companies that freak out about
what the government says you should eat. The meat
industry threw a fit when the pyramid was going to be
released in 1991.
The pyramid said those awful, hurtful words about
meat: “Eat less.”
So the USDA yanked the pyramid, tweaked it ever so
slightly, and re-released it the next year. The food
industry made a lot of squawk about the pyramid. You
have to wonder what kind of pressure that had on the
USDA.
Jackie Haven is a USDA nutritionist:
“I really, there’s really nothing I have to say on that
issue. I don’t feel we had pressure from anybody and…
Can we move to something else?
Okay, so, she wouldn’t say much.
But you have to wonder if the USDA had a conflict of
interest here. Their key job is to promote agriculture in
the marketplace. And yet they tell us what we should eat.
Marion Nestle says the USDA does have a conflict of
interest:
“Its main function
is to sell more products not less. It’s the fox guarding
the chicken… certainly not the place
where you have independent advice about what to eat.
The USDA created the new “mypyramid.gov” in 2005.
They’ve dubbed it an “interactive food guidance
system.” About the only way you can get to it is online.
You punch in your age, weight, and height. You also
type in how physically active you are each day. Then it
spits out a personalized plan.
My My Pyramid plan said that every day I should eat about 7
ounces of grains, 3 cups veggies, 2 cups fruit, 3 cups of
milk, and 6 ounces of meat and beans. I don’t know
how to translate that information. I mean, I don’t really measure my
apples in cups. And three cups of milk?
The new My Pyramid’s wording is delicate. It says things like “Most meat and poultry choices should be lean or lowfat.” “Include” this,
“Choose” that. Not very specific suggestions.
Marion Nestle says there’s no evidence that the public
understands the original pyramid. She says even fewer
people understand the new My Pyramid. The food
pyramid has always been controversial. Its stated
purpose is to help us eat healthier.
The political reality is that pressure from the food
industry makes it very difficult for the pyramid to clearly say
what is really best for our health.
Jacoby Simmons (right) is blown away by nature. (Photo by Emma Raynor)
Today we have the latest installment in our series about people’s connections to nature.
Producer Kyle Norris wanted to find out what younger people thought of the outside world.
She spoke with one young man who said that nature can blow your mind:
Transcript
Today we have the latest installment in our series about people’s connections to nature.
Producer Kyle Norris wanted to find out what younger people thought of the outside world.
She spoke with one young man who said that nature can blow your mind:
Jacoby Simmons is your regular nineteen-year-old guy. He goes to community college
and loves to hang out with his friends and skateboard. He’s also a DJ, and he spins records at
parties as a part-time gig.
Just about every day, Jacoby spends some time hanging outside. Sitting on a park bench. Going for
a walk. But things weren’t always this way. As a kid, his life was about eating cereal and
watching TV:
“I guess nature seemed to find me in a way… I don’t remember when I started just
sitting and watching trees. And watching the clouds go by very slowly and trying to see
what images are in the clouds and whatnot.”
Jacoby says as he started to notice the world around him, it changed the way he felt:
“I stayed up all night one night just playing video games, ’cause I’m a loser like that, but I
saw the sunrise and it really, it sounds weird but it really put me at ease. I felt like
complete peace when I saw the sun come up. I mean, just
knowing that life keeps going no matter what.”
You probably get what Jacoby is saying, right? I mean, when I see the sunrise, it makes me feel
like, ‘Yeah planet, we get another day!’ Anyway, Jacoby has this other memory about
nature that’s also pretty special to him:
“Watching stars. The first time I actually looked at the stars, and I don’t mean just go
outside and oh, there are the stars, I mean like go outside and sit in the nighttime and
watch stars. That really blew my mind. It was actually the first time I went on the
backpacking trip a couple of years ago. Because there were no street lights because there
is no extra light, period. You’re in the woods and it’s total darkness and you look up and
I’ve never, ever, ever seen that many stars at that time. I almost cried because it was so
mind-boggling that there were so many stars that I just couldn’t see anywhere else.
(Norris:) “What did it look like?”
“It looked like…I guess you could say the sky looked like a big pitcher of blue Kool-Aid
and salt. Cause the stars were bright and looked like salt. It made me realize there’s just
more to life than just like school and work and making money and trying to stabilize your
life. I don’t know. Oh man, that was crazy, that was nuts.”
Have you ever had a moment like that out in nature? Where you were just totally blown
out of the water? You could.
Outdoor enthusiast Jerry Sherman. (photo by Colleen Sherman)
People enjoy nature for all kinds of reasons. In our occasional series about people’s
connections to the environment, producer Kyle Norris spent time with a recreational
hunter and fisher who says that when he spends time in nature he never feels any
pressure:
Transcript
People enjoy nature for all kinds of reasons. In our occasional series about people’s
connections to the environment, producer Kyle Norris spent time with a recreational
hunter and fisher who says that when he spends time in nature he never feels any
pressure:
Jerry Sherman can fix anything, and he’s fixed a few things around my house. He’s
always carrying a coffee cup with him everywhere he goes. And he’s one of those guys
who wears those dark, working men jeans. And cowboy shirts with pearl buttons. We took a
walk the other day and talked a lot about fishing and hunting. I was wondering how he
got into those things:
“When I first started I was a foreman and I was under a tremendous amount of pressure
there’s always somebody in your face all day long. Either talking to somebody or on the
phone. So then, when you get outside and get away from people, you can be in your own
little world, and think whatever you want to think… there’s no body… what do I do here,
what do I do there.”
KN: Jerry has a couple of friends – actually they’re a pair of twins – that he likes to go
fishing with. But a lot of times it’s also about being alone:
“It’s both of those things. There are days that I want to be by myself and just go fish by
myself and there’s days that you feel that need to be with your friends. And that’s when
you want to fish with them. Good example, the other day, when we were fishing we spend
time together then all three of us go off in different directions. That does two things: it gives us
more area to cover, but we all enjoy fishing alone to a certain amount.”
I think Jerry and I feel similarly about nature. It makes us feel calmer. If he’s like me, it’s
kind of about being part of a bigger picture. So I asked him, what he feels when he’s alone in
nature:
“You’re feeling great and there are some times you just sit down and do some praying on
your own sometimes. And you can pray to God in your
own way and nobody’s putting any pressure on you…Well, in a church you kind of feel
like you’re sometimes pressured into praying a certain prayer for somebody, and you’re
out in nature you can pray for whatever you want and nobody’s looking at you or putting
any kind of pressure on you. Does that make any kind of sense? ‘Cause I think everybody
prays to a certain extent. Uh, I just find a rock and sit down and meditate. Maybe talk to
myself.”
Jerry said the last thing he prayed for was his family, which is funny because hunting
and fishing are ways for him to get away from his family:
“Well, there again a lot of the reason you go out there is to kinda relax and unwind. Kind of
retune your body and mind. And when you back to be around your family I’d say you’re
kind of relaxed and out from underneath all this pressure. You kind of get a chance to sort
things out.”
Like Jerry, maybe all of us need a chance to get away from everybody. And spend some
time in nature. And sort things out.
Anya Dale (pictured above) says being in nature "forces you to look at your priorities." (Photo by Kyle Norris)
Here’s the latest installment in our
occasional series about people’s connections to
the environment. Producer Kyle Norris has been
asking people if they feel close to nature. Today
she hikes with her friend Anya Dale,
an amateur bird-watcher and nature enthusiast:
Transcript
Here’s the latest installment in our
occasional series about people’s connections to
the environment. Producer Kyle Norris has been
asking people if they feel close to nature. Today
she hikes with her friend Anya Dale,
an amateur bird-watcher and nature enthusiast:
Anya and I are walking through a shady, hilly forest. And birds are
chirping everywhere. Usually when Anya hikes, it’s just her and nature.
Microphones and reporter friends usually don’t make it into the
equation, so I think Anya’s a little nervous:
“See um, yeah, that’s where it is (bird sounds) I don’t know if you can
see it. Sorry I’m totally getting distracted. Do you see, it’s like
through that tree, the one tree behind it, now it’s flying back. I
think they’re red belly woodpeckers. Let’s go down closer.”
Anya is little and feisty. She buys almost all of her clothes from
second-hand stores. I always see her in earth-toned corduroys and
fleece vests. She’s this eco-groovy chick walking down the path:
“Well, right now, we are walking through Bird Hills. Checking out the
trails. I partially try to just zone out a little bit. Coming out here to a
certain extent is an escape to do much of anything. But I also just
find myself listening to all the birds and trying to figure out what
kind they are and where they are. It’s usually not too successful, but it’s
still fun just listening and paying attention to what’s around.
Anya says that when she doesn’t spend time outside, she gets grouchy.
She recently visited New York City. Even though she had a fun time, she
says the city just doesn’t move her the way spending time in nature
does. Like the time she went backpacking with her friend:
“It forces you to look at your priorities and what does, it really
matter you don’t like your hair cut you got, does it really matter that
you don’t do all of these things. Or do you have time to focus on what
is important that you accomplish in your life? Or the people in your
life. And it forces you to slow down.”
As we walked through the woods, Anya pointed out tons of birds. We
listened to one that sounded like a monkey. Anya said that bird always
make her laugh. In fact, a lot of birds catch her attention. We
couldn’t walk for more than a few minutes without her stopping mid-
sentence to track some bird:
“Part of what the awe I have in birds is that they’re really tough. And
also just being able to survive the winters or even just the cold
nights, they essentially go into torpor, it’s sort of like a type of
hibernation not quite as deep. But they go into this every night and
lose fifty percent of their body weight and they have to shiver and
shiver and shiver to wake themselves back up. And it’s a huge stress on
their body and they truly, what they eat during the day is what’s going to keep them
alive at night. But you just hear their pretty songs and they’re flying
around playing and they’re incredibly tough.”
They’re not just tough. They have a bird’s eye view of life, literally.
Anya told me that she admires how birds can really see the big picture
of things. That’s because they migrate thousands of miles. She says
that larger view is something she strives to see in her daily life:
“And I think about them, they can just, not that there’s an infinite
number of place they can fly to, but they sort of get this more
regional or global view of the world than most other species or other
animals. So, sometimes I think that’s got to be amazing to see things
on a bigger scale like that…Sorry I always get distracted as soon as I see
a bird, so it’s hard for me to focus!”
I’m not a birder and I don’t really spend a lot of time paying
attention to birds. But after Anya and I went hiking I started to
notice them. Like the other day a cute little bird with a cherry-red
splash on its head stood next to me on the sidewalk. And I heard
woodpeckers during my morning run through the woods. Birds are
everywhere. And maybe you’re like me… you didn’t even notice them,
until somebody pointed them out.
Today we’re presenting the first in an
occasional series about peoples’ connections to
the environment. Producer Kyle Norris asked a
range of people if they felt close to nature.
She begins by talking with her uncle, a professional
fly-fisherman:
Transcript
Today we’re presenting the first in an
occasional series about peoples’ connections to
the environment. Producer Kyle Norris asked a
range of people if they felt close to nature.
She begins by talking with her uncle, a professional
fly-fisherman:
My Uncle Mark has run a fishing guide service for twenty-nine years. He
floats down the Potomac River in a 14-foot aluminum raft that he
designed. He goes through Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, where the
Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers come together near the Blue Ridge
Mountains. My uncle says that for him, the thrill of fishing dates back
to his childhood in Michigan:
“You know, when I first started, it was like I’m going to catch fish
and as a little kid I liked to ride back home from the Detroit River
with a stringer across the handlebars of my bicycle, I was the great
hunter or great fisherman. And we took turns as buddies bringing fish
home on their bikes.”
I don’t get to see my uncle a whole lot. But when I was little, he took
my cousin and me fishing. He made us kiss the first fish that we
caught. Which was kind of silly and fun.
“Oh, you always kiss your first fish. Twenty-five years ago I had some
younger anglers in my boat. And one of them caught a fish and he gave it
a kiss and let it go and I looked at him and then I caught a fish I
think a little bit later and I didn’t kiss it and he goes, ‘What are
you doing?’ and I said, ‘Well, what do you mean?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, you
have to kiss your first fish.’ And I just said, ‘Well, that makes a lot
of sense.’ I think it sets the tone for the day.”
When you hold a fish up to your face and look closely at its glistening
scales and you kiss it, you definitely feel close to it.
“I fish a lot and I hardly ever kill any fish anymore. And in fishing
it’s really the most genteel of the blood sports. You know, you have all
the pleasures of the hunt but you don’t have to make the kill.”
When my uncle talks about nature, he gets this blissed-out look on his
face.
“The water colors can vary from, you know, coffee with cream if it’s
really been a lot of rain and it’s all stirred up to where it’s a
relative clear nice green to it. It can sometimes look like a trout
stream where it’s like gin-clear, you know. It depends on rainfall and the
time of year and stuff. And I love flowing water. ‘Cause it’s always
changing and it’s moving you. Especially when you wade in it. It runs
between your legs and it’s just, you feel like you’re a part of it.”
Some people talk about nature in spiritual terms. That’s something I
never talked about with my uncle but I wondered.
“Oh, it’s probably as spiritual as I get. Yeah, I think sometimes,
sure. You get a lot of respect for nature. And I guess um, spiritual quality…um, yeah. When you really try
to embrace the whole environment and you’re taking in all the flora and
fauna, you’re taking in all the trees and the aquatic vegetation and the
insects that live in that environment and then all the, all the
creatures that live in the environment, plus the fish I might be
pursuing and stuff and then how all that works together. And then how people impact that
too, and I always feel like, I never feel like I’m in control. I always feel like there’s a lot of
variables. I have an idea of what I’m doing but I never feel that I am
like I’m in control. And so I guess there’s a spiritual quality to
that. Got a lot of respect for nature. Got a lot of respect for water.
Flowing water especially.”
The way my uncle talks about the water and the words he uses really
paints a vivid picture in my head. I can hear the love in his voice.
When he talks like that, I feel closer to the places and the fish he’s
talking about. And hearing how he really feels makes me feel closer to
him.
Some grocery stores are training their staff on the benefits and risks of eating some kinds of fish. Nels Carson (pictured) answers customers' concerns about fish contamination. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Some grocery stores are posting information about fish, but some of the major supermarket chains have done nothing to inform customers about fish contaminants such as mercury. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Fish advisories are confusing. Their guidelines change depending on your gender and age,
and on the type of fish you’re eating. Reporter Kyle Norris boils down
some of the information in advisories and comes up with a few things to think about
when you eat fish:
Transcript
Fish advisories are confusing. Their guidelines change depending on your gender and age,
and on the type of fish you’re eating. Reporter Kyle Norris boils down
some of the information in advisories and comes up with a few things to think about
when you eat fish:
So I did a little informal survey the other day where I asked my friends what they knew about
eating fish. Some of my friends said, “Hey, isn’t eating fish good for you?” Well, turns out they’re right. Fish are
great sources of protein. They’re low in “bad” fats and high in “good” fats, or omega-3
fatty acids, which help your heart stay healthy.
And some of my other friends knew that fish were bad for you. Turns out they’re also right. Fish
take in pollutants through their food and water. Toxins such as mercury, PCBs, and
dioxins. If humans eat enough contaminated fish, those contaminants can build up in our
bodies and cause serious health problems. Contaminants are especially threatening for
small children and women of childbearing age because they can affect children’s
developing nervous systems.
Governments put out advisories so we know which fish are safe to eat. But advisories aren’t
the easiest thing to understand. And anyway, what do you do if you’re in a restaurant, or
cruising through the grocery store and you just want some fish?
“Uh we’re standing in front of the seafood counter at Whole Foods and we’re looking at
our fresh case…”
That’s Nels Carlson. He heads up the seafood department at my local Whole Foods
Market. He says people ask him about fish safety everyday:
“It can be kind of a daunting topic, I think, because there is such a variety. It’s not just a
gross generalization. So it really, it takes a lot of dialogue between customers and team
members and having a very knowledgeable team member base here really helps that.”
They’ll ask him about mercury in the fish, a highly toxic metal that occurs naturally but is a lot more prevalent
mostly because of coal burning power plants. Mercury shows up in higher concentrations
in certain kinds of fish. It’s nice to have a knowledgeable guy like Nels to talk with. Good fish vendors, such as
Whole Foods, go through special training on fish safety. But what if there’s no seafood
expert hanging out next to the fish sticks in the freezer section, if you know what I mean?
Anita Sandretto teaches in the Environmental Health Sciences department at the
University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, and she said that my friends are right.
Okay, well, she didn’t really say that, but she said there are good things about fish and there are bad things about fish:
“If you want to have the benefit of the fat and the omega-3 fatty acids, eat fish with more
fat, but the fat will also be where you will see the contaminants such as PCBs, dioxin.
The flesh will also be where you might have the mercury contamination.”
See, that’s the thing about eating fish: it gets complicated and there are no hard and fast
rules. Sandretto says eating fish is all about treading a line between the advantages and
the risks. So, if there is a risk, you want to reduce it as much as possible:
“…Because if you have any risk in a particular type of food, if you only consume once in
while, you have a less risk of anything bad happening.”
So think in terms of moderation and variety. Sandretto says it’s cool if you want to eat fish once or
twice a week, and to try and vary the kinds of fish that you eat. She says moderation and
variety are actually great rules of thumb to apply to your entire diet. So you could eat a
turkey sandwich on white one day, tuna on whole wheat the next, and a veggie burger the day
after that.
If you eat fish caught from local waters, check with your regional or state health
departments for their fish advisories. Just because a waterway looks clean or is in a
picturesque setting does not mean that its fish are harmless. Contaminants enter the
water in all kinds of ways.
One last thought: imagine a little fish with a little bit of contamination in its body.
Now imagine a medium-sized fish, who swims along and eats that fish and 99 of its closest small
fish friends. That medium guy now has 100 times more contamination than the small fish.
And now let’s say a big fish swims up and gulps down ten medium fish. That big fish has a
concentration that’s 1000 times higher than what that origianal small fish had.
So the moral of that story is, eat smaller fish when possible, also called pan fish. And
at the end of the day, keep in mind that the majority of research, including a recent study
from Harvard’s School of Public Health, say that the benefits of eating fish in moderation
outweigh the risks.
