Interview: President of the National Wildlife Federation

  • Larry Schweiger says that we as a society are losing connection with nature, but those who are in nature every day are seeing the changes of global warming take place. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, David Parsons)

The head of a hunting, fishing and bird-watching group has written a book that indicates to save nature as we know it, we have to come to grips with climate change. Larry Schweiger is the President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation and author of the book “Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth.” Lester Graham recently talked with him:

Transcript

Graham: You write in your book, “like it or not, global warming is the defining issue of the twenty-first century,” but you also note that there’s a significant amount of what you call “cynical obfuscation” of the science on global warming. If the overwhelming amount of science supports the fact that climate change is happening, and burning fossil fuels is contributing to that change, why is skepticism among the American public growing?

Schweiger: Well I think you need to look at how much money’s being spent by the fossil fuel industry, the oil and coal industry, to confuse the American public on this issue, and they have done a masterful job, as we’ve seen, in creating doubt, sending signals of confusion…

Graham: Most scientists tell me the effects of global warming are happening faster than first predicted, but those effects are often lost on the general public. Your group, the NWF represents hunters, fishers, bird-watchers, people who are out in nature. Are they noticing changes?

Schweiger: They are, and they are helping us to communicate to congress, and helping us to get the word out about what’s taking place. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans today spend 7 hours or more in front of a computer screen or a TV screen, or in some other way disconnected from nature. The average child, for example, spends some 7 minutes a day in nature, so we as a society are losing connection with nature, but those who are in nature each and every day are seeing the changes take place ‘cause they’ve watched it over their lifetime.

Graham: Your book not only makes the case that the world of nature as we know it is worth saving, but you note some things that everyday folks can do—you can protect natural areas near you, talk back to news media, push the politicians, get your hands dirty, literally, by organic gardening at home, but I get the impression most of us are looking to someone else to solve this global problem, I mean after all, the earth is just too darn big for any one of us to make much of a difference.

Schweiger: Well that’s a very important question because in America we assume that our government is gonna just solve our problems, but really what we need to do as Americans is we need to give voice to these problems, and demand that we see action. I think we need to step up and tell our lawmakers what we believe, what we want to see done.

Graham: Now you’ve spent some time in the halls of congress. We saw the house pass climate change legislation last year. The senate has kind of scrapped that whole thing and now senators, Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham, are working on a new plan. When do you think we might actually have some policy put into law that will help us deal with this climate change situation?

Schweiger: Well let me first say that the three senators working on this legislation are doing the type of legislating that we need because they’re working together, it’s a tripartisan bill—

Graham:–Alright, Kerry’s a Democrat, Lieberman an independent, and Graham is a republican—

Schweiger: –Right. So we have all three working together. And I particularly want to acknowledge Lindsey Graham—he has bucked his own party saying we need a new energy policy in America, we need to wean ourselves from dependency on foreign oils, very powerful things, and I think it’s very influential in the way it’s playing out here.

Graham: Larry Schweiger is the president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, and the author of the book ‘Last Chance: Preserving Life on Earth.’ Thanks very much.

Schweiger: Thank you.

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Geothermal Is Growing

  • This map shows the distribution of geothermal resources across the United States. (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)

Geothermal power plants turn
heat from under the Earth into
electricity. It’s a way of
making power with practically
no pollution. And, according
to a new report, there are more
companies investing in this kind
of energy. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

Geothermal power plants turn
heat from under the Earth into
electricity. It’s a way of
making power with practically
no pollution. And, according
to a new report, there are more
companies investing in this kind
of energy. Mark Brush has more:

The report was put out by the Geothermal Energy Association. They found the number of geothermal power plant projects being developed jumped by 46% compared to 2008.

They say the jump was driven by federal stimulus money. And some state laws that mandate that utilities provide a certain percentage of renewable power.

Karl Gawell is with the Geothermal Energy Association. He says, right now, there are specific places where these power plants work best.

“Well, the best reservoirs right now tend to be in the western United States. And in areas where the heat of the Earth actually comes closer to the surface of the Earth. But, you know, the potential is nationwide.”

Gawell says we don’t have good technology to find new heat reserves under the Earth. And, until we invest in better exploration technology, we won’t know where to find these hot spots.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Interview: Lester Brown

  • Lester Brown founded the Earth Policy Institute in 2001. (Photo courtesy of the Earth Policy Institute)

One environmental leader says if
we keep doing what we’re doing,
the world will continue on a path
toward economic decline and eventual
collapse. Lester Brown heads up the
Earth Policy Institute. He’s written
a series of books on changes that need
to be made. The most recent book is
‘Plan B 4.0.’ Lester Graham
talked with him about the complexities
involved in a few commodities we take
for granted:

Transcript

One environmental leader says if
we keep doing what we’re doing,
the world will continue on a path
toward economic decline and eventual
collapse. Lester Brown heads up the
Earth Policy Institute. He’s written
a series of books on changes that need
to be made. The most recent book is
‘Plan B 4.0.’ Lester Graham
talked with him about the complexities
involved in a few commodities we take
for granted:

[text of the interview will be posted shortly]

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A New Climate Conference

  • President Barack Obama meeting with former Vice President Al Gore in the Oval Office on December 7, 2009 regarding Copenhagen. (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)

With no legally-binding agreement in
Copenhagen, there’s now talk of another global
warming conference next summer in Mexico
City. Lester Graham has more on that:

Transcript

With no legally-binding agreement in
Copenhagen, there’s now talk of another global
warming conference next summer in Mexico
City. Lester Graham has more on that:

When the U.S. House passed a climate bill this summer, the Senate was expected to pick it up and vote on it by the end of the year—maybe before the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

That didn’t happen.

In Copenhagen last week, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore looked ahead to another conference next year.

“I believe that we are capable of resolving the remaining issues to the point we can meet in Mexico City this July in the aftermath of a successful action by the United States Senate in April and conclude a binding international treaty.”

Al Gore wants the Senate to pass the legislation by April 22 to be exact – Earth Day. With business concerned about coming greenhouse gas regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Senate might feel more pressure to by then.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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How Much Will Copenhagen Cost?

  • Talks begin in Copenhagen on December 7th. (Photo Source: Thue at Wikimedia Commons)

This week, world leaders are talking
about how to tackle climate change.
Most experts agree that’ll mean
fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Rebecca Williams has been talking
with one climate expert who says we
might not really notice it, at least
at first:

Transcript

This week, world leaders are talking
about how to tackle climate change.
Most experts agree that’ll mean
fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Rebecca Williams has been talking
with one climate expert who says we
might not really notice it, at least
at first:

There’s been a lot of debate about how much our energy bills might go up.

Energy companies and some Republicans have been warning that bills will skyrocket – going up by hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it’ll be a lot less – something between $100 and $200 a year.

Michael Oppenheimer is a professor at Princeton University. He says we will have to make a lot of changes in our lives – but they’ll be little changes and they’ll be really gradual.

“They’ll probably wind up buying appliances which are more energy efficient and that may cost them some money at the outset but it’ll save them money in terms of lower electricity bills. They may be driving cars that look somewhat different than their current vehicles but save them money with less gasoline use in the long term.”

Oppenheimer says higher energy costs will eventually be offset by energy savings – and probably, government rebates – until the economy adjusts.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Mining the Minerals That Power Your Gadgets

  • Molycorp's rare-earth mining pit in Mountain Pass, California. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Politicians like to show off pictures of wind turbines, hybrid cars, and other green hi-tech.
The idea is to get more of that in America, and maybe even make more of it here. Shawn
Allee found there’s a chance all of this could be complicated by the supply of key green-
tech ingredients:

Transcript

Politicians like to show off pictures of wind turbines, hybrid cars, and other green hi-tech.
The idea is to get more of that in America, and maybe even make more of it here. Shawn
Allee found there’s a chance all of this could be complicated by the supply of key green-
tech ingredients:

I don’t know about you, but there’re a whole bunch of minerals I completely ignored in
high school chemistry.

Jack Lifton knows them by heart.

“… lanthenum, serium, neodymium…”

Lifton’s a market expert on these so-called ‘rare-earth’ minerals. And he says, even if you
haven’t heard of them, you might have them – even in your pocket.

“Without rare earths, we probably would not have portable computers and you
certainly wouldn’t have display screens today on anything – television or computer,
iPod, or iPhone, whatever.”

Rare earths make electronics light and they don’t need much power: just what wind
turbines and electric hybrid cars need.

There’s a problem in the rare-earth market, though. China’s the big supplier, but Lifton
says it might keep it’s rare-earth supplies for itself.

“In the next three or four years, you cannot make a device with a rare earth unless
it’s made in China and then the Chinese have made it very clear that their priorities
are to manufacture goods for their own consumer economy and keep the Chinese
employed.”

So, is the US gonna be left dry when it comes to green high tech? Well, there is a rare
earth mine in America, but it’s had some environmental problems.

The mine is trying to turn that around now.

Honan: “On the left is the overburden stock pile. Once you’ve seen one of those,
you’ve seen them all.”

Allee: “Big pile of rocks.”

Honan: “Big pile of rock.”

Mine manager Scott Honan’s driving me around the top of a mine in the middle of the
California desert.

He manages the mine for Molycorp. Honan’s showing me the mine’s waste water
ponds.

Honan: “Those two are fresh water.”

Allee: “Basically, you’re trying to recycle as much of this water as you can. Why is
that?”

Honan: “We have to confine all of our water activities on the site. We have to be
very efficient when we use water, we can’t afford to waste it.”

Gotta admit, this is not very sexy stuff, but Molycorp is crossing its fingers that
expensive water recycling and treatment investments pay off.

Molycorp uses water to process the rare-earth ore, and back in the 90s, the mining and
processing stopped for a while due to waste water leaks.

It’s desert, after all – and regulators didn’t want what little water there is contaminated by
a slurry of salts and mining byproducts.

Allee: “So where’re we heading, here?”

Honan: “The pit.”

Allee: “Is that what everyone calls it? ‘The Pit?’”

Honan: “Yeah. It’s about 55 acres if you look at the perimeter. From the top of the
high wall over there to the bottom, it’s about 500 feet.”

Honan says Molycorp will expand the mine in a few years – just in time for when China
might stop exporting rare-earths.

The company might be jumping a tad – regulators might clamp down on the operation if
Molycorp repeats some of its past water pollution mistakes.

Still…

“I think a lot of us at the mine have a big stake in the success of this operation going
forward. A lot of us feel it’s important for our country. What we produce here is
going to drive a lot of this energy efficient technology that people are anxious about.
It’s cool to be a part of that.”

And for Honan, what’s even cooler is that someone’s talking about building a wind farm
not too far from his mine.

Honan says it’d be awefully nice if his rare-earths are in those turbines.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Avoiding a Climate Tipping Point

  • If the global temperature goes past 2 degrees Celsius - the danger point - we might not be able to get the climate back to a more natural state (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Two new studies in the journal Nature are trying to answer: how much is too much when it comes to global warming? Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

Two new studies in the journal Nature are trying to answer: how much is too much when it comes to global warming? Rebecca Williams reports:

These studies look at what we’d have to do to keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius.

That’s considered the danger point for climate change.

Past that point we might not be able to get the climate back to a more natural state.

These papers suggest that we’ve got to cut back on burning fossil fuels a lot. They say by 2050, countries like the US need to cut emissions by more than 90% below what they were in 1990.

The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress have proposed cutting emissions by less than that – 80%.

The researchers make the point… of all the coal and oil and natural gas in the ground that we know about, we can only burn one fourth of that amount by 2050.

We’re burning it at a much faster rate.

The studies say, at the current rate, we could be past that tipping point in less than 15 years.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Leaving Something Out on Earth Day?

  • The founder of Earth Day, the late Senator Gaylord Nelson, felt population control is the key to sustainability. (Photo courtesy of NASA)

Earth Day has grown from its counterculture roots. Now there’s a lot of green talk on Main Street. But as Mark Brush reports, the founder of Earth Day might think we’re leaving something out:

Transcript

Earth Day has grown from its counter culture roots. Now there’s a lot of green talk on Main Street. But as Mark Brush reports, the founder of Earth Day might think we’re leaving something out:

In the last several decades, concern about the environment has shifted from college campus protests to board room discussions. There’s a lot more awareness about environmental issues. And the administration in Washington D.C. is much more receptive. That has Earth Day organizers pretty excited.

The man credited for founding Earth Day is the late Senator Gaylord Nelson. He probably would’ve liked all this talk about a green future. But in a 2003 speech recorded by C-Span – the Senator said there was an important topic being left out of the conversation:

“The ultimate key to sustainability is population.”

He acknowledged that taking on population control is a tough thing to do for politicians. But if they’re really serious about taking on environmental problems, he said they’re going to have to get up the courage to talk about population.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Using Trees as Cleaning Tools

  • Argonne researchers and technicians are tracking how well poplar trees are containing and removing toxic solvents (such as Trichloroethane, 1,1-Dichloroethane, and 1,1,1-Trichloroethane, Trichloroethylene) from underground water. Pictured here are Cristina Negri, Lawrence Moss, John Quinn, Rob Piorkowski. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

When you think of cleaning up toxic waste, you might think of technicians digging huge holes
and carting off contaminated soil. It’s expensive, and they’re often just putting the soil and the
problem, somewhere else – say, to a hazardous waste landfill. Shawn Allee met researchers
who hope trees can clean some toxic waste, and leave the landscape in place:

Transcript

When you think of cleaning up toxic waste, you might think of technicians digging huge holes
and carting off contaminated soil. It’s expensive, and they’re often just putting the soil and the
problem, somewhere else – say, to a hazardous waste landfill. Shawn Allee met researchers
who hope trees can clean some toxic waste, and leave the landscape in place:

Argonne National Laboratory is a Big Science kinda place.

It’s a federal lab southwest of Chicago where they study particle physics, nuclear energy, and
advanced environmental clean-up.

The irony is, the place has been around so long, it’s now cleaning up its own environmental
messes.

In fact, it’s Larry Moss’s job. He takes me to a toxic waste site where trees help clean the soil.

More on those trees in a sec – first, here’s why Larry Moss needs them.

“This site was a very busy site back in the 50s and 60s. We had a large manufacturing process
for reactor components – did a lot of testing of reactor assemblies and different fuel mixtures. And to
do that you had to clean all that equipment and a lot of that solvent came down here.
There was a unit that was called a French drain, which basically was a trench filled with gravel. They would come down here and dump chemicals into this trench, and their theory was it would dissolve into the ground. They
thought it would just go away.”

Those solvents did not go away. They leeched into underground water.

The solvents potentially cause cancer and other problems, so the government said Argonne
needed to do something about the mess.

Researcher Christina Negri lays out what the options were.

“Put a parking lot on top of the pollution area
and basically leave it there forever. The other extreme, it would have been: dig out the soil, take it
somewhere – where you haven’t changed much. You’ve moved it from here to a landfill. That’s not the solution as
well.”

Those options – covering it up or carting it off – are also expensive.

So, Argonne researchers figured they’d try something new.

Negri says they hope to eliminate pollution on site – with the help of poplar trees.

Negri: “We’re taking advantage of a trait that these trees have to
go about finding water.”

Allee: “Let me get a closer look at a tree, here.”

Negri: “What you have to picture in your mind – See the height of the tree?”

Allee: “I’m looking at one that’s as tall as a three story walk-up building I live in.”

Negri: “You have to flip it 180 degrees and imagine the roots are going down that deep.”

Negri says they coaxed the roots into going straight down instead of spreading out. It seems to
work; the poplar trees are sucking water out of the ground and taking up solvent.

“Part of it is degraded within the plant. Part of it goes out into the air, which sounds like an
ominous thing to say, right? But if you do your calculations right, there’s much less risk when
these compounds are in the air than there is when they’re down 30 feet below.”

Negri’s team hopes the poplar trees will be more sustainable and cheaper than alternatives, but
they’re likely to be slower.

After all, it took years for the trees to grow. That’s fine for Argonne, because no one’s at risk – but that’s
not the case everywhere.

“Arguably, this is not the remedy you would adopt if you had, like, a tank spill or something that
you really need to go in right away, clean up and be done very quickly. It’s not a remedy if there’s
anybody’s at risk.”

This isn’t the only attempt to use plants to clean up toxic waste. The science behind it is called
‘phytoremediation.’

In other examples, scientists tried alpine pennycress to clean up zinc, and pigweed to suck up
radioactive cesium.

Negri says the trick is to use the right plant for the right toxin and know whether the plants stays
toxic, too.

Still, she says, toxic waste is such a big problem, it’s good to have lots of tools in your clean-up
toolbox.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Greening of Religion

  • The Dalai Lama giving a lecture at the University of Michigan on April 20, 2008. (Photo by Mark Brush)

There’s a change going on in the religions
of the world. More people are hearing a green
message when they go to their place of worship.
Mark Brush reports major religious leaders are
spreading a message of caring for the earth:

Transcript

There’s a change going on in the religions
of the world. More people are hearing a green
message when they go to their place of worship.
Mark Brush reports major religious leaders are
spreading a message of caring for the earth:

The Dalai Lama is talking about the environment. And tens of thousands of people are
packed into this basketball arena to hear his message. This kind of a talk is a natural
fit. In the Buddhist tradition all sentient life forms are sacred. So you might not be
surprised to hear that the Dalai Lama thinks we need to cut our cravings for more and
more material stuff.

“We always want more and more and more – like that. So I think some lifestyle, I think have to, have to change. But this is not my business.”

(applause)

This kind of message is now coming from other religions too. The Vatican recently
declared pollution a sin. And, when he went to the United Nations, the Pope told
international leaders to work together on climate change and environmental protection.

And many Protestants are now spreading the green gospel. And it’s not just the more
liberal members of the church. Leaders on the left and the right are going beyond the
pulpit to preach about the environment. You can even catch them on primetime TV.
Here’s a clip from a commercial by ‘We Can Solve It dot org’. Preachers Al Sharpton and
Pat Robertson sit side by side on a couch by the ocean.

“Al lets face it. We’re polar opposites.”

“We couldn’t be further apart. I’m on the left.”

“And I’m usually right. And we strongly disagree.”

“Except on one issue. Tell ’em what it is reverend Pat.”

“That would be our planet. Taking care of it is extremely important.”

While this is a new topic for some religious leaders – other groups have been working for
a long time to green the church. The Evangelical Environmental Network promotes
something called “Creation Care.” And they faced a lot of push-back when they first started.

Jim Ball is the president of the Network. He says the environment was largely ignored
by evangelicals – but now that’s changed. As proof he says 120 senior evangelical
leaders signed onto to an initiative that promises to do something about climate change.
And he says many of them are quite conservative. Ball says these leaders started to change when
they got an earful from their own kids and grandkids.

“So it was the younger generation saying to some of these senior leaders, “you know, you
really need to stop just looking at this and saying ‘you know, that’s for other people.’
You’ve got to look at this and understand this is a serious problem.”

But not everyone is accepting this green sermon. Some in the Christian Church point to
the book of Genesis and believe man should have dominion over nature. They think
environmentalism goes beyond tree hugging and actually promotes worship of nature
instead of God.

Andy Hoffman is a professor at the University of Michigan who speaks on religion and
the environment. He says these kinds of interpretations of the Bible prevent
many people from taking environmental issues seriously.

“Many religious people are skeptical or cautious about environmentalism. They look at
people who care about the environment as deifying the environment. And therefore they
see a challenge there. And that’s really not the case. It’s completely consistent to be
a devout Christian, or a devout Jew, or a devout Muslim and care about the environment
and have those two mesh quite nicely. So to have religious leaders come forward and
articulate this viewpoint dispells that myth and takes away that problem.”

Hoffman says these religious leaders connect people to their moral values. And if
caring for the environment is a part of that – it can go a long way in changing the way
people live.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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