Hybrid cars like the Honda Insight are becoming more popular with consumers. However, a study predicts a decrease in jobs if sales of hybrids increase sharply. (Photo by Paige Foster)
A new report says new automotive technology such as gasoline-electric hybrid engines could cost thousands of American jobs. Researchers say states with large numbers of autoworkers could be hurt the most. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland:
Transcript
A new report says new automotive technology such as
gasoline-electric hybrid engines could cost thousands of American
jobs. Researchers say states with large numbers of autoworkers
could be hurt the most. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Michael Leland:
Sales of gasoline-electric hybrids amounted to less than one-percent of all
the vehicles sold in the U.S. last year. But researchers at the University
of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute say hybrids, and vehicles
made with advanced diesel powertrains, could make up eleven percent of total
sales by 2009.
If that happens, the Institute projects it could cost the
U.S. about 200-thousand jobs. Pat Hammett directed the study. He says that
figure includes both actual jobs lost and new jobs not created.
“A lot of the hybrid components, for example, actually are new componentry
inside a vehicle. So, it isn’t necessarily that you are losing jobs in some
of that area, it could just be an example of not getting the growth.”
Hammett says auto-producing states like Michigan, Ohio and Indiana would be
affected more than others. The report says states could reduce jobs lost to
new technologies by offering tax credits to encourage production in the
United States.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Michael Leland.
American chestnuts (left) are smaller than Chinese and European chestnuts. The Chinese and European varieties are also resistant to the blight, making the imports more desirable to growers. (Photo by Lester Graham)
American chestnuts were an important food source for wildlife because there was a more consistent crop each year than acorns. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Bill Nash of Nash Nurseries holds the spiny husks that hold the chestnuts. The American chestnut grove behind him is 20 years old and has not yet been hit by blight. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one
traditional food has – for the most part – disappeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one traditional food has – for the most part – disapeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
(Sound of Nat King Cole singing, “Chestnuts roasing on an open fire…”)
That old chestnut of a song romanticizes roasting chestnuts as a part of the holidays. But a lot of us have never even seen chestnuts, let alone roasted them on an open fire. Chestnuts used to be a major part of the Eastern hardwood forest. There were millions of them. In fact, 25 percent of all the mature trees were chestnuts. But a blight, imported with some Chinese chestnut trees, slowly wiped out the American chestnuts. Now, they’re gone.
Well… almost. Much of the root stock is still alive. Sprouts grow until the blight knocks them back again. A blight only hurts the standing tree where it branches out.
And, in a few isolated pockets in the Midwest, the blight hasn’t reached the trees. A few American chestnuts are alive and growing and some of them are free of the blight. At Nash Nursuries in central Michigan, owner Bill Nash is guiding us through a rare sight… a grove of American chestnuts.
“These are 20 years old and as you can see, they’re fairly good sized. The American chestnut is quite a rapid growing tree. It’s well-suited for our climate, so it doesn’t have any of the problems that some of the hybrids do as far as growing and cultural care you have to take care of them. The Americans, you get them started and they’re pretty much on their own.”
In a few places in Michigan and Wisconsin there are small groves of chestnuts. They’re prized trees. They’re great for shade. The hardwood is rot resistant and makes great furniture and fence posts. And the chestnuts are eaten by humans and wildlife alike. Bill Nash says the tree will be popular again if it ever overcomes the blight that’s hit it so hard.
“The American chestnut will make another big comeback in this country as a yard tree, as a timber tree, as a wildlife tree.”
That part about a wildlife tree is more important than just worrying about the squirrels and bunnies. Chestnuts were an important food source for all kinds of animals.
Andrew Jarosz is a plant biologist at Michigan State University. He says the loss of chestnuts has been hard on wildlife populations.
“Chestnuts shed nuts in a more regular pattern than oaks, which will have what are called mast years – where they’ll have major crops, massive crops one year and very small crops in other years – which means it’s either feast or famine if you’re depending on oaks.”
Since the blight first began hitting American chestnuts about a century ago, researchers have been looking into all kinds of ways to stop it. One way is to cross it with the Chinese chestnut which has a couple of genes that resist the blight. But it takes a long time to breed out the Chinese characteristics from the American chestnuts and still keep the resistant genes.
Another approach is genetic manipulation. Genetically modifying the American chestnut tree to make it disease resistant. Again, work is underway, but it takes a long time. And even after success, it’s likely some people won’t like the idea of releasing a genetically modified organism into the wild.
The final approach worked in Europe when the blight hit there. It seems there’s a naturally occuring virus that kills the blight. It spread naturally in Europe. There are a few groves in Michigan that have naturally acquired the virus and it’s working to keep the blight at bay. Andrew Jarosz is working on the research. He says the trick is figuring out how to get the virus to spread to other trees short of manually spreading it on cankers infected by the blight.
“If we’re literally talking about millions of trees across probably, you know, the eastern third of the country, we obviously can’t treat every canker on every tree. And we need to be able to figure out a way to deploy the virus in a way that it can spread.”
Even with all that hopeful research, it’ll be ten years at least before some practical solutions end up in the forests, and Jarosz believes a couple of centuries before the American chestnut holds the place it once did in the forests.
Bill Nash knows it’ll be a while before there are major changes, but he is optimistic about the American chestnut.
“Oh, I would think the tree has a bright future. There’s enough people working on that, enough programs going on now… So, I would suspect that in the not-too-distant future we should have some of this progress made. You know, Robert Frost in his poem predicted the comeback of the American chestnut, that something would arise to offset that blight. And we’re starting to see that.”
Frost put it this way: “Will the blight end the chestnut? The farmers rather guess not, It keeps smoldering at the roots And sending up new shoots Till another parasite Shall come to end the blight.”
Seems Frost was an optimist too.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
A Canadian environmental group has released a list of the greenest and meanest vehicles on the road. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
A Canadian environmental group has released a list of the greenest and meanest vehicles on the
road. The Great lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
It’s no surprise that hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, the Honda Insight and the Honda
Civic hybrid topped the list of environmentally-friendly cars.
As for gas guzzlers, Environmental Defence Canada rated the Volkswagen Touareg, the
LandRover Range Rover and the Lexus LX 470 as the worst.
Jennifer Foulds is with Environmental Defence Canada.
She says traditionally, the green list has been dominated by Japanese automakers.
“The big three hasn’t really cracked the green list yet. They tend to have vehicles that aren’t quite
as fuel efficient, don’t have the same level of tailpipe emissions as some of the foreign made
vehicles.”
This year, the Ford Focus did qualify for the green list.
Foulds says it may soon be joined by other American cars as Ford, GM, and Daimler Chrysler
prepare to release their own hybrid vehicles.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
The "Hydraulic Launch Assist" system - the system pressurizes a tank when the vehicle brakes. The pressurized tank then gives the motor a boost of power when the vehicle begins to accelerate. (Photo courtesy of Eaton Fluid Power Group)
Next month, the Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a Ford Expedition that sips, not guzzles, gas. It’ll have a new type of technology that should give a huge boost to the fuel economy of big commercial trucks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert filed this report:
Transcript
Next month, the Environmental Protection Agency will unveil a Ford Expedition that sips, not guzzles,
gas. It’ll have a new type of technology that should give a huge boost to the fuel economy of big
commercial trucks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert filed this report:
(sound of garbage truck)
Every morning garbage trucks spew annoying smog and guzzle fuel. Commercial vehicles, like this
garbage truck, and delivery trucks, get only about 8 miles to the gallon. That compares to 20 miles per
gallon for an average car. But that’s about to change, if the EPA has its way.
The EPA worked with private industry to develop a new way to help launch the engine, called a hydraulic
hybrid. This new technology could double the fuel economy of big, commercial vehicles and cut
emissions in half. It could also make the trucks a lot quieter. Christopher Grundler runs the EPA division
that helped design the new hydraulic hybrid.
“We’re pretty bullish about this technology, because it’s cheap and it delivers other attributes that
American consumers want, meaning performance and the ability to tow vehicles and so on. It’s
particularly well suited for larger vehicles, so that’s why we’re excited about it.”
This hydraulic power source is expected to hike big truck costs by only a couple thousand dollars. That’s
not much, considering the cost of those trucks these days can run 40 to 45 thousand dollars.
(sound of hydraulic hybrid)
Hydraulic hybrids are different from the electric hybrids now on the road in Toyota and Honda vehicles.
Electric hybrids use a small gasoline engine along with an electric generator and use batteries to story
energy. But the hydraulic system is different. It uses a tank that stores energy as a compressed nitrogen
gas. When you want to accelerate, the high pressure gas runs a motor and the energy is used to drive the
wheels. The system uses the energy that’s generated by braking and helps keep the hydraulic system
pressurized. So for vehicles that stop and go a lot, this system is especially efficient. The holding tank can
store so much energy that there’s swift pick-up. EPA’s test vehicle starts effortlessly and lurches forward
like a race car.
Next month, at the Society of Automotive Engineers conference in Detroit, the EPA will be displaying this
technology in an Expedition, Ford’s second largest SUV.
The agency is working with Eaton Corporation. Eaton is a large worldwide industrial supplier that makes
hydraulic parts. Steve Nash is a manager with Eaton and he says hydraulic trucks could be a big market
for the company.
“We know that the greatest benefit of a regenerative braking product like a hybrid hydraulic or electric is
that you need to be doing a lot of start and stop type driving and with certain vocations, such as refuse
vehicles, such as city transit busses, such as shuttle busses and pick-up and delivery vehicles, it’s a perfect
application because they do a lot of start and stop-type driving.”
Eaton first worked with Ford Motor Company to develop the technology. Ford later dropped the project,
but Nash says Eaton forged ahead.
“We saw the opportunities as being so attractive that we decided to continue on our own and that’s where
we are today.”
Eaton’s now working with Workhouse Custom Chasses. That’s a truck manufacturer in Indiana. They
plan to bring out roughly 150 hydraulic delivery trucks within the next year. And that’s just a start.
Christopher Grundler says that commercial trucks burn a huge amount of fuel, so cutting fuel costs in half
makes them a perfect target market.
“Those customers care a lot more about fuel economy than the average American driver. It’s a significant
business cost to them so there is a market for fuel economy in these segments, much more so than in the
car and light truck segments.”
An industry observer says that might be true. Bill Viznik is an automotive journalist who covers
technology for Wards Communications. But he says the systems are really heavy. So they have limited
use and don’t make sense for smaller, personal vehicles.
“SUVs already are large, bulky and heavy and certainly don’t need a lot of extra weight added to them, so
I think at this point to look at adding a system like this to a conventional SUV, like a Ford Explorer,
something like that, you reach a point of quickly diminishing return. If you add a lot of weight to the
vehicle then it makes everything ratchet up from there.”
Viznik says hydraulics can actually make fuel economy worse for small vehicles. But the Environmental
Protection Agency is more optimistic. Christopher Grundler thinks hydraulic SUVs are possible.
“It depends on the SUV. I think for smaller SUVs, it does provide a packaging challenge for the hydraulic
technology, but I think for larger SUVs, the medium to large SUVs, this technology is well-suited as well
as the larger urban delivery trucks.”
EPA plans to announce partnerships with private companies later this year to begin testing the hydraulic
hybrid engines in delivery trucks like those Fed Ex uses. The final determination will depend on how well
they fare on the street.
For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Halpert.
For the past few years, people who have wanted to buy a more energy-efficient car have had to think small. That’s about to change. The floor of this year’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit offered a look at several new energy-efficient models due out later this year or within the next few years. The auto industry hasn’t sold very many of the cars carrying one type of new technology so far, but officials hope more choices will boost sales. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
Transcript
For the past few years, people who have wanted to buy a more energy-efficient car have had to
think small. That’s about to change. The floor of this year’s North American International Auto
Show in Detroit offered a look at several new energy-efficient models due out later this year or
within the next few years. The auto industry hasn’t sold very many of the cars carrying one type
of new technology so far, but officials hope more choices will boost sales. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
At the Toyota display at this year’s auto show, a small crowd formed around the newest version
of the gasoline-electric Prius. Toyota’s sold the car since 1997, and has made it bigger for this
year. What makes this car different is it’s powered by a gasoline-electric hybrid engine. A few
months ago, Denny Jones of Toledo, Ohio ordered a new Prius. He’s still waiting for delivery, so
he drove to Detroit to sit in one at the auto show.
“First of all, I’ve had other Toyotas, so I like the quality. They’ve made improvements on this
one. There’s hatchback. On the first style you couldn’t have a hatchback. They get better
mileage than the first one. And, overall it is a larger car.”
Gasoline-electric hybrid engines have lower emissions and get better mileage than cars with
standard gasoline engines. Toyota says the Prius gets about 50-miles per gallon. But the only
hybrids on the market so far have been small cars like the Prius and the Honda Civic.
Later this year and next, larger hybrids will roll into showrooms. Honda will offer a hybrid
Accord. And Ford will sell a hybrid version of its Escape SUV. Jerry Bissi braved an afternoon
snowstorm to come to the auto show, and was checking one out.
“I prefer to have an SUV-type vehicle for driving back and forth, all-wheel drive, the weather
conditions we have today outside. So I prefer something like that rather than the car.”
There will be several hybrid SUV’s available by next year. Toyota will sell a hybrid Highlander,
and its luxury division Lexus will offer its own model.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce the world’s first luxury hybrid vehicle, the
Lexus RX-400-H.”
Denny Clements is a vice-president at Lexus. He says there seems to be a pent-up demand for
larger hybrids.
“Our dealers have taken a huge amount of orders just off word of mouth about Prius, I think. I
think what we have when you talk to our customers is there is a lot of very affluent people who
would like to make a statement about Middle East oil, would like to make a statement about who
they are, but they don’t want to make the sacrifices in terms of luxury amenities.”
Toyota says Americans bought about 21-thousand hybrid Priuses last year. But that’s a drop in
the bucket compared to the almost 16-million vehicles sold in the U.S. last year.
“If you added up all the hybrids that have ever been made since the beginning of time, they don’t
equal the production of one high-volume auto plant in one year.”
That’s David Cole. He heads the Center for Automotive Research. He says some people have
shied away from hybrids because they’ve only been available as small cars, and others have been
wary of the new technology. But mostly, Cole says a lot of people aren’t willing to pay more for
a hybrid.
“Where it is going to be in the future is dependant on one thing in my judgment and that is
economics. Can it be done at a cost that consumers will pay for?”
So far, Toyota, Lexus and Ford aren’t saying what their new hybrids will cost. Right now a new
hybrid Honda Civic costs about two-thousand dollars more than the most expensive gasoline
model. The federal government offers a tax deduction to hybrid-buyers to help close that gap, but
it is being phased out during the next few years. Some automakers and environmental groups say
it’s not enough anyway. They want Congress to pass a federal tax credit for people who buy
hybrids.
David Friedman is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says the automakers’ decision to
offer hybrid engines in more models is an opportunity for the country to become less dependant
on imported oil – if enough people can be persuaded to buy the vehicles.
“If automakers put some of their 10-to-15 billion dollars of advertising muscle behind this, and if
the government is willing to get these tax credits out there, I think we can see hybrids grow into a
significant portion of the market.”
Back at the auto show, Jerry Bissi says he’d consider buying a hybrid SUV. He says he thinks
others will too, if the price is right and they prove to be reliable.
“I think there are a lot of people sitting on the fence. They’re going to watch the first one, see
how it does. If it does prove to be good, they’ll jump on the bandwagon and be late joiners.”
Buyers might need some convincing, though. On this afternoon at the auto show, Ford’s hybrid
version of the Escape SUV drew only a few visitors compared to the crowds surrounding the
standard gasoline-engine Escape and the company’s larger Explorer SUV.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Michael Leland.
The auto industry seems to be growing a bit green. Car makers across the world are exploring new, more environmentally-friendly power systems for cars and trucks. But despite these new developments, it doesn’t appear that American car buyers think green when they go shopping for a new vehicle. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Poorman reports:
Transcript
The auto industry seems to be growing a bit green. Car makers across
the world are exploring new, more environmentally friendly power systems
for cars and trucks. But despite these new developments, it doesn’t
appear that American car buyers think green when they go shopping for a
new vehicle. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Poorman reports:
Sales of environmentally-friendly vehicles are increasing in the U-S. Toyota is leading the pack,
with the debut in October of the second generation of its mid-size hybrid car, the Prius. The
small gas engine gets help from an electric motor, making for a much different kind of
start-up.
(sound of Prius starting)
However, those sales are dwarfed by the sales of gas guzzling SUVs.
(sound of H2 starting)
That’s the H2 – the latest in General Motor’s popular line of Hummers.
These vehicles are so big that they’re considered a heavy truck, making
them exempt from the federal government’s fuel economy ratings, so you
won’t see the gas mileage on the window sticker.
But salesman Ed Arthur of Capitol Hummer in Lansing, Michigan, says
that’s not a big deal. Arthur says H2 customers are looking for
something else than fuel economy.
“They’re looking for something that’s unique. It’s different.
They want something to be where they can go off-road if they want to.
If they don’t want to, that’s fine. But they want the capabilities, but
they don’t want to sacrifice the comforts and the rides that they’ve
been getting in other cars and other types of vehicles in the past.”
These kinds of preferences aren’t just limited to the select customers
who can afford a 50-thousand-dollar Hummer. John Denove studies
customers’ car-buying priorities for JD Power and Associates, an
automotive consulting firm.
“Probably your top five include the quality/reliability issues, styling, safety, gas mileage, and
incentives.”
And Denove says, gas mileage only recently crept into the top five, as
gas prices have risen. As for pure environmental motives, he says he
recently developed a survey and, during a series of interviews, found
fifty different factors people consider when they’re choosing what car
or truck to buy.
“The funny thing is, nobody during those interviews ever mentioned green issues other than gas
mileage, so they never made it into the survey.”
But environmentalists think those findings might not capture what’s
really happening when people go into dealerships. Jon Coifman is with
the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says that people just assume
cars and trucks won’t harm the environment now. Regulations have
prompted automakers to develop and sell cleaner technologies.
“What we’ve learned over the years is that when you’ve got
good standards in place, the automakers have done a pretty good job of
delivering good solutions at a pretty good price.”
Detroit’s car companies argue that price and performance are both major
reasons for their delay in getting out newer and more expensive
environmental technologies, like hybrids and electric cars. Consumer
surveys show most car-buyers won’t pay more just to be green. And
electrics never caught on because they had a limited range and had to be
plugged in each night.
But Toyota now says that it’s making money on every Prius. And next
year, the Japanese automaker plans to put a new twist on hybrid sales.
It will overcome the lack of demand for green vehicles by marketing a
new hybrid SUV as a performance vehicle, with a four-cylinder engine
producing six-cylinder power, and by the way, it gets good mileage.
The NRDC’s Coifman says this makes him worry that GM, Ford, and Chrysler
are already losing this latest car sales skirmish.
“Our fear is that, as this revolution unfolds, that the
American manufacturers may have been dragging their feet too long and
are going to miss the boat.”
In the meantime, GM’s investment in the Hummer is paying off for the
company and its dealers. The vehicles bring in huge profits. GM is
even considering adding another, but smaller, Hummer to its line-up,
filling what seems to be an ever expanding taste for gargantuan, rather
than green, vehicles in the U.S.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Poorman.
With another Mideastern conflict looming, many Americans are worried about the possibility of rising gas prices. But as Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Springer points out, using less gas may be difficult for a generation that grew up admiring gas-guzzlers:
Transcript
With another Mideastern conflict looming, many Americans are worried about the
possibility of rising gas prices. But as Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom
Springer points out, using less gas may be difficult for a generation that grew up admiring
gas-guzzlers:
It’s been 20 years since I rumbled through town in a fast car with wide tires and a big
hood scoop. But there, parked in front of me, was the mag-wheeled embodiment of a
teenage fantasy. Its electric blue paint job was flashing in the sun. It was more temptation
then a recovering car freak could resist.
The object of my affection was a 1970 Plymouth GTX. For two years, my brother-in-law
had worked nights and weekends to restore the old muscle car. Under the hood was a
gleaming V-8 engine, with enough horsepower to pull out tree stumps. And now, on a flat stretch
of country road, he casually asked the question: “Do you want to see what it can do?”
Did I want to see what it could do? It was an act of hypocrisy that no self-respecting
environmentalist should ever commit. Since my drag racing days, I’ve learned the truth
about the evils of fossil fuel. I know that America’s car culture is the driving force behind
urban sprawl, acid rain and the ongoing rift with a certain mustachioed Mideastern
dictator.
But after about three seconds behind the wheel, my environmentalist notions flew out the
window. I stomped the accelerator, and the tires squealed. The engine roared. The
carburetors gulped down an ocean of high-octane racing fuel. Then, for a glorious
moment, the long-forgotten thrill of intense acceleration. The hormone rush was almost
enough to bring my adolescent acne out of remission.
We later drove the GTX to a car show. The hot rods on display were mainly pre-1971
gas-guzzlers. They get about 12 miles per gallon in city driving. Oddly enough, that’s
about the same mileage as a monster sports utility vehicle. The difference is, most
collector cars are driven only on sunny weekends.
And 35 years from now, we may be doing the same thing with SUVs. I can picture the
scene on a fall day in 2037. I’m with my grandchildren at an SUV collectors meet. The
kids are staring in disbelief at these mammoth, 8-passenger vehicles, which rarely carried
more than two or three passengers. And the only thing they can think to say is… “Why?”
The world’s not making any more oil, so our day of reckoning is coming. Some
Americans may think that dollar-fifty per gallon gasoline is their birthright. Yet it won’t
last forever. Fuel cells, electric cars and hybrids are the future of human mobility.
Americans like me, who neither car pool nor take the train, will have to change.
But change may be difficult. Because for my generation, the rich exhaust of an untamed
V-8 will always be like a rare perfume. And our memories of cheap gasoline, and the
freedom of an open road, will only grow fonder with age.
Tom Springer is a freelance writer from Three Rivers, Michigan.
Dutch elm disease is killing dozens of stately old trees in the Midwest this summer. Many people say they regret losing the beautiful old trees. It changes the way a place looks and feels for years to come. Some people are willing to fight and pay to save the elm trees in one Chicago suburb. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jody Becker reports:
Transcript
Dutch elm disease is killing dozens of stately old trees in the Great Lakes region this summer. Many people say they regret losing the beautiful old trees. It changes the way a place looks and feels for years to come. Some people are willing to fight and pay to save the elm trees in one Chicago suburb. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jody Becker reports:
When Hollywood producers come looking for the perfect leafy suburb, they often wind up in Evanston, Illinois. This summer’s Tom Hanks flick “The Road to Perdition” was shot here. Filming almost hit a glitch…when Dreamworks suggested removing an old tree to make way for a driveway, the city balked. The scene was filmed; the tree stayed.
Evanston has dozens of trees at least a century old; and some even older than that.
Today, Evanston residents are even fighting a directive from the state’s Department of Transportation to replace obsolete traffic lights because it might mean uprooting some trees. So Evanston’s city Arborist Paul D’Agostino clearly has a rough job: he’s in charge of cutting down trees in a city of tree huggers.
“I’ve had to console people who were crying and hugging their tree and convince them that we were doing the right thing, that there was no choice in the matter.”
Like a handful of tree studded suburbs around Chicago and dozens of cities around the Great Lakes region, Evanston is experiencing a sad summer as Dutch elm disease claims dozens of trees more than half a century old and up to 70 feet tall.
Already more than one hundred Evanston elms have been found to have the killer fungus, and D’Agostino expects the toll to exceed two hundred. Once infected, a tree quickly begins to die…as the fungus blocks the vascular system that delivers water and nutrients to branches and leaves.
D’Agostino explains, standing near two dying elms in front of the Evanston Police Department…
“Both of these trees are in my estimation probably about 40 years old. These are pretty far along now in showing signs of disease…but the typical symptoms of yellowing and flagging leaves has now progressed to dead leaves and bare branches. We’ve got dying sucker growth along the main trunk which means the disease has spread into the main trunk and into the roots, so there’s no curing this tree at this point. The only way to solve this problem now is to remove the tree so it doesn’t spread to other nearby elms.”
(sound of sawing trees)
So five days a week, three crews of three men each are out on Evanston streets, taking down very old, very tall trees.
(sound of chain saw and crash)
For this relatively affluent, leafy suburb defined by its generous trees, the return of Dutch elm disease brings back bad memories of summers nearly 30 years ago, when hundreds of trees were cut down, destroying the canopies of tree tops that shade many of Evanston’s streets.
Still, there are 27,000 trees on city property in Evanston, and D’Agostino estimates three times that many on private property.
Today the suburb’s green and shade is created by a careful mix of hybrids and hardier trees, including Kentucky coffee, linden, gingko, honey locust and horse chestnut.
And the city is moving ahead with plans to continue replanting with diverse species to avoid future epidemics.
But ever a hotbed of activism, Evanston environmentalists of every stripe are on the case, badgering officials to do more than just identify and remove diseased trees.
Many want the city to inoculate the elms against the fungus.
“I’m a conservative republican, not at all a tree hugger. Al Gore and I would not mix ”
Virginia Mann has successfully organized the 13 other homeowners on her block to foot the bill to inject the elms on their street.
There are nine healthy elms on the block, and Mann and her neighbors have decided to adopt and inject three trees each year, at a cost of about $600 per tree.
“I know they add value to my community, I know they add value to my property, and I
know they keep my cooling costs down and I know there’s nothing I can do to replace them. So if you don’t take care of them, that’s it, they’re gone.”
While prognosis for the inoculated trees is excellent, there are no guarantees.
Dutch elm disease is spread both by beetles who carry the fungus on their hairs, and through root grafts between neighboring trees.
There is no way to protect the trees from root grafts. No one is sure why the disease is back and moving so aggressively.
Some citizens say, though inoculations can’t guarantee saving a tree, with only about 3,000 elms left in Evanston they’d rather try, than accept what the city officials seem to believe is the inevitable demise of the species in their suburb.
“Well, you can see my tree suffered an amputation this year.”
Mimi Peterson’s front porch on Ashland Avenue is shaded by a tall sturdy-looking survivor.
“It’s one of the few elms left on the block. You can also see across the street where we lost a really huge one. We’ve already lost nine trees on the block.”
She is well known in town for raising her voice as an advocate for trees; five years ago she hounded the city into more routine tree trimmings.
Now Peterson’s spearheading a group called TREE…To Rescue Evanston Elms, looking to suburbs like nearby Hinsdale…a place with more elm trees and a more aggressive Dutch elm disease prevention program.
Peterson says she agrees that diseased trees should go…but more needs to be done to protect still healthy elms.
Mostly Peterson’s group wants the city to spend more time and money looking for trees to save rather than trees to cut.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jody Becker.
Automotive analysts say a new arrangement between Ford and the EPA may signal a significant change in the car company’s relationship with the government. Ford and the EPA are teaming up to create a new hybrid engine that is expected to be more efficient than current hybrids. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more:
Transcript
Automotive analysts say a new arrangement between Ford and the EPA may signal a significant change in the car companies’ relationship with the government. Ford and the EPA are teaming up to create a new hybrid engine that is expected to be more efficient than current hybrids. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell reports.
One of the drawbacks to current hybrid vehicles is the electric batteries—they’re heavy and they’re expensive. But Ford and the EPA are working on a new model that uses pressurized liquid to store energy instead of batteries. Michael Flynn of the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute says this arrangement shows a departure from the contentious relationship the government and car companies have had in the past.
“There are problems and rather than hollering at each other, pointing fingers, trying to figure out who’s to blame and therefore, who gets hung out to dry, it makes much more sense to try to jointly resolve the problems.”
The EPA actually holds the patent for the pressurized liquid technology. Both Ford and the EPA say it should be available to the public in about ten years—possibly in an SUV. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.
Time Magazine recently published profiles of people it considers "Heroes of
the Planet." Among them was Peter Raven. He’s the director of the Missouri
Botanical Garden. Raven has used his position as a platform to preach
better stewardship of the Earth. In the second of a series of interviews…
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham sat down with Raven in his
botanical garden to talk about advances in the laboratory that could affect
all life on Earth:
Hybrid cars like the Honda Insight are becoming more popular with consumers. However, a study predicts a decrease in jobs if sales of hybrids increase sharply. (Photo by Paige Foster)
