Alaska Targets Polar Bear Protections

  • The governor is promising to spend another $800,000 for outside legal help and he’s putting money into next year’s budget for a new attorney in the Alaska Department of Law. That attorney’s only job? Dealing with endangered species. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish And Wildlife Service)

The Governor of Alaska plans to fight
the Endangered Species Act protection
of the polar bear. Rebecca Williams
reports the governor plans on hiring
more lawyers:

Transcript

The Governor of Alaska plans to fight
the Endangered Species Act protection
of the polar bear. Rebecca Williams
reports the governor plans on hiring
more lawyers:

Governor Sean Parnell is picking up where Governor Sarah Palin left off and suing the federal government over the polar bear. Polar bear protections could get in the way of drilling for oil.

He’s now promising to spend another $800,000 for outside legal help and he’s putting money into next year’s budget for a new attorney in the Alaska Department of Law. That attorney’s only job? Dealing with endangered species.

“We’re going to continue to take this fight to the mat to protect our jobs and our economy so that the ESA, the Endangered Species Act, is used to truly protect species and not lock up our opportunities here.”

The Governor says those opportunities are jobs and money connected to oil and gas drilling in the polar bear’s habitat.

Governor Parnell will have more than the polar bear to worry about. Environmental groups are also trying to get several other species on the endangered list – including three types of ice seal.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Stimulus Funds for Home Weatherization

  • A fan is sized to the front door so they can de-pressurize the house. This helps them see where air is escaping - and where insulation may be needed. (Photo by Julie Grant)

The government stimulus package
included billions of new dollars
for home weatherization programs.
The money is used to help low income
folks make their homes more energy
efficient. But some critics say
it’s not a good use of federal tax
dollars. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

The government stimulus package included billions of new dollars for home weatherization programs. The money is used to help low income folks make their homes more energy efficient. But some critics say it’s not a good use of federal tax dollars. Julie Grant reports:

Chris Graham spends his days checking the energy efficiency of people’s homes.

Today he’s at Sandra Richards’ in Mogodore, Ohio.

Graham: “Hi Sandra.”

Sandra: “How are ya?”

Graham: “Wonderful. And you?”

Sandra: “Better.”

Graham: “Better?”

Sandra is 55. Her house is clean and neat. She was a nurse for many years, but today she’s sitting on the couch, watching TV. A broken foot spiraled into problems with her knee and hip – and other health problems.

“I mean I’ve just had so many things go on in such a little time. I was working 12 hour days, and one month later, I couldn’t work at all.”

Sandra qualified for the home weatherization program because she doesn’t have much in the way of income anymore.

Chris Graham says he’s been to a lot of homes where people are far worse off. They can’t get around, they don’t have money coming in, and their houses get cold in the winter.

Graham heads to the basement.

“The first thing we have to make sure is that the heating unit is not in terrible, dilapidated shape. And that it does not have more than a specified amount of carbon monoxide in the flu gasses.”

He turns on the furnace and sticks a probe into the flu pipe.

(sound of a tester)

Grant: “Looks like a receipt came out.”

Graham: “It kind of is. It tells you exactly what was going on there.”

Looks like Sandra’s furnace is running pretty well. 81% efficiency.

But Graham sees evidence of carbon monoxide on her old water heater.

“It’s 17 years old and it just plain needs changed. It’s got burnt, scorch all over it. So we’re gonna do that.”

That could cost more than $1,000.

But the home weatherization program can afford it these days. The stimulus packaged included $5-billion for this kind of work – compared with less than a quarter of a billion dollars last year. The new money has to be spent within two years.

And some people think that’s just too much money – too fast. Leslie Paige is with a taxpayer watchdog group called Citizens Against Government Waste.

“There’s always a lot of waste in government spending anyway, but when you spend it quickly and there’s very little oversight, that’s almost a prescription for seeing a lot of that money go for waste and fraud and losing to abuse.”

That kind of criticism is shocking to David Shea. He’s director the Community Action Council of Portage County, Ohio – the organization that hires inspector Chris Graham.
The weatherization program has been around since 1976 and Shea says they have to report their spending in about a hundred different ways.

“It’s not like money is being thrown out at agencies and just say, ‘oh go out and do it.’ There are volumes and volumes of written regulations that have been around for a long time. We do so much sophisticated reporting; they know how every dollar is being spent. Always. Always.”

Shea’s office used to have one crew out weatherizing homes around the county. Since the stimulus money’s come in, he’s hired a second crew. But there are so many people wanting their services, the waiting list is still years long.

(sound of a fan)

Back at Sandra Richards’ house, inspector Chris Graham has sized a big fan into the front door. He’s depressurizing the house – so he can see where air is escaping. Graham says she’s going to need some doors sealed and new insulation in the attic.

He says Sandra will feel more comfortable, so she won’t need to turn up the heat in the winter. That means she’ll save on energy costs, and will use less fossil fuels.

That’s the whole idea of this project – to use less energy in the future, and to help millions of families that couldn’t afford to improve things on their own.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Saving Energy: Simple Changes, Big Impact

  • Jack Brown is an Outreach Technician for Community Resource Project, helping to spread the word about weatherization services that families may be eligible for. In his 23 years at Community Resource, Brown says he’s assessed about 5,000 homes. (Photo by Amy Standen)

Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:

Transcript

Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save
energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining
a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:

Sure, I’ve thought about buying solar panels to put on my roof. There’s a perfect spot on
the south-facing slope – maybe we could power the whole house. But there are some
easier things we could do first – like insulate the attic or weather strip the doors. And yet,
somehow I never quite get around to them.

Why is that? Well James Sweeney directs the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at
Stanford, and he has a theory.

“Energy efficiency turns out to have low salience to people.”

Which is to say, it’s maybe… a little bit boring?

“It’s very boring.”

But if your eyes start to glaze over at the mere mention of the word “efficiency,” consider
the compact fluorescent light bulb.

“The easiest thing everyone can do is change their lighting.”

If everyone in the U.S. traded in their old incandescent light bulbs for compact
fluorescents, we’d cut electricity use by about 2%.

Which, maybe, doesn’t sound so impressive – until you consider the fact that all the solar
and all the wind power combined in the entire country amounts to point .4% of our total
energy use. That’s 0.4.

“The cleanest energy is the energy you don’t need in the first place.”

That fact has not been lost on the Obama White House. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act is pouring approximately 20 billion dollars into efficiency projects.

Five billion of that will fund what’s called the Weatherization Assistance Program, which
helps low-income families weatherproof their homes. To qualify, a family of four must
make less than $44 thousand dollars a year.

(sound of someone giving directions – “Take 25 and go to El Paso Road”)

That stimulus cash funds local non-profits like Community Resource Project, in
Sacramento, California. Since January, Community Resource’s budget has tripled, from
1.3 to 4.5 million dollars a year. They’re buying new trucks, hiring at all levels, and
going to more and more homes.

(sound of knocking at a door)

Like this one – a five-bedroom stucco ranch house in a newer suburban development
outside of Sacramento.

(sound of door opening)

“Hello, how are you doing?”

At the door is TinaMarie Dunn, a family friend who’s showing us around today. She
gives a squeeze to two-year old Anaya, one of ten children who live here.

“Look Anaya, say cheese!” (Anaya: Cheese!)

Dunn says utility bills here can hit $500 dollars a month. She says the house just doesn’t
work right.

“When the heat is on, downstairs is hot, downstairs is cold. When the air’s on, the
upstairs is cold, the downstairs is hot.”

Community Resource’s Dana Gonzalez walks into the kitchen, and pauses to take a look
around.

Standen: “So when you walked in, what was the first thing you saw?”

Gonzalez: “It’s funny. You see this door shoe and you see, actually the bottom rubber
is gone.”

He points to a two-inch gap under the front door.

“And if you put your hand here, you can actually feel the air. Anytime they kick on
their heat and cool, that’s definitely affecting their house, and in the long run, affects
their bill.”

Community Resource will spend about $1500 here, aiming to cut monthly utility bills by
as much as 20%.

They’ll weather strip the doors, patch up holes in the walls, install CFL bulbs. We’re not
talking solar panels or radiant heating – just small, mostly inexpensive adjustments that
cumulatively, have a huge impact.

The White House says these efficiency projects will create thousands of jobs, but there’s
also concern that the huge cash infusion is a recipe for fraud and mismanagement.

Department of Energy officials have called for extra vigilance in the disbursement of
weatherization cash. But, they say, the benefits, both environmental and economic, far
outweigh the risks.

For The Environment Report, I’m Amy Standen.

Related Links

Using Honey for Healing

  • Stores in Alandejani's hometown of Ottawa have had an increase in sales of manuka honey after the study was reported (Photo by Karen Kelly)

According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 90,000 Americans are diagnosed with an antibiotic-resistant infection each year. Doctors and patients are desperate to find an alternative treatment for these infections. Karen Kelly reports on the possibility of a new approach using a common household ingredient:

Transcript

According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 90,000 Americans are diagnosed with an antibiotic-resistant infection each year. Doctors and patients are desperate to find an alternative treatment for these infections. Karen Kelly reports on the possibility of a new approach using a common household ingredient:

(sound of teapot and pouring)

A lot of us like to pour a cup of tea with honey when we’re feeling achy and stuffed up.

But researcher Talal Alandejani wondered if honey might be good for more than just soothing a sore throat.

He’s an ear, nose and throat doctor at the University of Ottawa in Canada.
He knew honey had been used on the skin for centuries to kill bacteria in wounds.
And he wondered if there might be a way to use it with his patients.

He treats people with chronic sinus infections that are resistant to antibiotics.

“I thought, what if I could use it in the sinus where we use antibiotics, but we still can’t get rid of the infection. It’s a natural product, it has less side effects and it’s less expensive.”

So, Alandejani chose four different types of honey:
clover and buckwheat honeys, which are common in North America,
Manuka honey, which is grown in New Zealand and sold mostly in health food stores,
and sidr honey from Yemen, which is hard for Americans to find.

He then grew bacteria in petri dishes.
Some were free-floating – the kind killed by antibiotics.
The others are called biofilms – they have a coating that resists medications, and they’re the cause of chronic sinus infections and other diseases.

Alandejani squirted the bacteria with antibiotics in one dish, and honey in the other.

The manuka and sidr honey -along with the medications – killed the free-floating bacteria.
The biofilms, though, were a different story.
The antibiotics didn’t kill them, but the honey did.

In fact, the two foreign honeys killed about 90% of the pseudomonas and 60 to 70% of MRSA bacteria. Both can cause deadly infections.

Alandejani presented his findings at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Oto-laryn-gology, Head and Neck Surgery.

And he was swamped with questions from doctors and sinus patients eager to try it.

“Even the patients in our clinics want us to treat them right now, before even doing the trials or the animal studies. And they’re willing to take the harm of it, if there is any, because their disease is not treated until now.”

Alandejani says the challenge is that the honey has to come in contact with the bacteria – so it would have to be diluted and injected into the sinuses.

Dr. Murray Grossan is an ear, nose, and throat doctor in Santa Monica.
He says the treatment looks promising.

“They do use honey for stomach problems, stomach ulcers and so on, so it probably would be pretty safe to put into the sinus. But unfortunately, we have to go through all sorts of protocol there.”


In the meantime, stores in Alandejani’s hometown of Ottawa have had an increase in sales of manuka honey after the study was reported.

It’s not cheap – manuka honey can cost as much as $50 a jar.

Alandejani says he used the regular manuka honey, nothing especially strong.
And he can’t vouch for it’s effectiveness if you just eat it.

But he’s now trying it on sinuses in animal studies.

And soon, his patients with chronic sinusitus will have their chance to try it as well.

For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

Rethinking Window Replacement

  • Jack Spicer of Preservation Chicago is on a campaign to save the venerable 'wood frame window,' like these on his Chicago home. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Each winter presents some homeowners with a choice: whether to replace old,
wooden windows with modern, energy-efficient ones before cold winds blow
again. Each year, more homeowners choose the replacement windows, often made from vinyl or aluminum. Shawn Allee found some historical preservationists want homeowners to think twice about that:

Transcript

Each winter presents some homeowners with a choice: whether to replace old,
wooden windows with modern, energy-efficient ones before cold winds blow
again. Each year, more homeowners choose the replacement windows, often made from vinyl or aluminum. Shawn Allee found some historical preservationists want homeowners to think twice about that:

If you think century-old windows have to be rickety and leaky, Jack
Spicer would like you to come to his place.

He’s eager to show off windows on his Chicago two-flat, built in 1908.

“So, here’s an example of the way an old-fashioned wood window
looks from the outside a hundred years later. These windows are
longer-lasting and obviously better looking than any replacement window you
can find.”

It’s no surprise Spicer makes this pitch.
He’s with a group called Preservation Chicago, and he’s on a campaign
to save wood-frame windows from the onslaught of vinyl and aluminum-framed
replacements.

Spicer’s losing ground, even in his own neighborhood.

“This apartment building replaced their windows. The next building
replaced all their windows. If you look across the street at this huge
courtyard building, there’re about 48 units in there. Those windows were
fine, and those windows are now trashed. They went into a dumpster and are
now in a landfill somewhere.”

But if old wood-framed windows are so great, why do so many US homeowners
replace them?

“Somebody told them it would save them money if you put in brand-new
replacement windows. Everybody’s taught that – you read about it, you
see the ads. All the replacement window (companies) tell you, if you’re
American and you love your children, you’ll replace your windows. Well,
we’re getting over that now, I hope.”

Spicer insists replacing your windows is not an environmental slam dunk.

He says if old wood-frame windows are properly sealed and have storm
windows, they’ll hold heat almost as well as replacements.

I ask Spicer for numbers on this, and he sends me to Mike Jackson, with
Illinois’ Historic Preservation Agency.

“Several years ago, Vermont as a state did a study and they looked
at repairing windows, adding storm windows, replacing windows, and what it
really came down to was, how leaky are your windows? If they were
reasonably tight, there wasn’t a lot of savings to replacing your windows
at all.”

Jackson says a new furnace or insulation are better pay-offs, and
replacement windows often last just a few decades.

“We’re throwing away items that lasted for a hundred years with
simple technologies and replacing them with more complex things with
shorter life spans. In our line, the reason they call them replacement
windows is because you have to keep replacing them.”

Well, people in the replacement window industry don’t take kindly to
this.

One rep told me the short life span of replacement windows is overblown –
high quality ones last longer.
And he told me, if energy prices rise in the future, replacement windows
become more competitive.

So, is it worth replacing old, wooden windows?

“There’re many factors and that’s why it’s, in our opinion,
not so clear-cut.”

Christian Kohler studies window technology at the Lawrence-Berkeley
National Laboratory.

He says replacement windows are better on energy, but it could take decades
to get a good payback and by that time, you might need to replace them
again.

Anyway, Kohler says there’s an alternative.

If your wood windows are in good condition, you can add storm windows that
have what’s called a “low – E” coating.
The coating helps retain heat.

“It’s applied to glass and it’s virtually invisible. It
doesn’t have a color or anything.”

Kohler says if preservationists want to keep wood windows around on account
of their looks or long-term value, it still makes sense to crack down on
leaks and get good storm windows.

It doesn’t make sense to waste energy on account of beauty when you
don’t have to.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

The Giving Shade Tree

  • If you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home, those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent (Photo by Jessi Ziegler)

Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Economists looked at utility bills of homes in California on the hottest days
of the year.

Geoffrey Donovan is with the Forest Service Research Station.

He says, if you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home,
those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent.

“So putting a tree somewhere it’s going to cast shadows at the warmest time
of the day. The other thing you want to think about is winter sunshine.
Particularly on the south side of a house you may want to put a deciduous
tree as opposed to an evergreen tree so in wintertime you’ll get some
sunshine through that.”

Donovan says how close you put those trees to your house matters too. For
the most energy savings, shade trees should be within 40 to 60 feet of your
home.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

2008 One of Warmest Years on Record

  • The classic photograph of the Earth, taken by the Apollo 17 crew on December 7, 1972 traveling toward the moon (Photo courtesy of NASA-JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth)

2008 is on track to be one of the
ten warmest years on record. Rebecca Williams
has more:

Transcript

2008 is on track to be one of the ten warmest years on record. Rebecca Williams has more:

Scientists keep track of how hot and how cold it gets in places all over the planet. And this time of year they tally up the data.

Karsten Shein is with the National Climatic Data Center. He says 2008 was a cooler year – but it still ranks as one of the top ten warmest years in the past century.

“We do see there are periods where temperatures have gotten cooler for a short period of time and periods where temperatures have gotten warmer for a short period of time but over the entire period of record we’ve seen a general warming trend.”

Shein says many places around the planet continue to have more extreme weather – more rain, more heat waves and more snow.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Heat Leak Detecting Raygun

  • The light beam changes to blue when it hits a spot of colder temperature (Photo courtesy of Black & Decker)

Soon, you’ll be able to buy
a sort of raygun to detect heating
leaks in your home. Jessi Ziegler reports on a Thermal Leak
Detector:

Transcript

Soon, you’ll be able to buy
a sort of raygun to detect heating
leaks in your home. Jessi Ziegler reports on a Thermal Leak
Detector:

This tool looks like a little toy raygun, and it shines beams of light
that read the temperature around your house.

Scott Pollard is the Senior Product Manager at Black and
Decker, which makes the tool. He says it’s really easy to use.

“Shine it on the wall, it starts off with a green light, and as they
move it from their wall to their window, or door, or around pipes,
or floor, or ceiling, the color will change to red if it hits a hot spot,
or blue if it hits a cold spot.”

And, if you think you the little leaks don’t really matter, well,
Pollard’s research shows that if you add up all the little cracks
and leaks in a typical home, it equals a hole the size of a
basketball.

The EPA says that homeowners can save 20% on their heating
and cooling costs if they seal air leaks and insulate their houses.

For The Environment Report, this is Jessi Ziegler.

Related Links

Hard Times and Heating Homes

  • 31% of low-income people said they kept their home so cold it felt unsafe. 20% said they had their electricity or gas shut off for some amount of time. (Photo by Gerald Downing, courtesy of FEMA)

Now that the price of oil has
dropped, the cost of heating your home
won’t be as high as experts were predicting
this summer. But millions of Americans
are still struggling to pay their heating
bills. Rebecca Williams reports in some
rare cases having your heat shut off can
mean being evicted from your home. And,
in the worst case, it can even mean losing
your children:

Transcript

Now that the price of oil has
dropped, the cost of heating your home
won’t be as high as experts were predicting
this summer. But millions of Americans
are still struggling to pay their heating
bills. Rebecca Williams reports in some
rare cases having your heat shut off can
mean being evicted from your home. And,
in the worst case, it can even mean losing
your children:

Demetria Salinas has three kids. Money is tight and she’s worried about
getting through the winter.

“I’m kinda nervous because I mean what if we don’t have enough to pay the
bills, then what do we do?”

She says she tries to save on heat by putting extra sweaters on her kids, and
turning the furnace off.

“Put the gas on for a little bit and turn it off, and when it gets a little bit
colder, put it back on. But it does definitely mean layering up, even in the
house.”

She says that’s hard on her kids.

Many parents are in these impossible situations. The National Energy
Assistance Director’s Association has found low-income people often have
to choose between paying their heating bills and feeding their kids.

31% said they kept their home so cold it felt unsafe. 20% of low income
people said they had their electricity or gas shut off for some amount of
time.

Phil Thompson works for Capital Area Community Services in Lansing,
Michigan. His agency helps people pay their bills and talks with utility
companies to buy people more time. He says usually utilities won’t shut
heat off in the coldest days of winter.

“Most utility companies are sympathetic to the situation of not having heat
in the wintertime. There’s always those horror stories of a senior or
handicapped individual who froze because their utility was turned off.
They’re going to do everything they can to keep that from happening.”

But Thompson says he sees a lot of people get their heat shut off in the
spring, and it can still get cold then.

Now, in some states, if the heat is shut off – even for just a little while – you
can be evicted.

“In some cases where there’s small children it’s very possible that Child
Protective Services would get involved and possibly remove the kids from
the household when there’s no utilities.”

That’s right – the state can take kids away if the utilities are shut off.

We talked with foster care workers in several states, and they all said that
this is rare. They said they do everything they can to keep families together,
and they can sometimes help pay heating bills. But they also said a home
with no heat is often a sign that something else is wrong.

Andrea Yocum is an investigator with Child Protective Services north of
Detroit.

“Typically there’s other reasons why they’re removed for example, if the
family’s just not willing to pay their bills because they’re using the money
for other things like drugs or alcohol.”

But Yocum says sometimes it’s just not the family’s fault.

“I have had families that were evicted as a result of their landlord not paying
their bills, and utilities turned off the same because the landlord’s not taking
care of what’s happening within the home.”

If families are evicted, it can be temporary, maybe just a couple days until
the heat’s back on. But for families living in poverty, having the heat turned
off again can happen as soon as the next bill is late.

There is some good news this year. There’s federal money that states use to
help people pay their heating bills. Because fuel prices were expected to go
up, Congress doubled that pot of money this year. Most states are reporting
they’re in a better position to help people now.

But winter is just beginning and they’re already getting a lot more people
asking for help with their heating bills than in the past.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Brave New Warmer World for Vintners

  • Drier areas will find a warmer climate makes things tougher, but other areas might benefit (Photo by Patrick Tregenza, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

Farmers are starting to see signs
of climate change. One crop that’s more
susceptible to change than most is the wine
grape. Lester Graham reports not everybody
thinks that’s bad:

Transcript

Farmers are starting to see signs
of climate change. One crop that’s more
susceptible to change than most is the wine
grape. Lester Graham reports not everybody
thinks that’s bad:

Vineyards are likely to be especially affected by climate change.

Gregory Jones is a research climatologist at Southern Oregon University. He says
growing grapes for wine is always a tricky business, and climate change will make it
tricker.

Gregory Jones: “Pinot noir is produced in a cool climate and cabernet sauvignon in
a warm climate, and you cannot produce one in the other without having it affect
style, quality and flavor.”

So, grape growers across the nation are watching things closely. Drier areas will
find it tougher, but other areas actually might benefit.

Bill Hendricks is showing me his vines. Pinot grigio, cabernet franc, cabernet
sauvignon.

Hendricks says grape growers in central Michigan – where he is, Virginia, Missouri, California – they’re all beginning to see changes.

“They see it coming. You know, the record year of ’99—what, 2001 I also think.
Like, last year we were about ten days above norm. This year we’re four days above
norm.”

As the climate changes, some vineyards might have to switch to different varietals –
different kinds of grapes.

(sound of the peninsula)

More than 200 miles northwest of Hendrick’s vineyards, on a peninsula jutting into Lake Michigan, there’s a wine
growing area called Leelanau. It’s known for its white wines. It’s always been a little too
cool for red wine grapes, but things are changing.

Chalie Edson is the vintner at Bel Lago Vineyard and Winery. He says he doesn’t
want to call the warmer seasons global warming.

“Not being a climatologist, I’m going to answer
‘no.’ It’s tempting to say ‘Yes, yes. It’s getting warmer.’ Whether that translates into
overall increase of warmth in expected temperatures in the years to come, I think that’s still
somewhat speculative. But, I sort of hope that it happens.”

Yep, you heard right. Global warming would be beneficial to Edson. You might be
wondering, ‘why?’ Well, because this climate is better suited to white wines, and red wines
sell better.

“People come to northern
Michigan just like they come to any other winemaking region and they ask for reds.
We’ve made some really great progress in the last ten years in making reds as the
winemakers learn better how to utilize the fruit that we have here. And we’ve also
had a string of really warm vintages.”

But right now, Leelanua County is known for its white wines.

Climatologist, Gregory Jones says there’s a real question whether wine
consumers will be able to keep up with the changes.

“If you’re in a historic region that’s always produced pinot noir and all of a sudden
you really can’t do that, you know, because the climate’s changed, then you’re going
to grow merlot and you’re going to do it very well in that same place, but the
consumer has to be retrained.”

And so Burgandy wines might not come from Burgandy in the future, and wine
drinkers will have to try to keep up.

(sound of bottles clinking and price-tag gun clicking)

At Plum Market in Ann Arbor, Michigan, wine buyer Rod Johnson says climate
change has been a good thing for wine – so far.

“So, places like Michigan which traditionally have been too cold is suddenly seeing a
lot of different wines like pinot grigio and riesling, even pinot noir being able to be
grown here. So that’s beneficial. Same thing in Germany. They’ve had great year
after great year after great year in Germany where it used to be they were too cold.
When we get to the point that we’re hurting the wine business, I think there will be a
lot more hurt going elsewhere in the world.”

So if those dry California areas or Mediterranean areas get too warm and too dry for
wine grapes, that’ll probably be the least of their worries.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links