The EPA has been trying to stop the use of the carbofuran for four years,but corn, sunflower and potato farmers say they need the chemical to produce their crops.(Photo courtesy of thebittenword.com cc-2.0)
The future of an insecticide used on food is on trial. The Environmental Protection Agency wants to stop the use of the chemical. Rebecca Williams reports the pesticide company and some growers’ trade groups have been fighting the EPA:
Transcript
The future of an insecticide used on food is on trial. The Environmental Protection Agency wants to stop the use of the chemical. Rebecca Williams reports the pesticide company and some growers’ trade groups have been fighting the EPA:
For four years, the EPA has been trying to stop the use of the insecticide carbofuran.
The EPA says there are a couple problems. First, it’s toxic to birds. Second, the agency says carbofuran residues on food are not safe for us.
FMC Corporation makes the chemical. It’s been fighting the EPA for years. Now it’s before a U-S appeals court.
Corn, sunflower and potato farmers say they need carbofuran.
John Keeling is the CEO of the National Potato Council.
“Would there be potato production next year in the U.S. without carbofuran? Absolutely. Will it make decisions much more difficult for a lot of growers? Yes.”
The trial for the use of the insecticide is expected to last for months.
Natural gas companies pump chemicals underground to loosen up the gas and get it to the surface. (Photo courtesy of the US DOE)
The federal government is looking into whether natural gas drilling is contaminating drinking water. Before that study’s done, Congress might step in and tighten regulations now. Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
The federal government is looking into whether natural gas drilling is contaminating drinking water.
Shawn Allee reports, before that study’s done, Congress might step in and tighten regulations now.
Natural gas companies pump chemicals underground to loosen up the gas and get it to the surface.
It’s called hydraulic fracturing.
There’s debate about whether the chemicals poison water that’s underground, too.
Amy Mall tracks this issue for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group.
She says Congress might regulate this drilling through the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“What the legislation would do is make sure there’s a minimal federal floor of protection. So if your state has strong regulations, probably nothing would change, but if your state does not have strong regulations and they’re too weak, then under this legislation, your state would have to raise their standards.”
The natural gas industry points out the U-S Environmental Protection Agency already studied drilling back in 2004, and Congress decided there was no need for regulation.
Congressional critics suspect that study was biased in favor of industry.
President of Manomet consulting group John Hagan says the bottom line is that biomass can be carbon neutral ... if subsidies and policies are precise.(Photo courtesy of Shawn Allee)
State governments often mandate power companies to buy alternative energy.
They figure it’s worth having everyone buck up and pay extra since these don’t contribute carbon dioxide emissions that change the climate.But what energy sources should make the cut?
Shawn Allee found one is getting lots of scrutiny.
Transcript
State governments often mandate power companies to buy alternative energy.
They figure it’s worth having everyone buck up and pay extra since these don’t contribute carbon dioxide emissions that change the climate.
But what energy sources should make the cut?
Shawn Allee found one is getting lots of scrutiny.
Bob Cleaves heads up the Biomass Power Association.
He spends a lot of time pitching the idea that electricity made by burning wood is worth government help.
After all, he can’t sell the idea of biomass on price.
Electricity generated from wood had to compete with coal and natural gas and it became very difficult to operate these plants on a profitable basis.
Cleaves says other alternative energy sources are expensive, too, but biomass has extra benefits …
He says try running solar panels at night – biomass power plants run 24-7.
But Cleaves admits he’s got explaining to do when it comes to carbon emissions.
You know, from burning wood.
when you burn something you release CO2 …
For years, Cleaves could follow-up with a simple argument.
He’d just run through the carbon cycle idea you might recall from high school.
You know, you burn trees.
That releases CO2.
Then, as trees re-grow, they absorb that same carbon again …
These are carbons that are recycled into the environment in a closed-loop fashion.
This argument often won out.
Many states give biomass from wood subsidies, since they considered it carbon neutral.
The US House came close to doing the same thing last year.
But lately, biomass’ rep got into trouble.
Well, the carbon issue came up in the fall as a result of an article published in Science magazine.
The title of the article was “Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error.”
It challenged the idea that biomass power from wood or anything else is always carbon neutral.
Critics now use the article’s arguments against biomass subsidies.
“This policy is intended to reduce carbon emissions and it’s doing the exact opposite.”
This is Jana Chicoine, an anti-biomass activist from Massachussetts.
She says, sure, trees you cut for power now will grow back and then re-absorb carbon.
But not soon.
“It will create a pulse of carbon emissions that will spike for decades. Policy makers are telling us we are in a carbon crisis and that we have to reduce carbon emissions now.”
So, Chicoine says it makes no sense to subsidize biomass technology.
It’s going to harm public policy on clean energy. Those funds should be going to the truly valuable contributors to the energy problem like wind and solar, conservation and efficiency.
Well, Chicoine and other biomass critics won a temporary victory in Massachusetts.
The state was leaning toward subsidizing biomass power, but it held off a final decision.
It’s waiting for advice from an environmental consulting group called Manomet.
President John Hagan says people expect a simple answer: would a biomass industry in Massachusetts be carbon neutral or not?
“The last thing you want to hear a scientist say is, it’s complicated, but I’m afraid it is in this case.”
The latest research suggests some biomass power operations can be carbon neutral while others won’t be.
The best operations would use tree trimmings or waste wood like sawdust. That keeps more trees in the ground … absorbing carbon.
Biomass power plants prefer to use waste wood anyway, since it’s cheap.
But Hagan says maybe more biomass plants will all chase the same scrap wood.
Prices will rise … and suddenly standing trees start looking cheaper.
It’s like a puzzle, when you push on one piece, eighteen other things move.
Hagan says the bottom line is that biomass can be carbon neutral … if subsidies and policies are precise.
He says policies should work like scalpels.
But often, they’re simple … and work more like big axes.
According to the governors' report more uniform standards would increase demand for wind, whose manufacturing base in the Midwest is growing. (Photo courtesy of US DOE)
Governors across the nation want more electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar and bio-mass. Lester Graham reports… they’re calling on Congress to make it happen.
Transcript
Governors across the nation want more electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar and bio-mass. Lester Graham reports… they’re calling on Congress to make it happen.
The Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition is 29 governors –Republicans and Democrats who want Congress to establish a renewable energy standard. They’d like to see 10-percent of all electricity come from renewables by 2012. By 2025, they want 25-percent. And they want a new interstate electric transmission system built to get wind power from isolated areas to the cities that need the power.
Iowa Governor Chet Culver chairs the coalition.
“If Congress fails to pass a strong national goal on renewable energy and transmission upgrades, the continued uncertainty will cause the nation to potentially surrender wind manufacturing to other countries.”
And Governor Culver says with that wind manufacturing would go the potential jobs the U.S. needs.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) come out of our vehicle tailpipes, out of smokestacks, and they’re in a lot of every day products. (Photo courtesy of NinaHale CC-2.0)
The makers of a popular deodorant body spray have been fined more than a million dollars for polluting the air in California. Julie Grant reports it’s part of an increased effort to reduce air pollution.
Transcript
The makers of a popular deodorant body spray have been fined more than a million dollars for polluting the air in California. Julie Grant reports it’s part of an increased effort to reduce air pollution.
The makers of Axe body spray – popular among teenage boys – have been fined for causing environmental problems in California. Dimitri Stanich is spokesman for the California Air Resouces Board. He says California has specific low limits on how much air pollution can come from consumer products.
And if they get a tip that a product is over the limit – they head to the pharmacy.
“THE AIR RESOURCES BOARD HAS ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS THAT WILL BUY PRODUCTS OFF THE SHELF AND THEN TAKE IT BACK TO THE LAB IN SACRAMENTO. TECHNICIANS THEN WILL PIERCE THE CANISTER AND DETERMINE THE AMOUNT OF VOCS IN THERE.”
VOCs – that’s short for volatile organic compounds. VOCs come out of our vehicle tailpipes, out of smokestacks. And they’re in a lot of every day products: some aerosol sprays, most paints, even some cosmetics. Stanich says there are lots of reasons a manufacturer might use a volatile organic compound. In a product like Axe, he says the VOCs make it spray better.
“MOST OF OFTEN IT IS PART OF THE PROPELLENT USED TO FORCE THE PRODUCT OUT OF THE CANISTER AND INTO THE PRACTICAL PURPOSE THAT THE CONSUMER IS USING IT.”
And once those VOCs hit the air – from deodorants, tailpipes and smokestacks – they mix with the heat of the sun – and create ground level ozone. Pollution.
The multinational corporation, Unilever, owns the Axe brand. Stanich says that between 2006 and 2008, Unilever’s parent company, Conopco, sold more than 2.8 million units of Axe spray that failed to meet California’s clean air standards.
The state has fined Conopco 1.3 million dollars.
It’s all kind of a bummer. At least for some teenage girls.
Katie Schombeck and Julia Rombach say the boys locker room reeks of Axe. And they love it.
“YOU SMELL IT AND YOU’RE LIKE DRAWN TO IT, IT SMELLS SO GOOD.”
“I DO THAT ALL THE TIME. I REMEMBER HANGING OUT WITH GUYS, AND LIKE IF THEY SMELL GOOD I’LL BE LIKE ‘HEY COME HERE FOR A MINUTE’ AND SMELL THEIR SHOULDER AND BE LIKE ‘YOU SMELL GOOD.’”
“I’LL GIVE THEM A BIG HUG, JUST BECAUSE THEY SMELL GOOD.”
But these 16 years olds didn’t realize body spray could be bad for air quality.
“BUT IT NEVER REALLY DAWNED ON ME THAT AXE…I DON’T KNOW, YOU DON’T REALLY THINK ABOUT THAT.”
Compared to all those cars and trucks and smokestacks – it doesn’t seem like a little deodorant spray could cause that much of a problem. But Dimitri Stanich with the California Air Resources Board says all those little bits add up.
“WE SPRAY A LITTLE PERFUME HERE, WE SPRAY A LITTLE DEODORANT THERE, SOME WD-40 ON THE VEHICLES WE’RE WORKING ON. THE LIST GOES ON. EVERYTHING THAT’S A CONSUMER PRODUCT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CONTRIBUTE TO OZONE.”
Stanich says on peak ozone days, people have a harder time breathing, especially those with asthma.
California has a particularly bad ozone problem in its cities – and also has tougher clean air rules than most of the country.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to tighten federal air quality standards – to reduce ozone pollution everywhere else.
Julian Marshall is professor of environmental engineering at the University of Minnesota.
He says most health officials support tougher air standards.
But there are lots of ways to reduce exposure in your own home:
“BUYING LIMITED QUANTITIES OF PRODUCTS THAT EMIT VOCS, OR BUYING LOW VOC PRODUCTS. WHEN YOU GO TO BUY PAINTS FOR EXAMPLE THERE ARE LOW VOC PAINTS.”
To reduce exposure, Marshall says get rid of old chemicals and those you don’t need.
In the meantime, California officials say Unilever has corrected the problems with Axe – and reduced the emissions from its spray can. Making a lot of teenage boys – and some of their girl – friends happy.
The popular eco-friendly products are not always the best solution. Lester and Greenovation.tv’s Matt Grocoff drop in on Matt’s neighbor to help him with his hardwood floor dilemma.
Transcript
In home improvement projects, the popular eco-friendly products are not always the best solution. Lester Graham has the story of a home improvement intervention.
Kevin Leeser was not happy with the floors downstairs in his one-hundred year old house.
KL: “Well, we’ve lived here five years and just over the five years they’ve started to get grayer and you can tell that the finish was –in the high traffic areas—you could tell where we were walking it looks like we were hamsters walking through this place.”
LG: “This is maple, right”
KL: “Pfft. Yeah, that’s what they tell me.”
Kevin toyed with the idea of finishing the maple floors… but that sounded really involved.
And then the in-laws visited during the holidays.
KL: “My mother-in-law was like ‘Why don’t you get new floors.’ (laugh) And I was like well, yeah, it would be easier, ‘cause the things I was concerned about were sawdust, and ‘cause I have a newborn, just dirtying up the house and figured just getting some clean stuff, cutting it outside, sticking it down and be done with it.”
LG: So, wanting to be eco-friendly, he thought he’d put down bamboo flooring. Bamboo is renewable and it grows fast… and it’s pretty popular these days.
Then his neighbor stopped by. Matt Grocoff… the eco-friendly home improvement guy with Greenovation-dot-TV who had some –eh—thoughts about Kevin’s plan…
MG: “And, I, like, practically smacked him in the face and I said ‘What are you thinking? This is a gorgeous floor. Go rent yourself a sander or even hire someone for a few hundred bucks to strip the floor and then refinish it.’”
LG: So…You’re not a big fan of bamboo?
MG: “Bamboo is a great product if you have to do something new. You have to ask a question: do you need that new product or do you have something that works now and just needs to be renewed.”
Oh, yeah. Reduce. Re-use. Recycle. So, Kevin’s wife, Lauren and their baby were away for a few days. Kevin rented a sander… …and then started looking for an eco-friendly sealant for his maple floors. Matt had an idea for that.
MG: “Kevin’s using a natural oil from BioShield which is a mixture of tung and linseed oil that is so easy to use. It’s easier to use than even a low-VOC or zero-VOC polyurethene finish and easier to maintain in the long run.”
And in the end… renting the sander, buying sanding pads, buying the floor sealant, paint brushes and all that stuff… ended up costing Kevin about HALF of what it would have if he put down bamboo. Not a bad deal.
But… the big question… what did his wife, Lauren, think of the refinished old floors.
LM “It looks absolutely beautiful and we didn’t have to get new floors. Win, win. We love it. Beautiful.”
Matt Grocoff says he was sure Kevin and Lauren would be happy, because he did the same thing at his house.
MG: “The first thing that I did when we finished with our floor is I took a glass of red wine when we were celebrating and I poured half a glass of red wine on the floor and my wife was like ‘What are you doing!’ And I was like, look, we’re going to spill wine on it eventually, let’s see what happens now. The wine beaded up on the floor. We took a little sponge, wiped it clean and it’s gorgeous, five years later.
LG: “That’s Matt Grocoff with Greenovation-dot-TV. Thanks, Matt.”
MG: “Lester, this is always so much fun. I’m glad to be doing it.”
LG: “That’s The Environment Report. I’m Lester Graham.”
Offshore wind farms have the potential to create jobs in struggling states like Michigan, but uncertainty in the permitting process continues to slow projects down.(Photo courtesy of the US DOE)
It’s been nine years since developers first proposed a wind farm off Cape Cod. You can now find offshore wind proposals in just about any state with a coastline. But these are still just proposals. Dustin Dwyer has a look at what needs to change before the U.S. can tap into its offshore wind potential:
Transcript
It’s been nine years since developers first proposed a wind farm off Cape Cod. You can now find offshore wind proposals in just about any state with a coastline. But these are still just proposals. Dustin Dwyer has a look at what needs to change before the U.S. can tap into its offshore wind potential.
One of the newest plans for offshore wind in the U.S. is in Michigan, a state that’s desperate for the kind of jobs that an offshore wind project could create.
But local landowners don’t want to have to look at the turbines – it’s the same problem Cape Wind confronted nine years ago. And the process for getting offshore wind projects approved remains murky.
Steve Warner is CEO of Scandia Wind, which is proposing the Michigan project. He says the response from state government so far has been confusing.
“In the absence of understanding the process and what it entails, people want to hesitate and we understand that.”
There is an effort underway in Michigan to clarify the permitting process for offshore wind. But as that effort drags in many states and at the federal level, developers are left waiting.
Congressional leaders are beginning to start thinking about a climate bill again.
Health care legislation has finally started
moving forward in Congress. Shawn Allee reports
the US Senate can now devote some attention to
its unfinished work on climate change:
Transcript
Health care legislation has finally started moving forward in Congress.
Shawn Allee reports the US Senate can now devote some attention to its unfinished work on climate change:
The climate-change bill got a cold reception last year, but Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman say they’re making headway lately.
Margaret Kriz Hobson tracks climate legislation for the National Journal.
She says the Senate got stuck negotiating a complex carbon trading scheme.
That would have required most industries to trade carbon pollution credits.
Kriz Hobson says the three senators are now focusing mostly on power companies.
“A lot more people are letting them in the door because the proposal that they’re bringing forward would include some benefits for nuclear power, oil drilling in the United States and for more modern technologies for capture and sequestration.”
That last technology would basically bury carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants.
That could save money and jobs in states that burn or mine coal.
High speed trains may be sprouting up across the country in light of the recent initiative. (Photo courtesy of Black Leon)
The U.S. government is spending billions of dollars to improve the nation’s railroads and passenger train service. But those billions will be just the beginning of the cost of updating rail service. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The U.S. government is spending billions of dollars to improve the nation’s railroads and passenger train service. But those billions will be just the beginning of the cost of updating rail service. Lester Graham reports:
New investments in higher-speed rail are making passenger rail supporters almost giddy. Eight billion dollars from the Recovery Act is seed money for new high-speed routes in California and Florida and improvements for existing routes in other regions.
At a recent National Press Club panel discussion, Amtrak’s Joseph McHugh said Amtrak is not getting any of that money… but it’ll improve the freight railroads on which Amtrak operates its trains.
McHugh: And that means higher speeds, reduced trip time, additional frequencies, improved facilities, and a higher level of reliability for our services all around the country.
Beyond that first eight-billion dollars, the Department of Transportation’s so-called TIGER grants mean a few billion dollars more for further upgrades railroads and depots that tie into commuter rail, light rail and other mass transit.
Supporters of rail are expecting big things from the investments.
But others see spending billions upon billions of dollars on passenger rail as wasted money. They don’t see the utopia of transportation in better, faster trains. Many online comments from readers of stories on higher-speed rail indicate they don’t want the government to subsidize rail projects. They see it as stealing from necessary highway and bridge improvements. Others are more political, saying the government is trying to imitate the high-speed rail of Europe when –they feel– Americans are more independent and prefer cars.
So the debate sometimes devolves into — car versus train. Or individuality versus socialism.
Susan Zielinksi heads up the Universtiy of Michigan’s SMART transit project. She says that’s the wrong way to view it.
Zielinski:I think we get ourselves stuck in the polarization and this isn’t about getting rid of cars.
She says better passenger rail and tying it in to better mass transit gives more people more choices. She notes not everyone has access to a reliable car.
Environmentalists add… the train is just more environmentally friendly. Howard Lerner is with the Environmental Law and Policy Center.
Lerner: On a per-passenger-mile basis, rail is about three times as efficient as travel by car in terms of fuel efficiency, six times as efficient as travel by air. So, there are pretty substantial pollution reduction benefits, both in terms of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants when it comes to traveling by rail.
But the investment of billions of dollars during the Obama administration is generally considered just the down payment on the cost of bringing U.S. passenger rail service into the 21st century. Just a couple of years ago the Bush administration tried to zero-out the Amtrak budget. A future president might do the same.
Susan Zielinksi at the University of Michigan believes the improvements in rail service we’ll see in just the next several years will prove this investment is worth it.
Zielinski: Congress is not going to be able to go backwards on this. This is going to usher in a whole new set of industry opportunities, of economic development in communities, of new opportunities for jobs.
But even people who like the idea of improved passenger rail service say if this doesn’t result in the trains arriving on time… doesn’t fix the problem of having no transportation once they arrive at the depot… doesn’t spiff up the drab Amtrak train cars… and keep train ticket prices reasonable… it’ll be hard not to keep piling into the car or cramming themselves into an airline seat.
Huge houses are on the decline. (Photo courtesy of Brendel Signature)
The American dream of home ownership has become a trend of bigger and bigger houses. The square footage of new, detached houses crept upwards for decades even though families shrank. Recent economic troubles have stopped the big house trend. Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
You might not know it but the American dream of home ownership has translated into bigger and bigger houses.
The square footage of new, detached houses crept upward for decades, even though families shrank.
Shawn Allee reports recent economic troubles have stopped the big-house trend.
Housing stats kinda say it all.
Just after World War II, brand new single-family detached homes were about 1100 square feet.
By 2007, they were twice as big.
One builder, Andrew Konovodoff, says 2007 was the peak.
Konovodoff: My analogy is, you go to McDonalds, you can up-charge or supersize your meal and get a couple hundred extra french fries.
Alee: People did that with homes?
Konovodoff: Yeah. Money was available. People bought more home than they needed. Now, I think people have trended back the other way.
Konovodoff’s right.
The U-S Census bureau says brand-new homes shrank for two years straight, and home builders say they’re going to build smaller for at least another year.
That hasn’t happened in decades, and builders like Konovodoff are adjusting
In the smaller square footages you won’t see a formal dining room … you’ll have an eat-in kitchen. We’ve pushed out the formal dining room.
Konovodoff says he’s considering even smaller designs.
He says it’ll be trickier to make a good living, so he’s not exactly happy with the trend.
But there are people who are glad houses are getting smaller.
One of them’s Alex Wilson.
He edits a magazine called Environmental Building News.
Wilson: In building a house, we need lumber, new windows and a whole range of building materials. It’s just common sense that a smaller house will use less materials. Even with any material, a so-called green material made from recycled content, there’re still impacts from manufacturing that product and shipping it to the job site. So, when we use less, we reduce environmental impact.
Wilson says the size of new homes has dropped just a bit … maybe the equivalent of a big closet or a tiny, tiny dining room.
He’d like homes to see homes get even smaller, but that won’t happen until our heating and cooling bills jump higher.
Wilson: I think if we were paying five dollars a gallon for gasoline and equivalent prices for natural gas and heating oil, then we would see a much more dramatic drop in house size.
Wilson says most of us won’t demand or build small houses until we truly fear a life-time of high utility bills.
The EPA has been trying to stop the use of the carbofuran for four years,but corn, sunflower and potato farmers say they need the chemical to produce their crops.(Photo courtesy of thebittenword.com cc-2.0)
