Tag: politics

The Great Depression and Green Jobs

  • The CCC worked on soil conservation projects, built 3,000 state parks, and replanted forests. The men in the CCC planted three-billion trees - that’s estimated to be half of the trees ever planted by humans in the U.S. (Photo courtesy of the National Resources Conservation Service)

Today we hear a lot of news calling
this “the worst recession since the
Great Depression.” Tonight, PBS
begins airing a series of documentaries
from American Experience called
“The 1930s.” Lester Graham reports
the series looks back at the Great
Depression:

Transcript

Today we hear a lot of news calling
this “the worst recession since the
Great Depression.” Tonight, PBS
begins airing a series of documentaries
from American Experience called
“The 1930s.” Lester Graham reports
the series looks back at the Great
Depression:

The documentaries in “The 1930s” series look at the stockmarket crash, the Dust Bowl, and the government’s response – such as President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Robert Stone directed one of the five documentaries. He looked at the Civilian Conservation Corps – the CCC. Stone says it was the first of Roosevelt’s work programs, but it also tackled the biggest environmental disasters.

“We’d spent hundreds of years just chopping down all of the forests in this country and over-using all of the farmland. The topsoil was all running into our rivers and off into the ocean. And it reached a sort of crisis point in the 1920s and early ‘30s.”

FDR had watched the forests disappear and soil erode near his home in Hyde Park, New York. Putting men to work correcting those problems made sense to him.

“FDR was very aware of that. He started a sort of mini-Civilian Conservation Corps in New York state when he was Governor and then when he went to the White House he came up with the Civilian Conservation Corps.”

FDR: “We are planning within a few days to ask the Congress for legislation to enable the government to take on public works, thus stimulating directly and indirectly the employment of many others in well-considered projects.”

But this was new for government. At that time, helping the poor was something for charity, not government.

Harley Jolley is one of four CCC veterans who tell their stories in the documentary.

He says hiring unemployed young men to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps was new to politicians. But they saw it for the practical politics it was.

“And because all those politicians were well aware that they had young men in their hometown, in their home state that could vote for them next time around, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll go with you.’ And very quickly it came to pass.”

FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps was the first, but several work programs followed.

The CCC worked on soil conservation projects, built three-thousand state parks and replanted forests. The men in the CCC planted three-billion trees – that’s estimated to be half of the trees ever planted by humans in the U.S.

This revolutionary idea got off the ground quickly. Camps were set up in every state. Men worked under military officers. The Civilian Conservation Corps members were required to send most of their pay back home.

Sometimes nearby towns welcomed the young men. CCC veteran Vincente Ximenes says, other times, people were wary of Roosevelt’s army of workers.

“And there were some farmers who didn’t like FDR and what he did. He was called a Communist, a Socialist, any name you could find. So, therefore, the CCC-ers also, of course, were no good as far as they were concerned.”

And it wasn’t just farmers.

The documentary’s director, Robert Stone says, in the beginning, President Roosevelt faced a lot of opposition to his government ‘green jobs’ program.

“Well, there were concerns very similar to what you have today with concerns about deficit spending.”

“The national debt today is 30-billion as compared to 19-billions under Hoover. And God knows Hoover was bad enough.”

“So that was on the right. And on the left there were concerns about paying these people a dollar-a-day. The unions were upset about it. But the success of it was such that it really quelled most any opposition.”

The Civilian Conservation Corps documentary, like the other documentaries in the 1930s American Experience series, looks at the connections between environmental damage and economic collapse in a way that still resonates today.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Recovery Through Retrofit

  • One of the main goals of the “Recovery through Retrofit” plan is to find ways to help people pay for energy efficient improvements. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

The White House has released a plan that
intends to get more people to make their
homes and apartments more energy
efficient. Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

The White House has released a plan that
intends to get more people to make their
homes and apartments more energy
efficient. Mark Brush reports:

One of the main goals of the “Recovery through Retrofit” plan is to find ways to help people pay for energy efficient improvements. Some of these improvements can cost a bundle.

But, the White House says, there are ways to help. Christine Glunz is a spokesperson for The White House Council on Environmental Quality:

“We want to provide American homeowners with the opportunity to get this energy efficiency done, and get the retrofit done, without having to bear a major financial burden immediately.”

Glunz says the Obama Administration is pushing for new financing options. One they support is a local government loan program that is paid back through property taxes.

In addition to financing, the plan calls for an energy label for homes and apartments. It’s sort of like an Energy Star label, so renters and home buyers can figure out how efficient a building is.

The plan also calls for more trained workers to perform energy retrofits.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Coal Will Not Go Quietly

  • In the fall of 2007, the state of Kansas made the unprecedented decision to deny a power company permits for a coal plant because of greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo courtesy of the Energy Information Administration)

Reducing the greenhouse gases that
cause global warming will mean less
reliance on fossil fuels, such as coal.
Almost two years ago, Kansas became
the first state ever to deny permits
for a coal plant because of greenhouse
gas emissions. Since then, there have
been lawsuits on all sides. Even the
compromise the Governor in Kansas reached
with the coal company in May is now
stalled. Devin Browne reports that
coal just will not go quietly:

Transcript

Reducing the greenhouse gases that
cause global warming will mean less
reliance on fossil fuels, such as coal.
Almost two years ago, Kansas became
the first state ever to deny permits
for a coal plant because of greenhouse
gas emissions. Since then, there have
been lawsuits on all sides. Even the
compromise the Governor in Kansas reached
with the coal company in May is now
stalled. Devin Browne reports that
coal just will not go quietly:

The Sunflower Electric Power Corporation had actually applied and been
approved for a permit to build a new coal plant in 2002. But, for whatever
reason, they let the permit expire. Seemed like no big deal at the time
– they figured they’d get another one whenever they turned in another
application.

Except that they didn’t. In the fall of 2007, the state of Kansas made
the unprecedented decision to deny the power company. Cindy Hertel is with
Sunflower.

“It would be like going for your drivers license, taking the drivers
test, passing it, then being denied your drivers license because you
don’t drive a Prius. Can’t change the rules in the middle of the game.
And that’s what happened.”

Rod Bremby is the Secretary of Health and Environment in Kansas. He says
the state didn’t really change the rules on regulating CO2 because there
aren’t any rules on CO2. And since there’s no federal regulations,
Secretary Bremby instituted a state regulation. He said it would be
irresponsible not to regulate the gases causing climate change.

Stephanie Cole with the Sierra Club called it a watershed moment.

“We were excited, we were stunned – however, it wasn’t long after
that, legislators from Western Kansas started making comments that they
disapproved of Secretary Bremby’s decision and that they were going to
make legislative attempts to overturn the permit denial. So victory was
short-lived.”

Since then, the power company, Sunflower, has hired lobbyists. They’ve
helped legislators draft new bills to allow the coal-burning power plant.
The power company sued both the previous and current governor for civil
rights violations. For two years – nothing.

Then Kansas got a new governor – Mark Parkinson. Almost immediately
after he became governor last May, he cut a deal with Sunflower. Stop the
lawsuits. Build only one unit, not two or three. And, most importantly to
the Governor’s agenda, put in transmission lines to Colorado so that
Kansas can start exporting wind energy out of state.

Kansas is the third windiest state in the country. But it needs
infrastructure to get that wind-power to other states. And, in the
governor’s deal, power companies like Sunflower help build that
infrastructure.

Cole, with the Sierra Club, said the deal was very much a let-down.

“Because it is very troubling to many of us who have been involved in
this so long. It is such a disappointment.”

For a moment the battle seemed to be over. But, it wasn’t.

In July, Sunflower received a letter from the EPA asking them to submit a
new application for a permit. John Knodel is an environmental engineer
with the EPA.

“It’s not appropriate, in our mind, that they take an application that
was for three 700 MW units and simply say, ‘that was bigger, this project
is smaller.’ We say, ‘you have to go through a process and make it
very clear what this new project is all about.’”

Now that the EPA is stepping in, Sunflower & the Sierra Club are back to
square one.

The power company is expected to turn in its new application this fall.
The Sierra Club is expected to fight it. And Sunflower is expected to
fight back.

Cindy Hertel with Sunflower says the power company is just trying to keep
electricity bills low.

Hertel: “This is still in the best interest of our members.”

Browne: “This still makes sense economically?”

Hertel: “It still makes sense. What people need to know is that we are
cost biased, not fuel biased.”

Browne: “And, right now, for Sunflower, that means coal.”

But it might not be coal for very long.

The U.S. House passed a bill last winter that includes a hefty carbon tax
and incentives for renewable energy. A similar bill was recently
introduced in the Senate.

If it passes, Kansas might find its wind energy not only beats coal in
price, but wind-power could become the next big export for the state.

For The Environment Report, I’m Devin Browne.

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EPA Targets Chemicals of Concern

  • BPA - one of the chemicals the EPA is focusing on - is found in many canned foods and drinks. (Photo source: Tomomarusan at Wikimedia Commons)

The Environmental Protection Agency
says it’s been operating under an
outdated law. The EPA administrator
says the agency has not been able
to adequately test the safety of
plastics and chemicals. Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency
says it’s been operating under an
outdated law. The EPA administrator
says the agency has not been able
to adequately test the safety of
plastics and chemicals. Lester Graham
reports:

There’s this notion that the plastics and chemicals in the products you buy all have been tested for safety.

That is just wrong.

The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, wants Congress to pass laws to better regulate chemicals in the things we use. But getting a new law will take a while. So, in the meantime, Jackson says the EPA will do more under the existing law.

“Do as much as we can to identify the chemicals that are of concern to the public and move quickly to evaluate them and determine what actions need to be take to address the risks they may pose.”

The agency plans to first look at chemicals such as Bisphenyl A – BPA – used in some hard plastics, phthalates used in cosmetics and plastics, PBDE’s – a flame retardant that’s turning up in mother’s milk, and benzadene dyes and pigments.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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G20 Protests in Pittsburgh

  • The Group of 20 Summit is being held in Pittsburgh starting on September 24th (Photo source: HoboJones at Wikimedia Commons)

Leaders of the world’s richest
countries are in Pittsburgh for
the G-20 Summit. Thousands of
environmental and economic protesters
are there, too, and the dissenters
aren’t happy with how police are
treating them. Jennifer Szweda Jordan reports:

Transcript

Leaders of the world’s richest
countries are in Pittsburgh for
the G-20 Summit. Thousands of
environmental and economic protesters
are there, too, and the dissenters
aren’t happy with how police are
treating them. Jennifer Szweda Jordan reports:

Protesters claim Pittsburgh police are cracking down on them before the international economic gathering begins.

The 3 Rivers Climate Convergence says the police have illegally search and impounded a bus supplying food for protesters.

Lisa Stolarski of 3 Rivers Climate Convergence, says officers have sought out environmental groups to hassle.

“I feel like the police are cracking down on green voices. I feel that we are being especially mistreated in Pittsburgh.”

While police crackdowns are typical around international summits, protesters say they had hoped that the city’s signage stating “Pittsburgh Welcomes the World,” also applied to them.
For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Szweda Jordan.

Related Links

United Nations Summit on Climate Change

  • UN Headquarters from northwest on 1st Avenue - taken on April 20, 1956. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)

In December, in Copenhagen, nations around
the world are all supposed to sign a treaty to
reduce the greenhouse gases causing global
warming. But negotiations are going slowly.
Lester Graham reports the Secretary General
of the United Nations is stepping in:

Transcript

In December, in Copenhagen, nations around
the world are all supposed to sign a treaty to
reduce the greenhouse gases causing global
warming. But negotiations are going slowly.
Lester Graham reports the Secretary General
of the United Nations is stepping in:

Tomorrow, the UN Secretary General is holding a summit of the heads of state.

Janos Pasztor is the Director of the Secretary General’s Climate Change Support Team. He says, although the world’s leaders won’t be directly involved in the negotiations, its’ good for them to spend a day talking about the broader political implications of global warming.

“What we expect is, at the summit, heads of states will consider those broad political issues and give—not just impetus that they need to be fixed, but even give some direction, some vision on how they can be fixed without actually getting into the negotiation itself.”

Pasztor adds it might even be a good thing if the U.S. does not pass a climate change bill before Copengagen. That gives the U.S. some room to negotiate instead of showing up and saying ‘There it is. Take it or leave it.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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The EPA and CO2 Regulations

  • This graph, based on the comparison of atmospheric samples contained in ice cores and more recent direct measurements, provides evidence that atmospheric CO2 has increased since the Industrial Revolution. (Graph courtesy of NASA and NOAA)

The Environmental Protection Agency
is trying to figure out how it might
regulate greenhouse gases. Lester
Graham reports language in the
Clean Air Act is not helping:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency
is trying to figure out how it might
regulate greenhouse gases. Lester
Graham reports language in the
Clean Air Act is not helping:

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the EPA to decide whether greenhouse gases are pollutants. The EPA is making the case that they are.

But setting rules to reduce those emissions is problematic.

The Clean Air Act says it you emit 250-tons a year of a pollutant, you need a pollution permit. 250-tons of CO2 a year is not a lot.

Jeff Holmstead worked in the EPA on air pollution issues during the last Bush Administration. Now, he’s a lawyer with the Washington DC firm Bracewell and Giuliani.

“You know, 250-tons of CO2 according to EPA would include most schools, most apartment buildings, any kind of commercial building. It just isn’t possible to develop permits for all of these sources.”

So the EPA plans to raise the amount to 25,000-tons. But, that’s not what the Clean Air Act says.

That’s one reason why the Obama Administration prefers a climate change law passed by Congress.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Citizen Scientists Help Uncle Sam

  • Citizen scientist divers brave the chilly waters of Washington State to count the marine life below. (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)

As governments tighten their belts,
it’s getting harder for them to pay
scientists to monitor the health of
the nation’s ecosystems. So increasingly,
they’re turning to citizens who do
that kind of work for free. Ann Dornfeld
reports on the growing influence of these
“citizen scientists”:

Transcript

As governments tighten their belts,
it’s getting harder for them to pay
scientists to monitor the health of
the nation’s ecosystems. So increasingly,
they’re turning to citizens who do
that kind of work for free. Ann Dornfeld
reports on the growing influence of these
“citizen scientists”:

It’s the kind of cloudy, wet day that most people spend indoors. But the cold and wet doesn’t matter as much when you’re planning to spend your day at the bottom of a Puget Sound fjord.

(sound of divers splashing into water)

About 75 miles from Seattle, these scuba divers are conducting volunteer surveys for REEF, an organization that monitors fish populations around the world. The data help researchers understand where fish live, and in what kind of numbers. It’s the kind of information governments need to understand how fishing and pollution are affecting waterways.

Back on the boat, surveyor Janna Nichols has just emerged from the 48-degree water. She pulls out her survey and goes down the list marking off what she’s just seen.

“Sunflower stars, definitely, many of those – saw a lot of those around. No sand dollars, no sea urchins. Ah! Ooh! Ah! Here’s an exciting one! I saw a giant nudibranch! A very small giant nudibranch. But those are very cool to see – a treat!”

Identifying fish can be tricky, because the same species can have different coloration depending on its age, gender, or even time of the year.

“Black-eyed gobies were everywhere. I would say under a hundred of them. And – they were mating! Because I don’t know if you noticed, they had black pelvic fins. And they kind of hover around and say “Hey, baby baby, look at me!”

As much fun as these “citizen scientists” have, professional scientists take the data these divers collect seriously. Last summer volunteer surveyor David Jennings went diving in Washington’s Olympic National Park Marine Sanctuary. He was excited to see the colorful tiger and china rockfish he’d heard were abundant at the park. But when he got there, he only saw a couple. So he looked at the past six years of REEF survey data to see how the rockfish populations had changed.

“One of the best sources was someone that wrote up a diving experience he had in 2002 where he saw dozens of tigers and many chinas. Whereas I in a week of diving saw two tigers and just three chinas. so it was a very big contrast to what people saw in the past.”

Jennings took the data to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. That’s the agency that decides fishing limits. Greg Bargmann is a department fisheries biologist who’s working on next year’s catch limits for rockfish. He says even though the REEF divers aren’t as highly-trained as the state biologists, the data they collect are more current and cover a wider area.

“The REEF survey shows a very dramatic decrease in abundance over the last five years. Our state surveys don’t show that, but we have a lot of imprecision in our surveys so we’re relying on the REEF surveys to look for changes in population.”

That’s because the state can’t afford to send its biologists out as often or to as many sites as the volunteers dive.

“We really appreciate the interest of our citizens to spend time going out there and using their own transportation costs and their own equipment to go out and collect data, and to listen to us and collect things that are not easy to do sometimes.”

You don’t have to dive to be a citizen scientist. In Ohio, citizens track everything from salamanders to spiders. In California, tighter budgets mean more poaching – and not enough game wardens. So states are training volunteers to do more work. And across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency relies on citizens to monitor water quality in lakes and streams.

Bargmann says while governments rely on citizen scientists more during budget crunches, he sees programs like these becoming increasingly important for keeping track of the health of the environment.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Who’s Monitoring Pollution?

  • The famous photo of the Cuyahoga River fire that appeared in Time Magazine. The photo is not of the 1969 blaze, but rather of another fire on the river in 1952. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

Federal and state governments have cut
back on monitoring some big sources of
pollution, and small sources are rarely
monitored. Lester Graham reports it’s a
problem that’s even tougher when state
budgets are cut:

Transcript

Federal and state governments have cut
back on monitoring some big sources of
pollution, and small sources are rarely
monitored. Lester Graham reports it’s a
problem that’s even tougher when state
budgets are cut:

Industry does not pollute like it did in the 1960s or 70s. Today, regulators monitor most of those big factories.

Tom Lyon is the Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan.

“Big smokestack industries we have a fairly good eye on, but there are a lot of areas that we still don’t have a good handle on.”

Like small businesses which collectively can release a lot of toxins, and farms that use pesticides and fertilizers on millions acres.

Jennifer Sass is a Scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She says, under the Bush Administration, pollution monitoring of big industry was cut back. Sass says that monitoring needs to be restored and expanded to smaller sources.

“If we quit our monitoring programs, then we don’t really know. It’s a lot like putting our head in the sand.”

But many state agencies say they don’t have the resources to keep track of all those sources of pollution.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Shrinking Salmon Populations

  • A close view of salmon eggs and developing salmon fry. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

A federal judge says the Obama
Administration soon has to come
up with a plan to restore endangered
salmon runs to the Pacific Northwest’s
biggest rivers. Ann Dornfeld went
gill net fishing on the Columbia
River to find out what’s at stake:

Transcript

A federal judge says the Obama
Administration soon has to come
up with a plan to restore endangered
salmon runs to the Pacific Northwest’s
biggest rivers. Ann Dornfeld went
gill net fishing on the Columbia
River to find out what’s at stake:

(sound of a boat moving through water)

Gary Soderstrom is a fourth-generation Columbia River salmon fisherman. Even though it’s his work, on a sunny summer day there are few places he’d rather be than casting a gill net on this tranquil bay near the mouth of the Columbia.

“Just being this far from the dock, it’s just a whole different world! All the nights and the days I’ve put out here, I still feel good when I get out here.” (laughs)

Soderstrom – or Suds, as he’s better known – says gillnetters today catch salmon pretty much the same way his great-great-grandfather caught them. The main difference today is motors help fishers lay out and reel in their nets.

(sound of reel squeaking as net is laid)

“See how he’s layin’ up the bank here, and then he’s gonna go across. That’ll create a trap for the fish if he leads ’em over to the beach, and they might get confused.”

The technique might not have changed much. But this river has. These days, a dozen species of salmon and steelhead on the Columbia are listed as endangered. One of the biggest factors is the hydroelectric dam system that provides most of the power to the Pacific Northwest. Those dams keep young salmon from making it to the ocean. Suds says that’s why his son won’t be a fifth generation fisherman.

“There used to be several thousand fishermen on the Columbia at one time. Now there’s a couple hundred of us that are still active. Most guys like my son and them have went and got other jobs to try and raise families on.”

Federal law requires the government to restore the endangered salmon runs. For years, fishers and environmental groups have been calling for the removal of four dams on the Snake River, a tributary of the Columbia.

But the Clinton and Bush Administrations backed other plans to restore salmon runs. Those plans ranged from spilling a small portion of water through the dams to trucking baby salmon around the dams. Federal courts rejected those plans as insufficient. Now a federal judge has told the Obama Administration it has until mid-September to come up with a plan that goes far beyond the scheme President Bush proposed last year.

Ann Dornfeld: “What do you think is the chance that they’re gonna take out the dams?”

Gary Soderstrom: “Well, about like me winnin’ the Powerball! (laughs) I mean, don’t think it’s ever gonna happen, but realistically, it’d work.”

Suds says he’d also like to see tougher restrictions put on farmers who irrigate their crops with water from the Columbia.

“Irrigation systems, a lot of them are still water hogs. I think they should be forced into using the least amount of water they can get by with.”

It’s been about 15 minutes, and it’s time to reel in the nets.

(sound of reeling in nets)

We’ve brought in one 17-pound coho.

(sound of salmon hitting the floor)

But like most of the other fish caught on the Columbia these days, it was raised in a hatchery upstream.

Suds says for years he’s been volunteering his time on advisory councils and boards throughout the state to try to restore the habitat that once brought millions of salmon down the river the natural way. But what he’d really like to do is meet with President Obama and explain the river’s history to him firsthand.

“But in my situation, being a peon fisherman, you’ll never get to talk to a guy like him. Y’know, if you could bring him out here and show him what I’ve shown you today, maybe he’d have a clearer understanding of what’s going on out here.”

Suds Soderstrom says he wants the president to make good on his promise to let science dictate his policies, rather than politics – which always seem to favor development.

“Sooner or later you’re either gonna have fish or people. And the people seem to be winning.”

The new Administration has until September 15th to propose its plan to save endangered salmon. The federal judge who’s been overseeing the process for years has made one requirement: this time, the plan has to work.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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