Cities Brace for Global Warming – Part 2

  • Cities can expand mass transit, getting more cars off the road and giving people more options to help reduce emissions that contribute to global warming. (Photo by Karen Kelly)

Census figures show that more and more North Americans are now living in cities. For those who want to fight climate change, that means changing the way these urban folks live. In the second of a two-part series on climate change, Karen Kelly has the story of one city councilor who’s made that his mission:

Transcript

Census figures show that more and more North Americans are now living in cities. For those who want to fight climate change, that means changing the way these urban folks live. In the second of a two-part series on climate change, Karen Kelly has the story of one city councilor who’s made that his mission:


“We’re at Bronson and Fifth. It’s a four lane roadway into Ottawa.”


Clive Doucet is a city councilor in Ottawa, Canada’s capital. He’s standing about half a block from where he lives:


“This kind of street is a community killer, it’s a planet killer. It’s the fruit of 5,560 years of building cities for cars and not human beings.”


Doucet loves cities, which is why it pains him to see a once-beautiful neighborhood street become, as he calls it, a traffic sewer. It’s loud, it’s polluted, and it’s not safe. Three pedestrians have been killed near this corner in the past five years, and there’ve been many accidents.


Doucet was an activist for a long time, but after running for city council he realized the city has the power to change the climate. It builds the roads and it controls the public transportation:


“Public transit has, every environmentalist knows is one of the main keys to solving the environmental crisis. I mean, 45 to 50 percent of greenhouse gases come out of our use of land and the tailpipes of cars and trucks. We can get rid of most of that and we can not change our lifestyle one bit; in fact, we can make it better.”


Doucet hops on his bike to show what he means. He winds through the traffic and then stops along Ottawa’s five-mile-long light rail track:


“This runs parallel to the road we were just on. It’s a test line. It carries a hundred and 50 passengers every 15 minutes and when we get the two lines up and running, it will carry three times the traffic or more as Bronson and it’s quiet. We’re standing at the station now. You’re like in a church. See the train’s coming. Do you hear any noise? It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”


Doucet’s vision for his city is a comprehensive light rail system. He says it will reduce air and noise pollution, and make the city friendlier for pedestrians and cyclists, but Doucet is thinking about the bigger picture, too. And there, he’s not optimistic. He’s noticed that the winters in Ottawa are warmer now, and that’s disturbing for people because they really embrace winter.


Almost every park has an outdoor hockey rink, and people ice skate, not just for pleasure, but to get around. Doucet says he’s afraid that climate change will destroy what makes his city special:


“It’s incredibly sad. I mean, I’ve skated to work all my life and I live about a block from the canal I take my skates down and I’d skate to work and skate home. And I’ve seen countless marvelous sunrises on the canal. It is difficult to imagine my life without that. Those experiences have given my life poetry.”


Doucet says he’s pretty much given up hope on the federal government. He says they’re too beholden to big industry to really curb the emissions that cause climate change.
But at the local level? He says a lot can be done.


He recently wrote a book, Urban Meltdown: Cities, Climate Change and Politics as Usual. In it, he says it’s time for city residents to get tough:


“Go after your municipal politicians and say, you know something, we want to have a city that’s pedestrian-based, that’s public transit-based and we want you to stop building roads. You can do stuff about your local government and the way you live locally.”


Doucet wouldn’t say it’s easy. Last year, Ottawa signed a contract to expand its light rail system. Then, a new mayor came in and the plan was scrapped. Doucet thinks it will happen eventually, but in the meantime, he’s still fighting the rush hour traffic on his bicycle.


For the Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Protecting Migratory Birds

The government will be taking steps to help protect migratory birds. Five
billion birds migrate from North America to the tropics every year. Land
development is threatening the birds’ stopover habitats. Kyle Norris has this
story:

Transcript

The government will be taking steps to help protect migratory birds. Five
billion birds migrate from North America to the tropics every year. Land
development is threatening the birds’ stopover habitats. Kyle Norris has this
story:


The new policy announced by President George Bush will include habitat
improvements for migratory birds. The improvements will happen on national wildlife refuges and in some
urban areas. The US government will collaborate with Mexican officials to
create habitat programs in Mexico.


Greg Butcher is the Director of Bird Conservation for National Audubon
Society. He says birds are an excellent indicator of the environment:


“Birds have many of the very same needs that people have. So they need
clean air, they need clean water. They need good healthy habitats that are
productive. And so when good things happen to birds, good things are happening
for humans at the same time.”


The government will also offer financial incentives to private landowners in
the US. Who either make their property more habitable to migrating birds, or
who agree to not build on their land.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

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Insect Death Match

  • Researchers want to bring in parasitic wasps from China to kill the emerald ash borer (pictured) to slow the beetle's spread. (Photo courtesy of the USFS)

The federal government wants to import insect parasites from China into
the US. Rebecca Williams reports officials are hoping parasitic wasps
will control a pest that’s been killing millions of trees:

Transcript

The federal government wants to import insect parasites from China into
the US. Rebecca Williams reports officials are hoping parasitic wasps
will control a pest that’s been killing millions of trees:


The emerald ash borer has already killed 20 million ash trees.
Scientists think the ash borer got into North America in cargo from
China. It came over without any of the parasites that normally keep it
in check.


Researchers want to bring in some of those parasitic wasps from China
to try to kill the ash borer beetles.


Juli Gould is with the US Department of Agriculture. She’s been
studying the parasitic wasps. She says the ash borer can’t be
eradicated, but the parasites might slow the beetle’s spread:


“The population is very widespread right now and we need another tool
in the toolbox to help control it.”


Gould says they’ve been running tests to make sure the parasitic wasps
won’t kill insects other than the ash borer. She says in her lab
tests, the parasites appear to much prefer ash borers over the other
insects they tested.


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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Interview: The Future of Water in a Warmer World

  • Peter H. Gleick, President and co-founder of the Pacific Institute, is concerned that without reducing greenhouse gas emissions, global warming will have dire impact on water resources. (Courtesy of the Pacific Institute)

With concern about climate change growing, some scientists are trying to determine how global warming will affect sources of water. Lester Graham spoke with the President of the Pacific Institute, Peter Gleick about what climate change might mean to weather patterns:

Transcript

With concern about climate change growing, some scientists are trying to determine how global warming will affect sources of water.

Lester Graham spoke with the President of the Pacific Institute, Peter Gleick about what climate change might mean to weather

patterns:


PG: Overall, the planet is gonna get wetter because as it gets hotter, we’ll see more
evaporation. The problem is, we aren’t always gonna get rain where we want it.
Sometimes we’re gonna get rain where we don’t want it. And at the moment it looks like
the biggest increases in rainfall will be in the northern regions where typically water is
less of a problem. Or at least water quantity is less of a problem. And we may actually get
less rainfall in the Southwest where we need it more.


LG: Let’s talk about some of the precious areas to North America. For instance, a lot of
people are worried about snow pack in the Rockies.


PG: Yes, well, one of the most certain impacts of global climate change is going to be
significant changes in snowfall and snowmelt patterns in the western United States as a
whole, actually in the United States as a whole because as it warms up, what falls out of
the atmosphere is going to be rain and not snow. Now that really matters in the Western
United States, in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada where our snow pack really
forms the basis of our water supply system. Unfortunately, as the climate is changing,
we’re seeing rising temperatures and decreasing snow pack. More of what falls in the
mountains is falling as rain, less of it’s going to be snow. That’s going to wreck havoc on
our management system, the reservoirs that we’ve built to deal with these variations in
climate. Incidentally, it’s also going to ruin the ski season eventually.


LG: You mentioned that the farther north you go, according to some models, we’ll see
more rain or more precipitation. At the same time, with warmer temperatures, we’ll see
less ice covering some of the inland lakes, such as the Great Lakes, which means more
evaporation. So, what are we going to see as far as those surface waters sources across
the continent?


PG: Without a doubt, global climate is changing. And it’s going to get worse and worse
as humans put more and more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And as it gets
warmer, we’re going to see more evaporation off of the surface of all kinds of lakes,
including especially the Great Lakes. And interestingly, even though we don’t have a
great degree of confidence of what’s going to happen precisely with precipitation in the
Great Lakes, all of the models seem to agree that over time, the Great Lakes levels are
going to drop. And it looks like we’re going to lose more water out of the surface of the
Great Lakes from increased evaporation off the lakes than we’re likely to get from
precipitation, even if precipitation goes up somewhat. And I think that’s a great worry for
homeowners and industry around the margin of the lake. Ultimately for navigation,
ultimately for water supply.


LG: There’s a lot of talk about the gloom and doom scenarios of global warming, but
they’ll be longer growing seasons and we’re also going to be seeing, as the zones change,
more of this fertile ground in as northern US and Canada get longer growing seasons.
That’s not a bad thing.


PG: There are going to be winners and loser from global climate change. And
interestingly, there are going to be winners and losers at different times. Certainly, a
longer growing season is a possibility as it warms up. And I think that, in the short term,
could prove to be beneficial for certain agriculture in certain regions. Interestingly
though, and perhaps a little depressingly, over time, if the globe continues to warm up, if
the globe continues to warm up, evidence suggest that the short term improvements in
agriculture that we might see might ultimately be wiped out. As it gets hotter and hotter,
some crop yields will go down after they go up. We’re going to see an increase in pests
that we didn’t used to see because of warmer weather. Unfortunately, pests like warmer
weather. Furthermore, if we don’t really get a handle on greenhouse gas emissions, if we
don’t really start to cut the severity of the climate changes that we’re going to see, the
doom and gloom scenarios unfortunately get more likely. Over time, the temperatures go
up not just one or two or three degrees Celsius but four or five or eight degree Celsius.
And that truly is a catastrophe for the kind of systems we’ve set up around the planet.


HOST TAG: Peter Gleick is a water expert and President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, based in California.

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Searching for Elusive Eastern Cougar

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to look at
whether the eastern cougar exists. The agency will be
looking in 21 states from Maine to Michigan, and down
to Tennessee. As Linda Stephan reports, the review
could end with a recommendation to remove its
endangered status:

Transcript

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to look at
whether the eastern cougar exists. The agency will be
looking in 21 states from Maine to Michigan, and down
to Tennessee. As Linda Stephan reports, the review
could end with a recommendation to remove its
endangered status:


Officials have long presumed that the Eastern cougar
is extinct, and they say it’s not probable they’ll
find evidence of the large, evasive cat east of the
Mississippi in this review.


Mike DeCapita says it’s more likely officials will
find there never was an Eastern cougar that’s any
different from the cats found in Western states. He’s
a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service:


“The next question then after that would be, does the
cougar subspecies, the single subspecies in North
America warrant listing? And my speculation would be
that it doesn’t.”


The official assumption is that there are no cougars
of any type breeding in these states, and that’s been
controversial.


Several citizen groups say there’s evidence to suggest
some are living in the wild east of the Mississippi,
and possibly breeding.


For the Environment Report, I’m Linda Stephan.

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Waspy Pest Seeking Out Pines

A new pest has the potential to do damage the nation’s pine forests.
Richard Annal reports it’s already damaging pines in two states:

Transcript

A new pest has the potential to damage the nation’s pine forests.
Richard Annal reports it’s already damaging pines in two states:


The Sirex woodwasp is believed to have made its way into the US
by infesting imported packing materials. The wasp was first
discovered in New York two years ago and has spread across a
large part of that state and into parts of Pennsylvania. The bug
destroys pine trees by laying eggs in them.


Jason Denim is a senior forester with New York’s Department of
Environmental Conservation. Denim says the wasp has proven to
be a major pest to pine forests around the world and has the
potential to do major damage to pines here in the United States:


“It’s been a major pest globally in pine plantations of North
American pine species primarily outplanted in other parts of the
world.”


To stop the spread of the wasp, foresters are asking loggers not to
take pine materials out of infested areas.


For the environment report, I’m Richard Annal.

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Watching Wild Birds for Avian Flu

The US government is testing wild migratory birds for a deadly strain of avian flu. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports, so far, no wild birds have tested positive:

Transcript

The US government is testing wild migratory birds for a deadly strain of
avian flu. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports, so far, no wild birds have
tested positive:


Researchers have tested 13,000 wild birds in Alaska. They’re worried
that wild birds could carry the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu as they
migrate from Asia to North America and infect other birds in Alaska. The
virus has killed more than 140 people in Asia, Europe and Africa.


Gale Kern is with the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services
Program:


“We still don’t know how effective wild birds are at carrying the virus long
distances. I think we need to remain diligent and really keep up our
surveillance efforts because we just really don’t know a lot about this
particular strain yet.”


Kern says biologists will now focus on testing birds in the lower 48 states
as fall migration south begins.


Agencies also consider poultry imports and smuggled pet birds ways the virus
could get into the States.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Capping Pollution at the Source

  • A newly dug drainage tile. These underground pipes keep the fields dry, but they're also a pathway for nitrogen fertilizers. (photo by Mark Brush)

Today, we begin a week-long series on pollution in the heartland.
Storm water runoff from farm fields contaminates the lakes that many cities use for drinking water. But rather than making farmers reduce the pollution, the government requires water utilities to clean it up and pass the cost on to their customers. In the first part of our series, the GLRC’s Lester Graham reports on efforts some communities have made to stop the pollution at the source:

Transcript

Today, we begin a week-long series on pollution in the heartland. Storm water runoff from farm
fields contaminates the lakes that many cities use for drinking water. But rather than making
farmers reduce the pollution, the government requires water utilities to clean it up and pass the
cost on to their customers. In the first part of our series, the GLRC’s Lester Graham reports on
efforts some communities have made to stop the pollution at the source:


To a great extent, nitrogen fertilizer determines how big a corn crop will be. But often, farmers
use more nitrogen than they really need. It’s a bit of a wager. If conditions are just right, that
extra nitrogen can sometimes pay off in more bushels of corn. But just as often the extra nitrogen
ends up being washed away by rain.


That nitrogen can get into lakes that are used for public drinking supplies. If nitrate levels get too
high the nitrogen can displace oxygen in the blood of children under six months old. It’s called
‘blue baby syndrome.’ In extreme cases it can cause death.


Keith Alexander is the Director of Water Management for the city of Decatur, Illinois. He recalls
that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency required his city to give families with babies
bottled water because nitrogen levels exceeded the federal limits.


“For approximately six years, while we went through the motions of determining what was best
for our community, we did issue bottled water on an infrequent basis when the nitrate levels did
indeed elevate.”


The City of Decatur had to get nitrate levels down. So, they piggy-backed on federal and state
incentives offered to farmers to use better management practices. The city gave farmers money
to build terraces to reduce soil erosion. It gave money on top of federal and state tax dollars to
farmers to put in grass waterways to slow water rushing off the fields. The city gave farmers
money on top of federal and state incentives to use conservation tillage methods. They offered to
pay to install artificial wetlands so plants would take up the nitrogen before it got into the public
water supplies. It gave farmers money to use a chemical that help stabilize nitrogen in the soil.


With all that city and state and federal money offered to farmers, was it enough to reduce nitrogen
to safe levels?


“Unfortunately, no.”


Keith Alexander says some farmers did take advantage of the incentives. But not enough of
them.


“We’ve done quite a bit on a voluntary basis with a lot of great cooperation from the agricultural
community, but in spite of all that, we would still at times have elevated nitrate levels in Lake
Decatur.”


The city had to build the largest nitrate reduction facility in North America, at a cost of 7.5 million dollars to ensure its drinking water did not exceed the federal standards for
nitrates.


The people who tried to persuade farmers to sign up for the nitrogen reduction programs say
many of the farmers were skeptical that they were the cause of the problem. Some didn’t care.
And some were just skeptical of government programs and the red tape involved.


Steven John is the Executive Director of the Agricultural Watershed Institute. He’s still working
with farmers to reduce nitrogen runoff in the region. Today, the reason is not Decatur’s lake but a problem farther downstream.


“To a fairly large extent, the driver for addressing nitrogen issues now is loading to the Gulf of
Mexico. And, in one sense, because we’ve been at this for some time here and developed a little
bit of a history of city-farm cooperation– also developed good monitoring data, you know, to be
able to look at trends over time– we’re in good position to use our watershed as something of a
laboratory to test ideas that might be applied elsewhere in the corn belt.”


Nitrogen from the Decatur lake watershed eventually flows into the Mississippi River. Illinois,
just like all or parts of 37 other states drain into the Mississippi and finally to the Gulf of Mexico.
There researchers believe the nitrogen fertilizes algae growth, so much so that when the algae
dies and sinks to the bottom of the gulf, the decomposing vegetation robs the water of oxygen
and causes a dead zone that can be as large as the state of New Jersey some years.


But getting farmers to change their farming practices when it was causing problems for the city
next to them was difficult. Getting them to change for a problem hundreds of miles away is even
tougher.


Ted Shambaugh is a farmer who has changed. He says the reasons farmers don’t take the
nitrogen problem more seriously is complicated, but as far as he’s concerned, it’s part of how
farming has changed in the last few decades:


“This is going to fly against a lot of common thought, I suppose, about the farmer, and it does get
me in trouble sometimes, but the farmer has become inherently lazy in his management
techniques. They’ve even gone to the fact that even though they’ve got a 150,000 or 200,000
dollar tractor sitting there, they hire their nitrogen put on. Why do they do that? Well, a lot of it
is because they then have somebody to blame. That, if it didn’t go on right, ‘Well, I didn’t do
that.’ Well, we kind of think that’s what we get paid for, is management.”


Most people in cities like Decatur won’t say things like that about the farmers in the countryside
about them. The economic well-being of many of the cities in the corn belt are highly dependent
on agriculture. Criticizing farmers is just not done, even when many of those farmers won’t lift
a finger to clean up the water that their city neighbors have to drink.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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Developing New Test for Deer and Elk Disease

Chronic Wasting Disease is killing wild deer and elk. And it’s slowly spreading to new areas in North America. Right now, tests for the disease are done after the animals are dead, but researchers say they might be getting closer to a test that can be given to live animals. The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Chronic Wasting Disease is killing wild deer and elk. And it’s slowly spreading to new areas
in North America. Right now, tests for the disease are done after the animals are dead,
but researchers say they might be getting closer to a test that can be given to live animals.
The GLRC’s Christina Shockley reports on what this might mean in the fight against the disease:


Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, causes deer and elk to waste away and die.
The disease is causing hunters and wildlife officials to worry about the
future of the wild deer population. Right now, testing a brain sample from a
dead animal is the sure-fire way to detect the infectious protiens, called prions, that
cause the disease.


Alan Young is a Veterinary Science professor at South Dakota State University.
He’s developing the new test.


“Our ultimate goal is basically to develop a test for infectivity in blood,
by taking a blood sample, and then analyzing for the presence of the infectious prion protein.”


Young says a blood test would let deer and elk farmers know if their herds are
infected before the animals die. He says the research could also lead to a cure for CWD.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

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