Tag: global warming

Co2 Crops Not Tops

  • Theories that crops, such as the corn in Illinois, will benefit from increases in CO2 might not be as good as predicted. (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

Carbon dioxide emissions from our cars and factories are the number one
cause of global warming. Scientists have long theorized that more of
the gas in the atmosphere could actually help farmers grow bigger
plants. But new research from America’s Breadbasket is challenging
that assumption. David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Carbon dioxide emissions from our cars and factories are the number one
cause of global warming. Scientists have long theorized that more of
the gas in the atmosphere could actually help farmers grow bigger
plants. But new research from America’s Breadbasket is challenging
that assumption. David Sommerstein reports:


Lin Warfel’s a fourth generation farmer in east-central Illinois. His
fields are flat and endless, the soil chunky and black and just about
the best in the world. An Interstate highway groans on one side of his
cornfield:


“In my career, early on, there was no Interstate past my farm.”


As traffic increased over the years, Warfel noticed a strange
phenomenon. The crops closer to the Interstate grew bigger than those
further away:


“They respond to the carbon dioxide. They can stay greener longer than
plants out into the field.”


OK… so, here’s a high school biology reminder: carbon dioxide, along
with water and sun, is an ingredient in photosynthesis, which makes
plants grow.


Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also the biggest cause
of global warming. So scientists thought, huh, more carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere, bigger crops. They even coined a term: the “carbon
dioxide fertilization effect:”


“The effects of CO2 on crop yields are fairly well-understood.”


The Department of Energy’s Jeff Amthor has studied this stuff since the
1980s:


“We would expect that by the year 2050, that the increase in CO2 alone
would probably increase yields by about 10 to 15% in soybean, wheat and
rice relative to today’s yield, with nothing else changing.”


Other things are changing, like hotter temperatures and more drought.
But the predominant thinking has been that the increased carbon dioxide
will moderate those negative factors, maybe even outweigh them. A
recent study by the American Economic Review concluded U.S. agriculture
profits will grow by more than a billion dollars over the next century,
due to global warming. Most of this is based on experiments done in
controlled, greenhouse conditions, but new research done in real fields
is challenging the assumptions:


“Where you’re standing is what we refer to as our global change
research facility on the south farms of the University of Illinois.”


That’s biologist Steve Long. He runs what’s called the SoyFACE project
at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. Here, Long can
actually pipe carbon dioxide gas out to the fields, and grow real crops
in an atmosphere of the future.


Long strolls out to one of 16 test plots and stop at a white pipe
sticking out of the ground:


“This is one of the pipes where the carbon dioxide actually comes up
and then it will go out into the field here.”


The carbon dioxide pipes circle a plot about the size of a tennis
court. They release the gas over the crops. Computers monitor the air
to keep the concentrations steady:


“And the current atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is about
380 parts per million. We’re raising that to the level which is
expected for the year 2050, which is about 550 parts per million.”


Long has grown the crops of 2050 for 5 years now. His results
shocked him. The plants did grow bigger. They survived longer
into the fall, but the yields were 50% lower than expected. And
pests thrived. The Western corn rootworm, for example, laid
twice as many eggs:


“Japanese beetle, which eats quite a lot of the leaves of soybeans, do
twice as well under these elevated CO2 conditions. They live longer. They
produce many more young. The yield increases we’ve seen could start to be
counteracted by those increased pest problems.”


Long’s results found supporters and critics when published in
Science magazine last summer. Some researchers say extra CO2
could hurt agriculture more than it helps because weeds become more
aggressive.


The Department of Energy’s Jeff Amthor co-wrote a paper challenging the
interpretation of Long’s data. But he agrees more work needs to be
done in real-life conditions:


“The bigger questions that are now before us are the interactions of CO2 with
warming and change in precip, changes in weed communities, changes in
insect communities, changes in disease outbreak. There are a lot more
questions there than there are answers.”


Amthor says what’s at stake is our future food supply.


For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.

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New Coal Plants on the Drawing Board

  • Members of Dooda Desert Rock. From left, Alice Gilmore, Elouise Brown, her son JC, her brother-in-law and her grandfather, Julius Gilmore. Her grandparents Alice and Julius lived their whole lives just down the hill from here. They would have to be relocated if the power plant is built. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)

To meet the country’s growing demand for
energy, there are about 150 new
coal-burning power plants on the drawing board.
But not everyone is thrilled about relying on
coal as a future energy source. Daniel Kraker
takes us to a place where people have
lived next to these power plants for decades.
And now they’re fighting plans to build another
one:

Transcript

There’s been a lot of talk about developing clean energy sources, like wind and solar
power. But coal is still king. And to meet the country’s growing energy demand there are
about 150 new coal fired power plants on the drawing board. But not everyone is thrilled
about relying on coal as a significant future energy source. Daniel Kraker takes us to a
place where people have lived next to these power plants for decades. And now they’re
fighting plans to build another one:


In northwest New Mexico, the Navajo Indian reservation is a spectacular other-worldly
landscape of mesas and giant sandstone rock formations jutting out of the red earth.
Underneath the ground are huge reserves of coal. This is where the Navajo government
and a company called Sithe Global Power want to build a 1500-megawatt power plant
called Desert Rock, and it’s here where a small group of Navajos who oppose the project
have set up their base of resistance.


“It’s called Dooda Desert Rock, Dooda means ‘no’ in Navajo.”


That’s Elouise Brown. She’s president of a group of Navajos who live near the proposed
construction site. They’ve been camped out there since December, in a small plywood
shack attached to a trailer. Brown says she’s quit her day job to protest the project full-time:


“I think this whole coal plant is just, people are just looking at dollar signs. They don’t
care about their people, they don’t care about their mother earth, global warming…And I
think it’s about time that we be heard, we’re going to stand here and stay here until
somebody listens to us.”


Brown walks outside the shack with her son and grandfather, Julius Gilmore. He points
out in Navajo where the power plant would go.


“You see the drill down there? It’s just northeast of there…”


“And that’s your grandfather’s house right there?”


“Yes.”


Her grandparents have spent their entire life there. They’ll have to be relocated if the plant
is built.


From the protestors’ camp the tips of two giant smokestacks are visible. The Four Corners
and San Juan Generating Stations were built in the 1970s during the last big construction
wave of coal fired plants. Desert Rock would be the third power plant in this area. Frank
Maisano is a spokesman for Desert Rock:


“Already in the region there is 2300 megawatts of new requests for power, and that is just to
satisfy massive growth in the region right now. Those who say that, ‘Oh we just won’t use
coal.’ They’re not looking at the larger picture, which says we really do have to have a
balanced approach, not just that we don’t like this one little carbon dioxide emission that
comes from this plant.”


Maisano says Desert Rock would be one of the cleanest coal fired plants in the country.
He says scrubbers would remove many of the harmful chemicals that can lead to health
problems and smog. And it would cough up less carbon dioxide than the older generation
of coal-fired plants.


“It’s a higher heat rate so that the coal is heated up so it combusts more completely,
basically what you’re doing is, you’re getting more efficiency, you’re getting more
megawatts out of less coal.”


Still, Desert Rock would emit about 10 million tons of CO2 every year. That’s only about
15% less than older plants. There are 150 coal fired plants like this one on the
drawing board across the country, and 40 of those are likely to start up in the next five
years.


Many environmentalists worry if Desert Rock and other coal plants are built, we’ll be
saddling the country with growing greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come.
Roger Clark is Air and Energy Director with the Grand Canyon Trust:


“As a nation we should consider a ban on all new coal plants. We’re at a point now where
we need to start reversing the amount of greenhouse gasses that we’re putting into the
atmosphere. It’s 19th century technology here in the 21st century that is something that we
don’t need.”


The country’s population is growing, and our thirst for energy is growing right along with
it. Roger Clark and others believe we can meet that growing demand through energy
efficiency improvements, combined with investments in renewables.


Here in the southwest, the Navajo Nation is in the early stages of developing a wind farm.
But that would only produce 200 megawatts of electricity; Desert Rock would be seven
times that size.


The tribe’s primary focus in this debate isn’t CO2 emissions, or climate change, it’s
revenue. Desert Rock would generate an estimated 50 million dollars annually for the
impoverished tribe. If the plant gets its final environmental approvals, and it isn’t taken to
court, that money could start flowing as early as 2012.


For the Environment Report, I’m Daniel Kraker

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Adapting to Climate Change

Businesses are beginning to talk about climate change in different
terms. Instead of debating whether humans are causing it, there’s a
lot more talk about what climate change might mean to the business
climate. Lester Graham reports there are questions about what might
happen to affect business as global temperatures and weather patterns change:

Transcript

Businesses are beginning to talk about climate change in different
terms. Instead of debating whether humans are causing it, there’s a
lot more talk about what climate change might mean to the business
climate. Lester Graham reports there are questions about what might
happen to affect business as global temperatures and weather patterns change:


For the last couple of decades, the people who’ve been arguing that we
have to do something to reduce the greenhouse emissions causing global
warming avoided one subject:


“People did not want to talk about adaptation or coping with climate
change because that was seen as a cop-out.”


That’s Rosina Bierbaum. She was a science advisor during the Clinton
administration and is now the Dean of the School of Natural Resources
and Environment at the University of Michigan.


The fear was, if you could figure out a way to cope with global
warming, you wouldn’t do anything to reduce the emissions causing it.


But Bierbaum says with concensus among the majority of the scientists in
the world that global warming is happening and humans are contributing,
the point has been made. Time to move on:


“It’s only really been, I would say, in the last two years that the
science has become so clear, that the changes are occurring so fast.
And we’re seeing them already… that society is realizing we’ve got to
cope with those changes now and there are more in store for us.”


Actually, Bierbaum thinks we’re really kind of behind in thinking about
the consequences of global warming. It’s not just the polar ice caps
melting and the rising sea levels. There are a lot of everyday sort of
things that will likely change.


For instance, what kind of plants should you put in your home
landscaping? Will the tree you plant today survive in the changing
climate? How flexible is your business if the climate changes weather
patterns?


Thomas Karl is the Director of the National Climatic Data Center at the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He says people have
to start thinking about things like that. And Karl says it’s not just
higher temperatures, but sudden dramatic changes, such as maybe no snow
in the Northern states for a couple of years at a time. Or dry spells
that could make rivers so low that barges can’t travel up and down
them:


“What really has important impacts are the extreme events. I think the
questions being asked along these lines are ‘How vulnerable am I to
these episodic conditions?’ and ‘What do we need to do to prepare
ourselves for the possibility that things may not change gradually, but
could be quite abrupt change?'”


Some of those extreme events are heavier storms. As hurricane Katrina
showed, that could affect a lot of things. For example, the oil
industry is looking at its refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. With more
and more intense hurricanes, could it be worth building
refineries somewhere else?


There’s a lot at risk.


Franklin Nutter is the President of the Reinsurance Association of
America: the insurers of the insurance companies. He says with more
forest fires in the West, and unpredictability in agriculture, and more
violent storm surges on the coasts… all due to climate change, it’s
going to cost:


“Someone has to pay for the repair and recovery. If the insurance
mechanism is going to be the intermediary that translates those costs
into people’s premiums, then the answer is insurance premiums are going
to have to match those.”


And that means we’re all going to pay higher insurance costs because
some people and businesses are going to ignore, or miscalculate, how
climate change is going to affect them:


“The Association of British Insurers did a study looking at just the
effect of climate change on insurability and held steady population
growth, property values, all of those things. And they concluded that
you could see insurance premiums rise by 60% by mid-century just as a
result of climate change.”


That means if nothing changed: no inflation, no currency change…
nothing except global warming, insurance rates go up 60% during the
next 30 to 40 years. You’re already seeing it.


Some climate change experts say we can slow the impacts of global
warming by reducing greenhouse emissions now. But we’re already
seeing change… and we will see more.


There will be winners in global climate change. Some growing seasons
will be extended. Some areas will get more precipitation. But there
will likely be a lot more losers as businesses and people either can’t
or won’t adjust to the changing climate of their region.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Sea Ice Melting Faster Than Predicted

  • Arctic sea ice is melting at a faster rate than the most advanced computer models had projected. (Photo by M. Tsukernik, courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center)

New research shows Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than predicted
by computer models. Rebecca Williams reports the researchers say that
could accelerate the impacts of global warming:

Transcript

New research shows Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than predicted
by computer models. Rebecca Williams reports the researchers say that
could accelerate the impacts of global warming:


Greenhouse gasses trapped in the atmosphere are making the Arctic sea ice
melt. Scientists have been relying on computer models to predict how
fast the ice will melt.


Researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center found actual
measurements show the ice melt is happening about 30 years ahead of
what the models predicted.


Julienne Stroeve is the study’s lead author. She says summertime
Arctic sea ice could be gone completely by the first half of this
century:


“I’m definitely concerned that it’s going to happen in the next 30 or
40 years… It’s a huge climate shift for our planet. I think we’re
going to have a much warmer planet than we’re used to seeing.”


Stroeve says it’s not clear how weather patterns might change, but she
says it’s possible the loss of the sea ice could lead to more natural
disasters such as stronger storms and drought.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Co2 “Upstream” Battle

There’s a lot of talk these days in Washington about creating new laws
to cut greenhouse gas emissions. One major question right now is how
the government will handle carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Any
new regulation is expected to have some financial impact on automakers.
And, as Dustin Dwyer reports, the carmakers are looking to share the
burden:

Transcript

There’s a lot of talk these days in Washington about creating new laws
to cut greenhouse gas emissions. One major question right now is how
the government will handle carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Any
new regulation is expected to have some financial impact on automakers.
And, as Dustin Dwyer reports, the carmakers are looking to share the
burden:


Back in March, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing
on how the auto industry could help fight global warming. All the
bigwigs in the U.S. auto industry were there: the heads of Ford,
General Motors and Chrysler, the North American president of Toyota and
the head of the United Auto Workers.


At the hearing, all of them agreed they would support a cap on CO2
emissions from vehicles, but they had a sort of caveat:


“We believe that there’s a lot of merit to it. And we believe if it’s
upstream…”


“For Cap and Trade, I think the further upstream you go, the more
efficient you’re going to be.”


“I’d just echo the upstream part.”


“The upstream as I stated earlier and the rest is absolutely critical.”


That was Ron Gettlefinger of the UAW, Jim Press of Toyota, Alan Mulally
of Ford, and Tom Lasorda of Chrysler.


So what do they mean by “upstream”? Here’s Ford spokesman Mike Moran:


“Lower carbon fuels, so that it’s just not what comes out of the
tailpipe, but you’re moving upstream and including the fuels that would
be included in the equation in the transportation sector.”


Basically the idea is, if you have less carbon in the fuel, you’ll pump
less carbon dioxide into the air.


But car companies really can’t take the carbon out of fuel. That’s
really more of a job for the oil industry. So are auto executives just
passing the buck?


David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says yeah, they’re
dodging the issue:


“The auto companies are basically finding more creative ways to say,
‘No,’ they won’t do anything to improve their products.”


Auto executives would say they’re already working to improve their
products, with millions of ethanol-capable vehicles on the road, and a
growing number of gas-electric hybrids. And many in the auto industry feel that they’ve been singled out for
regulation in the past.


The carmakers main lobbying group, the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers says that for the past 30 years, the auto industry has
been the only industry subject to carbon dioxide regulations. Though
most people try to avoid saying so in public, there is clearly some
tension between the auto industry and the oil industry.


Louis Burke is with Conoco Phillips. He says his company is willing to
do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the oil company just
came out in favor of setting up mandatory federal rules. Those include a
possible system that caps carbon dioxide emissions, and allows
companies to trade carbon credits as if they were commodities:


“You can cap and trade at some point down within the value chain,
whether it’s all the way upstream, or whether it’s pretty far downstream. You
can also apply a carbon tax throughout the whole value chain. The whole
idea is it’s gotta be transparent, it can’t penalize any one group.”


So upstream, downstream, the point is something needs to be done.


David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says everyone can
do a little more:


“Everyone has to do their part. That means car companies have to
produce vehicles to get more miles to the gallon. Oil companies need to
have lower carbon fuels and yes, even consumers need to find ways to
drive less.”


It’s still not clear what exactly what approach Congress will take
toward cutting auto emissions, but while leaders in Washington try to
settle on a plan, local and state officials across the country are
coming up with their own plans.


California and 10 other states have their own plans to regulate
tailpipe emissions. Those plans are being challenged in court by the
auto industry. And California has also gone forward with the nation’s first low carbon
standard for fuels.


That “upstream” plan has the support of both auto and oil companies.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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Some Extreme Climates Disappear

A new study predicts global warming will prompt some types of climates
to disappear from parts of the world. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A new study predicts global warming will prompt some types of climates
to disappear from parts of the world. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Scientists asked that if the planet warms up, where would new climates
be created and where would existing climates disappear? Geography
professor Jack Williams heads a research team at the University of
Wisconsin and University of Wyoming.


Using computer modeling, he predicts by the year 2100,the main changes
will be in low-lying tropical areas, at the top of very high
mountains, and at the poles:


“So the warmest areas get warmer and are first to move outside the
range of what we experience at present and then the coldest areas,
also get warmer… so that these sets of cool or cold climates
disappear as we move to a warmer world.”


Williams says where climates disappear, that will put local species in
danger. He says it’s not clear what the new climates will be like.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

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Interview: Sports Teams Go Green

All kinds of sports teams and venues are looking at more environmentally-friendly business practices. Lester Graham talked with Eben Burnham-Snyder who’s with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council about the new green trend in sports:

Transcript

All kinds of sports teams and venues are looking at more environmentally-friendly business practices. Lester Graham talked with Eben

Burnham-Snyder who’s with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council about the new green trend in sports:


EB: Well, I think for a lot of these sports teams, it’s come down to just
good business practices. You know, a good examples is when we approach
the Phildelphia Eagles in 2004 and said, ‘Hey guys, you’re getting a
lot of your paper from a forest that is a main habitat for the American
eagle. That started a dialogue.


They’re now buying 25% of their electricity from renewable sources,
they’re using recycled paper, and they’re even recycling cooking fat
from the chicken tenders and fries during the game day to run the
stadium’s vehicles on bio-fuels. So, there’s an understanding that you
can still have a good, robust business, a good robust sports business,
and do good for the environment at the same time.”


LG: So how are the big greens, the big environmental groups such as the
Natural Resource Defense Council, working with the sports industry?


EB: Well, we’ve been working a lot recently with major league baseball and
the National Basketball Association. It’s something you’re going to
hear a lot about over the next couple months. We try to work with teams
to try and find out what are some of the best practices they’ve been
using already, with recycling and energy efficiency, and we’re trying
to help all of these sports teams understand… here are the different
steps that you can take to both lessen your environmental footprint and
cut costs.


I think for fans ultimately, that’s a chance for them to yet again
pressure their teams and take that money that they’ve saved and put it
maybe into some free agents.


LG: You know, it seems with teams jetting back and forth across the
nation for games and burning a lot of fuel, we see these huge parking
lots of concrete or asphalt that are sometimes only used once a week
for a season. We’ve got some older stadiums, such as Wrigley Field in
Chicago, using restroom facilities that are basically troughs with
constantly running water, and NASCAR burning lots of fuel, even if it’s
using bio-fuels, it seems there’s little actually being done to make a
real difference for the environment. So how is this movement in sports
anything more than just tinkering around the edges?


EB: Well, you know, listen, there’s only so much that they can do within the current
structure.


But when you have industries, like the ski industry, going 100%
renewable at mountains, when you have places like the Philadelphia
Eagles and their field buying 25% of their energy from renewable
sources, those are actually large steps for industries to be taking,
especially when they’re really aren’t any standards for them right now.
They’re really isn’t any program out there right now to guide them.


So, this is a case where business is really trying to lead government
and let them know that we can do this but we need your help, too. We
need you to set limits on pollution to make it easier for us.


LG: Course there’s an incredible fan base for sports of all kinds and
we’re starting to see some attention drawn to these environmental
issues. For example,Sports Illustrated‘s cover is talking about
global warming, we’re hearing teams talk about this. What will this do
for awareness for the typical sports fan?


EB: Well, I think, as with a lot of the coverage we’ve seen on global
warming over the past couple years, it’s an indication that something
that a lot of people have had sort of a common sense reaction to for
the past few years.


For example, this past winter was the warmest winter ever on record.
People are coming to the realization that things are changing. But
sometimes it’s hard to connect those dots and so when you have
something like Sports Illustrated putting global warming on the
cover, what that does is it helps people who already said, you know
what, I haven’t been able to play pond hockey for the past couple of
years with any sort of consistency. I haven’t been able to go skiing.
You know, there are things that seem to be changing, what’s up?


And then they make that connection. And you know, the more evidence,
the more knowledge that comes out about global warming, I think the
more people you’ll see make those connections in their daily lives and
how global warming and other environmental challenges we face really do
affect them.


Eben Burnahm-Snyder is with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He spoke with the Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

Related Links

Winter Sledding Audio Postcard

  • This audio postcard captures that moment as a kid when sledding down a hill is the ultimate thrill ride. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s a lot of talk about the effects of global warming. But on a
recent frigid night, kids were thinking only of the cold and the thrill
of sledding down a hill. Producer Kyle Norris squeezed into the back of
a couple of sleds with the kids. She has this audio postcard
of the experience:

Transcript

There’s a lot of talk about the effects of global warming. But on a
recent frigid night, kids were thinking only of the cold and the thrill
of sledding down a hill. Producer Kyle Norris squeezed into the back of
a couple of sleds with the kids. She has this audio postcard
of the experience:


“My name is Kayli Mills and I’m twelve years old. Right now we’re
sledding and we’re actually snowboarding because last year we didn’t
really get to do much. It’s dark right now and it’s really fun to do it
in the dark not only is the hill clear, but um, and it’s quiet and
everything but it’s just really fun when you really can’t see much.”


“We’re getting on the sled and you want to sit how it’s most
comfortable to you because you don’t want to fall off, for sure,
especially with two people. Um, I’m sitting just on my butt but with my
legs hanging off. But I’m going to go on my knees in a second when we
take off, just doing this so that the sled doesn’t take off on its
own.”


(Sounds of sledding down the hill)


“Isn’t that fun? Go C.J.!”


“My name is C.J. and I’m nine years old. I smell snow and woods and
we’re at the bottom of Slauson Hill ’cause we just went down and it’s
really dark out and the clouds are white and the sky it blue. Well,
it’s creepy kind of cause, cause it’s a really steep hill.”


(Sounds of the sled thrown down on snow)


“We just sat down and we’ll probably go pretty fast but I don’t know.”


(Sounds of sledding)


“That was fun. That was really fun.”


(Kayli): “Definitely the wind in your hair is the best part….”


(C.J.): “It makes your cheek red when you go down like about five times
cause the wind blows into your cheeks really hard.”


(Kayli): “I’d say that if you look at the sky it’s very, very
beautiful I think even more than the day could even be. I mean, there’s
not really a sunset but you can kind of see the colors fading in from a
blue to a pink a yellow to a blue it’s almost like a rainbow but the
whole clouds are just a rainbow, dark skies. It’s very pretty right
now.”


(Sound of sled fades out).


Host tag: Those were the sounds of Kayli, C.J., and Austin braving the cold for
an evening sled on Slauson Hill in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Polars Bearing Weight of Global Warming

  • These polar bears lives at the Pittsburgh zoo where food is plentiful. In the wild, however, global warming might be making it harder for the bears to find food. (Photo by Reid Frazier)

If global warming is represented by one symbol, it
might be the polar bear. It’s an icon of the North
Polar region. Now, federal biologists have asked that
polar bears be listed as threatened under the Endangered
Species Act. They’re the first species to be considered
for protection because of global warming. Reid Frazier
reports that the polar bear might help connect the
abstract idea of global warming with the concrete
actions of people in their homes:

Transcript

If global warming is represented by one symbol, it
might be the polar bear. It’s an icon of the North
Polar region. Now, federal biologists have asked that
polar bears be listed as threatened under the Endangered
Species Act. They’re the first species to be considered
for protection because of global warming. Reid Frazier
reports that the polar bear might help connect the
abstract idea of global warming with the concrete
actions of people in their homes:


(Sound of kids talking to polar bears)


Parents and children gather around a large window to watch Nuka and
Koda frolick in the aqua water tank. The polar bears are having a
blast. They splash and dive, play with foam toys, and duck their heads
underwater to look around. The young brothers are only two-years-old
and already they weigh 600 pounds each. These bears, born and raised in
zoos, eat about 18 pounds of food a day. But, their cousins in the wild
are finding food much harder to come by these days.


Henry Kacprzyk is a curator at the Pittsburgh Zoo. He wants crowds to
know just how fragile the bears’ situation is. Walking along a
boardwalk near the exhibit, Kacprzyk points to a sign. It welcomes
visitors to “Piertown,” a replica village designed to resemble a
growing Alaska fishing town:


“The thing to note here is the human population has increased from 110
to 1,712, on the other side the bear population has declined, from 1,784
to 368, which, the message there is, as humans increase in population in some
of the bears’ habitat, the bears go down. It’s a sad but true fact.”


The situation for the world’s 25,000 polar bears is increasingly dire.
Besides people crowding them out, overfishing has depleted arctic
waters of fish for seals to eat, and seals are the bears’ main source
of food.


But here’s the biggest problem: the polar ice cap is melting. That’s
depriving the bears of a main hunting ground. The vast majority of
scientists attribute this to global warming. They say the warming is
caused by a buildup in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases from burning
fossil fuels.


Scott Schliebe is a biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service. His
team recommended polar bears be added to the protected list because
they’re losing their habitat. Schliebe says the bears need sea ice to
hunt seals. No sea ice means no food for the bears:


“They will wait at a breathing hole for a seal and wait until the seal comes up
and then catch the seal. They’re not effective at hunting seals in open
water, seals have the severe advantage of being able to outpace the polar bears in that environment.”


In areas with receding ice, polar bears are already hurting. Scientists
see the world’s polar bear population shrinking by a third in the next
50 years.


Back at the Pittsburgh zoo, the polar bears are a big hit with
visitors. They helped the zoo break an attendance record last year.
Curator Henry Kacprzyk hopes visitors tie their own behavior with the
plight of the arctic:


“It’s sometimes little things, as a general family, for instance, what you
can do is conservation of fuel and energy, keeping your lights off,
maybe living closer to work is a great idea. By choosing conservation
you can make a difference.”


The bears are popular with Cindy Jagielski, who’s visiting the zoo with
her small grandchild. Jagielski’s worried the bears will one day become
extinct but she admits she doesn’t know much about global warming:


“Maybe it’s just the Earth’s changing. I don’t know that industry has
anything to do with the melting of the ice there. Maybe it’s just a
natural occurrence.”


Despite some lingering doubts over what causes global warming,
polar bears are a popular cause. The Fish and Wildlife Service has
already received 40,000 emailed comments since it proposed protecting
the species. The Service will make its final decision on protecting
polar bears by next January.


For the Environment Report, this is Reid Frazier.

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The Price of Global Warming

  • Some industries are working with government to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions. People who are worried about their personal CO2 emissions can buy carbon offsets, but there are dozens of programs, making it confusing. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s evidence that the Earth is changing
because of global warming. Glaciers are receding.
Polar ice caps are melting. Weather patterns are
altered. That’s prompted some people to look
for ways to reduce their personal contribution to
global warming. Rebecca Williams reports there
are many new companies that claim to help you do
that… for a price:

Transcript

There’s evidence that the Earth is changing
because of global warming. Glaciers are receding.
Polar ice caps are melting. Weather patterns are
altered. That’s prompted some people to look
for ways to reduce their personal contribution to
global warming. Rebecca Williams reports there
are many new companies that claim to help you do
that… for a price:


Whenever you drive, fly, or ride, you’re emitting carbon dioxide. And it’s not just the way you get around. It’s also any time you turn on lights or plug into an electrical outlet. More than half of the electricity in the U.S. comes from power plants that burn
coal and that’s another major source of carbon dioxide.


It’s a problem because carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas.
The vast majority of scientists agree all this carbon dioxide
that people produce is trapping heat in the atmosphere and making
the planet warmer.


David Archer is a climate scientist at the University of Chicago:


“The problem with fossil fuels is that the cost of that climate
change isn’t paid by the person who makes the decision to use
fossil energy so it’s sort of like a bill we’re leaving to future
generations.”


Some people say there’s a way to pay that bill now. About three
dozen companies and nonprofits have sprung up in the past few
years. They’re selling carbon offsets.


The idea of a carbon offset is to balance out the carbon dioxide
that you emit. In theory, you can do this by investing in
something like tree planting or energy projects that don’t emit
greenhouse gasses, such as wind or solar power.


First, you can go to one of the group’s websites and calculate
your carbon footprint. That’s all the carbon dioxide you produce
by driving, flying, and so on, in a year. North Americans have
especially big footprints.


The companies assign a price per ton of carbon that’s emitted.
You can decide how much of your carbon-emitting you want to
balance out. Then you type in your credit card number and voila… no more guilt.


Well, that’s the idea anyway.


But what if you buy a carbon offset
but you don’t change your behavior? If you keep driving and
flying and using electricity just as much as before, or maybe
more than before, you’re still a part of the problem.


“You’re absolutely still emitting the carbon. The idea is that
you’re balancing it out through reductions elsewhere.”


Tom Arnold is a cofounder of Terrapass. It’s a carbon offset
company:


“Now this isn’t the optimal solution of course – you should stop
driving. But it’s a good way that we can get you involved in the
dialogue and help you reduce emissions somewhere else.”


And you can get a little sticker for your car to show you’re in
the offsetting club. But Tom Arnold admits there aren’t a whole
lot of drivers of huge SUVs buying offsets.


“We have this nice little SUV sticker – it’s pretty expensive and
a horrible seller. Most of our members already drive passenger
cars, very efficient cars. They’re just looking for a tool to
balance the rest of their impact out to zero.”


Erasing your carbon footprint sounds pretty positive, but there
are quite a few critics of the carbon offset industry. They
point out there aren’t any agreed-on standards for what an offset
is, and prices are all over the map. So it’s not always clear
what you’re getting for your money.


Mark Trexler is president of Trexler Climate and Energy Services.
He’s a consultant who reviews the groups selling carbon offsets.
He says you do have to ask questions about what you’re buying:


“Am I putting my money into something that wouldn’t have happened
anyway? Because if somebody would’ve built that windmill anyway
or if they would’ve done whatever it is you’re putting money into
anyway, you’re really not rendering yourself climate neutral.”


Trexler says there are certification programs in the works so
consumers can know more about what they’re buying. But the people
who are buying offsets now say it feels like they’re making a
difference.


Kate Madigan bought offsets. She started thinking about it when
she was awake at night worrying about the world her new baby
would live in:


“Some people say oh, global warming, it’s going to change the
world in 100 years, but I’ll be gone by then. But I think that’s
a horrible way to look at things because we’re leaving the world
to a lot of people that we love.”


Madigan says she doesn’t think carbon offsets alone will really
solve the problem. She says she thinks it’ll take a lot of
harder choices too, like driving less and using less electricity.


Supporters say that’s the real power of offsets. It’s getting
people to talk about the role they play in global warming.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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