Green Cars: The New Black

  • The Chevrolet Volt was named the 2011 Car of the Year at the North American International Auto Show. (Photo courtesy of GM)

In past years, most of the so-called “green cars” at the North American International Auto Show were concept cars – not ready for prime time. This year is different, as Tracy Samilton reports:


The Toyota Prius has been America’s premier environmentally friendly car for ten years. Now, the car has some serious competition. Both the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf have an EPA fuel economy rating the equivalent of more than 90 miles to the gallon.


Brad Berman is founder of plug in cars dot com.


“Suddenly it makes the Prius’s 50 mpg seem mild, Now it’s Toyota’s turn to say, hey, we’re still relevant.”


Toyota is turning the Prius into an entire brand. People going to the show will be able to see three new Prius vehicles, including a plug-in being unveiled in Detroit.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.


AUDIO: “And the 2011 North American Car of the Year is… the Chevrolet Volt.”

(cheers and applause)

The Volt beat out the Hyundai Sonata and Nissan Leaf to take the big prize. The Volt’s a part-electric, part-hybrid car.


With every automaker investing heavily in electric and hybrid technology… it makes you wonder what we’ll be driving five, 10, 50 years from now. Tracy Samilton covers the auto industry for Michigan Radio. She joins me now to talk about this.


So Tracy – we’ve been hearing predictions about the death of the internal combustion engine for a decade – are those predictions coming true?

The North American International Auto Show

A related news story about the Car of the Year Award

How electric cars work

Transcript

Samilton: No. Based on the way batteries are going now, they’re so expensive that it is still going to be much more economical for most of us to buy a car with a regular internal combustion engine, at least for the next 10, 20 years.


RW: So with all the buzz about the Chevy Volt, how many Volts does GM actually expect to sell this year?


Samilton: Yeah, it’s an interesting situation because they are probably going to sell fewer cars than any other vehicle that won this award. They are probably going to sell 10,000, they are going to build 10,000 cars this year. Next year, maybe 60,000, although GM wants to sell more and is trying to figure out how can we sell more of these vehicles.


RW: At the same time, Consumer Reports recently put out their latest car brand perception survey, and they found out that although most people do want better fuel efficiency, they’re not willing to pay more for it. So, how are automakers going to make these expensive electric and hybrid technologies affordable?


Samilton: That’s a really good question and they’re trying to figure out the answer to that right now. It’s a chicken and egg situation. You know, they have to bring down the cost of the battery, but in order to bring down the cost of the battery, they have to get more of us to buy the car so they can bring down the price through volume. And getting a consumer to say I’m willing to pay that extra money just for the good of say, climate change, is going to be a very difficult proposition.


RW: So what kind of cars do you think we’re going to be driving in the near future and longer term?


Samilton: The internal combustion engine is going to be king for decades, really. For the mid-term, let’s say in the next 20 to 30 to 40 years, we’re going to see more people driving hybrids and plug-in hybrids. And really the long term is way out there in terms of when will the average person perhaps be driving an electric vehicle, maybe by the year 2050 there will be more of these vehicles on the road. And then of course, there is a good chance that we’ll start to see fuel cell vehicles using hydrogen. Very clean vehicles, but also like electric vehicles, very expensive.


RW: Okay, thanks, Tracy.


Samilton: You’re welcome.


Tracy Samilton covers the auto industry for Michigan Radio. That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Founding Family Scolds Exxon

  • An Exxon-Mobil worker on the job (Photo courtesy of the US Dept of Labor)

The family that founded Exxon-Mobil wants the
oil company to invest more in alternative energy.
Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The family that founded Exxon-Mobil wants the
oil company to invest more in alternative energy.
Lester Graham reports:

John D. Rockefeller was one of the first oil barons in the U.S. His family still owns a
good chunk of Exxon-Mobil. But the family thinks the senior managers of Exxon-Mobil
are banking on fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, too much.

During a news conference Neva Rockefeller Goodwin said the majority of the family is
concerned that Shell, Chevron, BP and others are investing in alternative energy, while
Exxon-Mobil is behind the curve.

“In important areas like renewable energy strategies, bringing a variety of technologies to
scale and preparing for policies stemming from global climate risk, Exxon’s competitors
are far out in front.”

The family says a few billion of the 25-billion dollars a year Exxon-Mobil plans to spend
for oil and gas exploration should be spent exploring alternative energy.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Interview: Economics and Environment

In the last few decades the economy of the
US has grown faster than ever before. Corporations
work hard to expand and to drive share prices higher.
The author of a new book ‘The Bridge at the Edge of
the World’ says in this process of growth, capitalism
is not paying for its consequences. Lester Graham
talked with Gus Speth, the dean of the School of
Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale. Speth
says since the environmental movement began in the
1970’s, we’ve dealt with many of the symptoms of
environmental damage, but not many of the causes:

Transcript

In the last few decades the economy of the US has grown faster than ever
before. Corporations work hard to expand and to drive share prices higher.
The author of a new book ‘The Bridge at the Edge of the World’ says in this
process of growth, capitalism is not paying for its consequences. Lester Graham
talked with Gus Speth, the dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental
Studies at Yale. Speth says since the environmental movement began in the
1970’s, we’ve dealt with many of the symptoms of environmental damage, but
not many of the causes:

Gus Speth: “We did do some cleaning up, and certainly rounded out a lot of the
rough edges, but despite that, we are in a very dire situation now, I believe. The
global warming issue, disruptive climate change coming at us, is the most potent
environmental threat that we’ve ever experienced. Meanwhile: we’ve been losing
an acre a second of tropical forest for decades now, we’re consuming vast
quantities of fresh water from our streams and rivers, a flock of rivers no longer
reach the ocean in the dry season around the world, we’re over-fishing 75% of
the marine fisheries, 90% of the large predator fish in the oceans are gone, half
of the wetlands are gone, we’re extinguishing species a thousand times the rate
of natural extinction. So, these are very serious problems.”

Lester Graham: “You suggest in your book that tackling environmental problems
will require us all to stop looking at things with such a narrow view. The
environment is connected and affected by business, and government, and
lifestyle – or, in other words: capitalism, democracy, and consumerism. Do you
want to change the world? Is that what it is going to take?”

Speth: “Well, I think, quite literally, we have all got to be out to save the world at
this point. And I think these issues are linked. We forget sometimes that the real
thing that is undermining the environment is economic activity. And this growth
carries with it enormous potential for increased environmental destruction. Now,
the problem is, companies have enormous incentive not to pay their
environmental costs, to push these costs off on to other people and on to future
generations. The result is that the prices for their products are environmentally
dishonest.”

Graham: “Can you give me an example of a case like that?”

Speth: “Well, I would say any oil or coal company, and us in using the oil and the
coal in our electricity and in our homes or whatever. We’re paying nothing
compared with the environmental cost that the use of the fossil fuels is imposing
on our environment and on our own human health. And that basic arrangement
is buttressed by enormous power, now, on the part of the corporate sector. Not
only are they the principle economic actors in our system, but they are the
principle political actors in our system, now. It is buttressed by our own
consumerism, our own pathetic capitulation to the advertising machine that we
face everyday. And it’s buttressed by government, which is really wholly
dependant now on growth for raising extra taxes without having to raise tax rates,
and for holding out the promise of better lives which don’t materialize.”

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Bush and Greenhouse Gas

  • President Bush giving the State of the Union address (Photo courtesy of the US Department of State)

President George Bush is proposing the next
step for the country to deal with greenhouse emissions
contributing to climate change. Lester Graham reports
the President’s proposal is not popular with everyone:

Transcript

President George Bush is proposing the next
step for the country to deal with greenhouse emissions
contributing to climate change. Lester Graham reports
the President’s proposal is not popular with everyone:

President Bush says he’s following his plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions that he first outlined in 2002.

“I put our nation on a path to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of our
greenhouse gas emissions. In 2002 I announced our first step: to reduce America’s
greenhouse gas intensity by 18% through 2012.”

That’s not an 18% reduction in greenhouse gases, but rather a slowing in growth of the
gases. President Bush says it’s time to look at the next step.

“Today I’m announcing a new national goal: to stop the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions by 2025.”

The President says some of the steps to get to that point are already in place: a
phased in new mileage standard for vehicles; increased use of renewable fuels such as
cellulosic ethanol, wind, and solar; nuclear, and clean coal power generation; and more
efficient appliances.

Some environmentalists say this move is a non-starter. Eileen Claussen is the
President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

“You could say ‘More of the same.’ Or, you could say that it’s worse because actually his
proposal is to let emissions grow for another 17 years.”

Claussen says greenhouse gas restrictions need to be put in place much sooner.

While the environmentalists think the President’s proposal is weak and offers few
specifics, conservatives think the President is reversing his course and headed for
economic trouble.

The conservative think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute says this move will
destroy President Bush’s legacy.

Marlo Lewis is a Senior Fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He says
capping CO2 won’t do enough to stop or even slow global warming and it will end up
being disastrous for the economy.

“It’s all cost for no benefit.”

Lewis expects a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse emissions will be put in place if
the President continues down this path. Lewis says if that happens, quote, “climate change alarmists” will never let it stop.

“Until basically you’re trying to run your economy on wind turbines and solar panels
which simply would not work.”

He says if the environmentalists want a future without fossil fuels and their accompanying
greenhouse gases, the country will need to dam up rivers for hydro-power and build a
bunch of new nuclear power plants.

With only nine months left in President Bush’s final term in office, the President’s
proposals might not mean that much. Eileen Claussen with the Pew Center on Global
Climate Change believes other politicians are well ahead of the President on the issue.

“The good news is that I’m not sure that his strategy here is really relevant. We have a
Congress that is working hard to come up with a bill that would cap emissions. We
have governors in 23 states who are working on cap-and-trade programs to limit their
emissions. We’ve got three presidential candidates – all three – who support capping
emissions.”

President Bush announced his plan to deal with greenhouse gases in preparation for
the G-8 summit of industrialized nations this summer. The President says, there, they plan to come up with
a plan that will call for rapidly developing nations such as China and India to make the
same kind of restrictions as the U.S. so that the United States is not at an economic
disadvantage.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Mckibben: Are We Running Out of Time?

  • On the left is a photograph of Muir Glacier taken on August 13, 1941, by glaciologist William O. Field; on the right, a photograph taken from the same vantage on August 31, 2004, by geologist Bruce F. Molnia of the United States Geological Survey. According to Molnia, between 1941 and 2004 the glacier retreated more than seven miles and thinned by more than 800 meters. (Photo courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center)

Back in 1989, a guy named Bill McKibben wrote
the first book on global warming intended for a general
audience. He was attacked – by conservative talk show
hosts and others. Global warming, climate change – was
crazy talk just 20 years ago. Lester Graham talked with
Bill McKibben about how long it took for climate change
to grab the public’s attention:

Transcript

Back in 1989, a guy named Bill McKibben wrote
the first book on global warming intended for a general
audience. He was attacked – by conservative talk show
hosts and others. Global warming, climate change – was
crazy talk just 20 years ago. Lester Graham talked with
Bill McKibben about how long it took for climate change
to grab the public’s attention:

Lester Graham: “Since you first started writing about climate change, the public
has become much more informed, more aware about the issue. So when will we
get to the point where enough people are willing to take action, or force the
government to take action?”

Bill McKibben: “That’s the question. You know, 18 months or so ago, I just got
despairing that we were ever going to get to that point. And, the first thing I did
was do this slightly cockamamie, but in the end, quite successful, march across
the state of Vermont, where I live. And because it was so successful, last year –
’07, we did this ‘Step It Up’ campaign, and we organized 1400 demonstrations in
all 50 states. Now, we’re trying the same thing on a global level. We’re calling it
‘350.org’, 350 being the number that the scientists are now telling us is the ‘upper
end of where we want to be’ with carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere, measured in
parts per million. We’re beginning to make those political steps. We’ve gotten
more traction in the last 18 months than we got in the 18 years before that, that
I’ve been working on this.”

Graham: “How much of that had to do with Al Gore’s movie?”

McKibben: “I think the two key things were Hurricane Katrina, I think it opens the
door, and I think Al Gore walks through it, you know. We’re now at the point
where 70% of Americans understand that there is a problem. But that doesn’t
mean that change comes automatically. We’ve got, maybe, a little window left –
but not much of one. And we’ve really got to get big change, globally, soon.”

Graham: “When I look at popular culture – priorities placed on having the right
things, living in the right house in the right neighborhood, driving the right car – I
wonder if my concerns about the environment aren’t just a little futile. When do
you find yourself most in doubt about whether we’ll ever arrive at some kind of
proper balance?”

McKibben: (laughs) “Oh, yeah. I find myself in doubt about that a lot. It’s not
that I think that given enough time we wouldn’t get there. Look, we’ve evolved
this incredible collection of emotions, and intellect, and senses, and muscles, and
stuff – it’s got to be for something more than reclining on the couch and flipping
the remote. I think, give us 75 years, and we’ll have grown out of this particular
phase that we’re in. The problem is we don’t have 75 years. So, of course, there
are moments when one despairs, and despairs a lot. On the other hand, one
looks around, and sees that, in this country, local farmers markets are suddenly
the fastest growing part of the food economy. That people everywhere I go are
at least beginning to talk about how much they’d like to put solar panels up on
their roof. It hasn’t yet quite gotten ahead of the Jacuzzi and the list of must-
have items, but I think it’s getting there pretty fast. As I say, I think it’s a race at
this point.”

Graham: “So you think ‘green’ might be becoming trendy?”

McKibben: “Well, ‘green’ is clearly trendy for the moment. But I think it’s more
than it’s becoming trendy. I think it’s that people are beginning to realize that the
kind of changes we want to see in our communities are also the kind of changes
that we need to see to make environmental progress.”

Bill McKibben’s latest book is a collection of his essays about the environment.
It’s called The Bill McKibben Reader, published by Holt.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Birds Springing North Too Early

  • Aleutian Cackling Goose (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Some migratory birds are heading North earlier
because of climate change. That’s causing problems for
some bird species. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some migratory birds are heading North earlier
because of climate change. That’s causing problems for
some bird species. Lester Graham reports:

On their way north, the migratory birds check things out at each stop along the way. If
the leaves are budding and the days are warm, they keep going north. But because of
climate change they’re getting to their breeding grounds a lot earlier.

Johannes Foufoloupolus is a researcher with the University of Michigan. He says, for
example, in the Rocky Mountain region, robins are arriving early. And when they go to
their highland breeding grounds, there’s still snow on the ground.

“A robin eats worms and it can’t really tunnel through six feet of snow to get to the
worms. So, that might be a problem.”

Other birds arrive early to find one of their main sources of food, insects, are not
emerging yet. What makes it worse, in some species the females like to hook-up with
males who get to the breeding grounds early. But with not as much food and cold
snaps, it means some baby birds are not surviving as well.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Report: West Warming Fast

  • The Colorado River in the Eastern end of the Grand Canyon National Park, below Desert View Overlook (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

A report from environmentalists concludes the
American West is getting hotter faster than the rest of
the globe. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A report from environmentalists concludes the
American West is getting hotter faster than the rest of
the globe. Lester Graham reports:

Now, this report was not peer reviewed, but The Natural Resources Defense Council and the
Rocky Mountain Climate Organization insist the data show it’s gotten hotter in the West
when you compare the last five years to the global average during the last century.

Theo Spencer is with the NRDC. He says water is always important in the West, and
this climate change is causing problems.

“The Colorado River Basin, which provides water for about 30 million people in the West, the temperature over the past 5 years increased 2.2 degrees. So that’s 120% more than the rest of the globe.”

The report says the Colorado is in a record drought – and that affects Denver,
Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Warmer World Brings Health Worries

  • The back of a female patient with a doctor who is using a stethoscope to listen to her lungs. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

Public health advocates say governments and
individuals should take more precautions as global
warming continues. Chuck Quirmbach has more:

Transcript

Public health advocates say governments and
individuals should take more precautions as global
warming continues. Chuck Quirmbach has more:

Most scientists say a warmer climate will bring some good things for public health, like
longer food growing seasons in parts of the world. But Dr. Georges Benjamin also
believes the forecasts of what bad things might happen.

“We know that climate change certainly could increase air pollution, leading to increases
in things like asthma, allergy and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease”

Benjamin heads the American Public Health Association. The group is issuing a
blueprint for health professionals and the public to combat climate change.

The effort includes calls for government to provide more shelter and health monitoring
during heatwaves, and recommendations for people to be more careful during high
temperatures and heavy rainfalls. The group will also urge Congress to consider health
issues when it debates legislation to curb global warming.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Cousteau Family in the Amazon

  • Jean-Michel Cousteau and school children from Iquitos at the Pilpintuwasi Butterfly Farm and Amazon Animal Orphanage, Pilpintuwasi. (Photo by Carrie Vonderhaar, Ocean Futures Society/KQED)

A TV documentary will soon bring the Amazon River
basin to living rooms across the nation. Lester Graham
reports the two-part series looks at how the Amazon
affects climate change for all of us:

Transcript

A TV documentary will soon bring the Amazon River
basin to living rooms across the nation. Lester Graham
reports the two-part series looks at how the Amazon
affects climate change for all of us:

The Amazon and its tributaries make up the largest river system in the world.

(Documentary narrator: “In spite of the enormous scale of this tropical rainforest basin, scientific evidence increasingly has revealed how fragile this ecosystem is. And how what happens here will influence global climate dramatically, possible irreversibly, within the next 10 to 20 years.”)

This two-part program produced by Jean-Michel Cousteau, “Return to the Amazon”,
shows that trees are the key to creating rain in the region and keeping the river alive.

Fifty-percent of moisture for rain in the Amazon is released directly from the trees.
So fewer trees means less rain.

(chainsaw noise)

20% of the Amazon rainforest has already been cut down.

And scientists predict if 30 to 40% of the Amazon forest is cut, it will pass a tipping
point, becoming too dry to survive, and no longer absorbing climate changing carbon
dioxide.

Jose Alvarez Alonso is with the Peruvian Amazon Research Institute. In the
documentary he says illegal logging not only endangers the forest, and the climate, but exploits the
indigenous people: paying them a small bag of sugar to illegally cut down an entire
mahogany tree, and in the process destroying their way of life.

“I can tell you that the mahogany taken out of the Amazon now is stained with
blood.”

Most of the logging is, at least, controversial. Much of it’s corrupt. And, often, it’s illegal. But Brazil still
exports massive amounts of wood.

That’s because people in the U.S. and Europe keep buying the rainforest wood.

In the 25 years since Jean Michel Cousteau last visited the Amazon with his father
Jacques Cousteau, he says there have been some disturbing changes and he
wanted people to see what’s going on. We asked Jean Michel Cousteau what he
hopes people get from the programs.

Cousteau: “Well, I really hope that it will be more than people just having had a good time, discovering a place maybe they didn’t know about, or have heard about but didn’t focus on some of the issues, and some of the solutions, and meet some of the local people. And that beyond all of that, they will take action. I really hope that people will be aware enough to understand the connections that they have, how much we depend upon places like the Amazon for the quality of our lives, every one of us.”

Graham: People who watch programs like yours, they look at these things, and they have one question: ‘Well, what can I do?’ What can an individual do when looking at a big problem like this?

Cousteau: Well, what you can do, there’s a lot you can do. As an individual, by being aware. How can you protect what you don’t understand? So, what we’re offering the public is answers to perhaps some of the questions or to highlight some of the problems. That allows you, as an individual decision maker, to make some better decisions when it comes to the wood you’re going to buy, the next time you look at a piece of furniture, you have the right to ask the question: ‘Is that coming from the rainforest?’

The two-part TV series does outline many of the problems. But, it also offers some
hope as researchers, environmentalists and governments in the Amazon basin work
to solve some of those problems.

For the Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Turn Off the Lights on Saturday Night

  • Photograph of illuminated incandescent-replacement fluorescent bulb. (Source: Jdorwin at Wikimedia Commons)

On Saturday night from 8 to 9 the World Wildlife
Fund is asking you to turn off your lights for Earth Hour.
Lester Graham reports sitting in the dark is supposed to
make you think about how you contribute to global warming:

Transcript

On Saturday night from 8 to 9 the World Wildlife
Fund is asking you to turn off your lights for Earth Hour.
Lester Graham reports sitting in the dark is supposed to
make you think about how you contribute to global warming:

The World Wildlife Fund is organizing the Earth Hour. Some have questioned whether
what some might consider a “publicity stunt” will really make a difference. Joe Pouliot is
with the group.

“Well I wouldn’t characterize this as a stunt. Climate change, unfortunately, hasn’t been getting a huge amount of attention. But because of the activities of Earth Hour, people are really beginning to focus on the challenges of climate change.”

Earth Hour wants you to shut off your lights for an hour because lot of electricity comes
from coal-burning power plants. They put out a lot of carbon dioxide, a main
greenhouse gas. Pouliot says people, organizations and cities on six continents are
participating in Earth Hour, including the cities of Toronto, Altlanta, Chicago, Phoenix
and San Francisco.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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