Al Gore's Vice-Presidential portrait from 1994. (Photo courtesy of the United States Government)
The man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for
his work on climate change is optimistic
about the politics around the issue. Lester
Graham reports Al Gore says he thinks the
political landscape is changing in favor of
a world-wide climate change treaty:
Transcript
The man who won a Nobel Peace Prize for
his work on climate change is optimistic
about the politics around the issue. Lester
Graham reports Al Gore says he thinks the
political landscape is changing in favor of
a world-wide climate change treaty:
The former U.S. Vice-President says he thinks world leaders will sign a meaningful climate change treaty in Copenhagen in December.
Al Gore says politicians and governments around the world seem just about ready to do something significant about climate change.
“The potential for much larger change has been building up and I think that Copenhagen is the moment when it may cross that political tipping point. Now, let me take the other side of it just for a brief moment. The consequences of a failure in Copenhagen would, in my opinion, be catastrophic.”
Gore says waiting any longer to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause global warming could take the world past a point of no return.
That’s because tundra in the frozen north thaw and release the potent greenhouse gas, methane, creating a feedback loop that cannot be stopped.
Wangari Maathai in Kenya in 2004 - the year she won the Nobel Peace Prize. (Photo by Mia MacDonald, courtesy of the Green Belt Movement)
This week, the world’s leaders are
talking about climate change. The
talks are part of ongoing negotiations
on a climate change treaty between the
world’s countries. The hope is for an
agreement in Cophenhagen in December.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner is visting
the United States to talk about the role
of trees in climate change. Wangari
Maathai spoke
with Lester Graham about the importance
of saving the rainforests of the world:
Transcript
This week, the world’s leaders are
talking about climate change. The
talks are part of ongoing negotiations
on a climate change treaty between the
world’s countries. The hope is for an
agreement in Cophenhagen in December.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner is visting
the United States to talk about the role
of trees in climate change. Wangari
Maathai spoke
with Lester Graham about the importance
of saving the rainforests of the world:
Wangari Maathai: Because 20% of the greenhouse gasses, especially carbon, comes from deforestation and forest degradation.
Lester Graham: You know, in the US, it seems the rainforests are so far away – it’s hard to imagine what I can do to have some affect on their future. What can someone like me to do save the rainforest?
Maathai: Even though we live very far from the Amazon, or from the Congo forests, or from the Southeast Asian blocks of forest, these three are the major lands of the planet. They control the climate from very far away. So, the planet is very small when you come to discuss these huge ecosystems.
Graham: But what is it I can do to change things?
Maathai: Well, one thing I think is very, very important – especially here, in North America – when legislators are discussing this issue at Capitol Hill, is to influence your legislator. Convince him or her that dealing with climate change is a very important issue and that it is very important to have legislation that will facilitate this. Because no matter how much we know and recognize the dangers, until our leaders give us legislation around which we can work, it just continues to be talking. And we need this legislation, so I hope citizens will call their leaders.
Graham: What, specifically, can the United States do to save rainforests around the world?
Maathai: Well, I think that one of the agreements that we are hoping will take place in Copenhagen – and America will be part of this – in fact, we hope that America will provide the leadership in Copenhagen – is to agree on a financial mechanism that will help countries that have huge forests – the Amazon, the Congo, the forests in Indonesia and Borneo and that region – that there will be money that will be made available so that these countries will be financially compensated so that they keep these forests standing. Now, if America, the United States of America, if she’s left out – the way she was left out in Kyoto – we can’t go very far. Because, believe me, America – her actions, her attitude – influences the thinking in the world. So I’m hoping that America will provide the leadership and will also contribute towards the financial mechanism that is needed to support forests.
Graham: In your leadership of Green Belt in your native country of Kenya, you’ve used the action of planting a tree as a political statement. In the US, we spend a lot of time talking about using less fossil fuels, but there’s not a lot of talk about planting trees. Are we missing part of the solution?
Maathai: I think it’s very important to encourage farmers, individual citizens to plant trees. And, I’m very happy to know that in some of your states, tree planting has been embraced as one of the solutions. It’s one of the activities that every one of us citizens can do and feel good about it, and teach kids to do it, because every tree will count. And when there are 7 billion of us, almost, in the whole world, so you can imagine, if every one of us planted a tree and made sure that tree survived – can you imagine the impact?
Wangari Maathai won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 2004 for her work in
forestry and women’s issues. She spoke
with The Environment Report’s Lester
Graham.
If you find a wooden apple like this one in a Vermont orchard, you can turn it in for a free iPod (Photo courtesy of the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing)
An apple tree at the Shelburne Orchards in Vermont (Photo by Megan J. Humphrey)
Fall is in full swing, and in the
northern states, what better way to appreciate
the time of year than to go apple picking?
It’s the fall thing to do, right? Well, not
for everyone. Lulu Miller reports:
Transcript
Fall is in full swing, and in the
northern states, what better way to appreciate
the time of year than to go apple picking?
It’s the fall thing to do, right? Well, not
for everyone. Lulu Miller reports:
“Ooh that’s perfect! Perfect fall day. Little Chill in the air.”
That’s orchard owner Nick Cowles and we’re here with him at his orchard.
“Beautiful apple!”
Shelburne Orchards. Near Burlington Vermont.
“Looks out over Lake Champlain.”
And to hear him to tell it, an afternoon spent apple picking is pretty much as
good as it gets.
“Yeah. There’s something about gathering food with your family that’s primal
almost. I see people show up in their cars. The dad, the face is a little pinched. He
had to get the kids in the car. They didn’t really wanna come. His whole life is
stress. And then by the time, the difference in the face when he’s leavin’, it’s just
a whole different face.”
Everyone’s dream weekend, right?
Well. Not exactly. There is one group of people who just aren’t all that thrilled
about fall leaves and apple picking.
“Well yeah. The demographics of Vermont are a little scary right now. We have
the least number of folks in there 20s in the country.”
That’s Bruce Hyde, Commissioner of Tourism for the state of Vermont. He says
the 20-somethings are missing.
“I can understand after going to one of the great colleges we have in a rural state,
that a lot of folks wanna go and experience the big cities and sow their oats.”
And so, as the guy in charge of tourism, Bruce has a mission.
“We’re really trying to attract more young people to the state of Vermont.”
And here’s what he’s up against.
Lulu Miller: “Just wondering if you guys have any plans to go apple picking this
season?”
Student: “Not really. I’m not really into apples.”
Miller: “No?”
Student: “My age? It’s kind of about the debauchery. Sleeping in on Saturdays.
Not going apple picking with the folks. You know?”
I’m talking to college students in a park near New York University.
Student: “It’s not something that I would hear my friends being like, ‘can’t hang
out on Saturday! Going apple picking!’ I just can’t imagine that coming out of
their mouths.”
So what’s a commissioner of tourism to do?
“We were trying to figure out, what’s a way to get more young people into the
orchards? So we came up with an idea. A cute little idea.”
If apples just weren’t enticing enough to lure people to Vermont, Comissioner
Hyde thought, maybe there’s something else they’d prefer to find in the trees.
Like…
“An iPod!”
That’s right in the apple trees of Vermont.
“Macintosh. Courtlans. Red delicious.”
You can find iPods.
“Nano’s. A couple of touch’s. And the just the classic iPod.”
Now they’re not actually dangling from the trees.
“What we did is we made up wooden apples. They have the state seal on them.”
And if you find that, you can turn it and get an ipod.
“Yeah. And it really has brought a lot of people into the orchards. We haven’t
done any kinda survey. But the response I’ve heard from orchards is they’ve
never seen so few apples left on the trees.”
Orchard owner Nick Cowles agrees.
“Lotta people know about it, have heard about it. ‘Come on mom, lets go look
for the iPod!’ It’s a great program. It does what it set out to do. It really helps the
orchards. They’ve been very smart to do this.”
So what do the college students think?
Student: (laughs) “They’res gonna be iPods with apples!? No way!”
Miller: “Would that make you go? Would it up the ante at all?”
Student: “It absolutely does. I would definitely go apple picking if there was a
chance I could stumble across an iPod.”
But not all of them feel that way, in fact many of them pointed out that luring
people with iPods sounds so wrong. Kinda grinds against the notion of getting
people out into nature.
“Does that feel wrong? No.”
Orchard owner Nick Cowles.
“In my estimation, anything that brings families together, outside, doing
something like that – it doesn’t get any better than that. They’re out in the
orchard, runnin’ around, picking apples – that’s healthy. They’re doin’ it as a
family.”
Go into any store these days and chances are you’ll find a bargain: buy two shirts and get one free… or buy a burger and get another one half-price. Retailers market their products with attractive deals because they know it works. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King thinks it’s time to use that marketing magic to get more of us to “buy into” public transportation:
Transcript
Go into any store these days and chances are you’ll find a bargain: buy two shirts and get
one free… or buy a burger and get another one half-price. Retailers market their products
with attractive deals because they know it works. Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator, Julia King, thinks it’s time to use that marketing magic to get more of us to
“buy into” public transportation:
A couple years back, my smallish Northern Indiana town got an honest-to-goodness
PUBLIC BUS. Progressive types started walkin’ a little taller, a little prouder – because,
well, when you have a BUS it means you live in a place where somebody cares.
Our bus is such a good thing, in fact, that people hate to talk about the one little problem:
(whisper) nobody ever rides it. Okay, that’s not exactly true. Last Tuesday, my
neighbor’s friend thought she saw someone in the very last row on the right hand side.
I’m just BARELY exaggerating. There are really only two kinds of people who ever get
on our bus: hardcore greenie tree-huggers… and those who have no other form of
transportation.
So, now, with tight government budgets and higher gas prices, some cost-conscious
citizens are rightly taking a closer look at our not-so-public public transportation.
In a letter to a local paper, one man put it this way: “I would prefer not having taxpayers’
dollars go literally up in fumes.” He suggested we have two choices: put the bus out of
its misery, or get more people to RIDE it.
According to the American Public Transportation Association, we could reduce our oil
dependence by about 40% – almost the amount we import from Saudi Arabia in a year –
if Americans would use public transportation for just 10% of our daily travel.
You know, radio stations hand out cash and concert tickets to attract listeners; television
stations lure viewers with home makeovers; cola companies entice customers with
everything from free soda to a chance at a BILLION dollars.
What do bus riders get for their trouble? Hmmm? Oh yeah – more trouble. If it’s hot, or
cold, or raining, and there’s a comfortable car ten feet away in the garage, taking a bus is
work.
In large cities, where drivers compete for rare and costly parking spaces, public
transportation offers tangible rewards in the way of convenience and affordability. But in
communities with plenty of space and manageable traffic – if you have a car – the only
reasons to ride a bus are long-term, big picture, goody-goody reasons like ozone
reduction, energy conservation and curbing global warming.
Here’s where the public sector can use a little private-sector know-how. Catchy jingles,
cash prizes, gift certificates at shops along the bus routes, maybe chocolate…
riders need something in the here and now. Like anything else Americans buy, public
transportation is a product. It’s time to start selling it.
Host Tag: Julia King can be found riding the bus… alone… in Goshen, Indiana. She
comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.
Al Gore's Vice-Presidential portrait from 1994. (Photo courtesy of the United States Government)
