Studying Cancer Near Nuke Plants

  • The NRC tells people that living near nuclear power plants does not pose extra risk for cancer, and it points to a particular study, finished twenty years ago.(Photo courtesy of the Rancho Seco Reactor)

For decades, the federal government has said it’s safe to live near nuclear power reactors and it points to a particular cancer study to back that up. Shawn Allee reports, lately, the government worries that study’s out of date and it wants scientists to take another look.

Transcript

For decades, the federal government has said it’s safe to live near nuclear power reactors and it points to a particular cancer study to back that up. Shawn Allee reports, lately, the government worries that study’s out of date and it wants scientists to take another look.

The federal agency that’s looking for an up-to-date cancer study is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC.

It’s asked the National Academy of Sciences to do that study, but the Academy hasn’t made up its mind. The academy asked the NRC, the nuclear power industry, and the public to explain why a new study’s even needed.

It broadcast the hearing over the Internet.

“Our first speaker is Sarah Sauer, private citizen.”

Sarah Sauer is 16, but looks much younger.

“I am one of the statistics you’ll be studying. When I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with brain cancer. I hope in this study you will remember who you’re doing this for.”

“Thank you Sarah, let me invite your parents to say something if they’d like to.”

“I am Cynthia Sauer, Sarah’s mom. For my family and i this study is long overdue. nine years ago today, Sarah was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The pain has been so shattering that we still cannot give it words.”

Cynthia Sauer tells the National Academy how her family once lived near the Dresden nuclear power station, about 50 miles Southwest of Chicago.

She’d learned that power plant leaked radioactive water years ago.

Cynthia Sauer can’t say for sure the plant caused Sarah’s cancer, but she wonders … because other kids were diagnosed with cancer, too.

“I began searching for answers to my questions regarding the leaks and the numbers of children diagnosed with cancer in our small town.”

Cynthia Sauer turned to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The NRC tells people that living near nuclear power plants does not pose extra risk for cancer, and it points to a particular study, finished twenty years ago.

“The scientists in the ad hoc committee statement clearly stated the study was flawed and that further monitoring and investigation was needed.”

What are the flaws? For one, the old study concluded people living near nuclear power plants do not face extra risk of dying from cancer … but it didn’t answer whether they’re at risk of getting cancer.

It ignored cancer survivors or people who moved before dying of the disease.

Sauer tells the academy that … this is why we need a new cancer study – we just can’t be confident in the old one.

And that’s a problem because at least three million people live within ten miles of a nuclear power plant.

Some US Congressmen want the safety issue settled, and in fact, so does the nuclear power industry.

Ralph Anderson is with The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group.

He says other studies suggest power plants are safe … so the industry has nothing to worry about from a new study – unless the Academy misinterprets results:

“There have been studies where people simply collect the data and let the computer go to work to bend the data in a wide variety of ways. We have been the victim of a number studies that have done precisely that. So, you end up with weird age groups and things like that because the data’s carefully selected to prove the point. That’s what we’d like to see avoided.”

So the public, the government and industry want some kind of follow-up study on cancer rates near nuclear power plants.

But that might not be enough for The National Academy of Sciences to move forward.
Many scientists say we can’t begin good studies, because it’s hard to collect the necessary data.
In fact, one group that says that … is the same group that conducted the original cancer study twenty years ago.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Consumer Concerns Over Corn Syrup

  • The 'Sweet Scam Lineup' ad produced by the Center for Consumer Freedom is one of many run by corn syrup manufacturers and food companies. They're running to combat what these industries see as myths about high fructose corn syrup. (Center for Consumer Freedom - screenshot)

High fructose corn syrup and sugar sweeten lots of food.

They’re in sweet stuff like soda-pop, but they’re also added to pasta sauce, gravy, bread, and other foods that don’t seem sweet.

Scientists are debating whether high fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar when it comes to making us fat.

But Shawn Allee reports high fructose corn syrup is losing ground before that science is finished.

Transcript

High fructose corn syrup and sugar sweeten lots of food.

They’re in sweet stuff like soda-pop, but they’re also added to pasta sauce, gravy, bread, and other foods that don’t seem sweet.

Scientists are debating whether high fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar when it comes to making us fat.

But Shawn Allee reports high fructose corn syrup is losing ground before that science is finished.

Let’s face it, most of us did not know high fructose corn syrup sweetened so much food.

We have no excuse now: the food industry sponsors ads like this one.

“sugar cube face forward.”

Here, a policeman lines up suspects.

There’s an ear of corn, a sugar cube, and a plastic honey-bear bottle.

The cop turns to the victim of the crime.

“… Do you see the one responsible for you gaining weight?”

“I’ve seen that high fructose corn syrup guy on the news. maybe it was him.”

“you mean you’re making all this up without any proof?”

At this point … the policeman lets the corn sweetener go.

The sugar cube and the honey bear bumble out, too.

“maybe it’s a sugar-cube. No, no, no. the honey bear!”

There’s a reason we’re seeing ads like this.

One market research survey showed more than half of consumers had “some concern” about corn syrup.

Some feel like the victim in that ad – they have this vague fear corn syrup’s worse for your waistline than sugar.

And they know scientists really are looking at this question.

“this particular study has stirred up extraordinary interest … much more than we expected.”

Dr. Bart Hoebel is from Princeton University.

A while ago his research team fed rats watered-down sugar.

Those rats didn’t get fat, but recently his team looked at what happened when rats drank watered-down corn syrup.

“The ones drinking fructose gained more weight … even though they’re taking in fewer calories there was something special or different about the high fructose corn syrup in that group.”

Hoebel says there’re several studies like his moving through the scientific pipeline.

They all look at whether eating high fructose corn syrup is worse than eating sugar … but he worries the public’s missing a big point.

Nearly all scientists agree we get too many calories from both corn syrup and sugar.

But … market research shows people miss the caveats and mixed results behind the science.

They’ve made up their minds.

“They’re looking for an ingredient that they know and sugar is a more recognizable ingredient.”

That’s Dr. Helen Jensen.

She studies food economics at Iowa State University.

She says some food companies don’t care if customers have the science right or wrong.

“so from the manufacturer’s point of view, they’re looking to make more product mixes that offer consumers the choice of having a sugar-based product.”

That’s why you’re seeing products that say sweetened with real sugar.

For example, the Pepsi company is pitching a sugar-version of Mountain-Dew while its regular version is still sweetened with corn syrup.

Other companies are switching, too.

Jensen says this is a big change.

“Tariffs raise the price of sugar. And subsidies for corn used to make corn syrup cheap.”

today it’s a little different. While sugar is still more expensive, it’s not as expensive as it used to be.

So, Jensen says if consumers are pushing a company to switch from corn syrup to sugar, the company just might pay more for ingredients to keep more customers.

But Jensen has a word of caution for people who hope sugar wins the battle over our sweet tooths.

She says countries like Australia sweeten a lot of food, too.

But they use almost no corn syrup … they use sugar, and Australians have gotten more and more obese, just like we have in the U-S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Interview: The White House’s Science Guy

  • Holdren was previously the Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. (Photo courtesy of the National Academy of Sciences)

President Obama’s Science and Technology advisor is John P. Holdren. He is the “science guy” in the White House. Lester Graham talked to him about science and climate change. Here’s an excerpt of that conversation:

Transcript

Graham: Different polls have shown the general public is becoming increasingly skeptical about whether climate change is real and whether burning fossil fuels is contributing to it, ignoring that the bulk of science says climate change is solid and if anything indicates that climate change is happening faster than first predicted. What can be done about that?

Holdren: Well I think scientists have to get better at telling the story about what we know about climate change and what that knowledge is based on. In other words, what we know and how we know it. Willingness to get out there and slug it out in the arena of public debate and dispute is not universal in the scientific community, and we have to live with that, but scientists who’ve been willing to do that have done a service. It’s unfortunate that they occasionally get castigated for speaking their minds freely and candidly in public, but that’s part of being, in a sense, a public scientist—of working on scientific issues that have major ramifications for public policy and being willing to talk about it.

Graham: President Barack Obama promised to protect scientific research from politics. He wanted guidelines in four months from taking office. We recently reported it’s been more than a year now, and still, no guidelines. The Union of Concerned Scientists says the president should finish explicit written policies on things like protecting scientists who become whistle-blowers. When we did the story, we contacted your office, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and we didn’t get any comment. Would you care to comment about that now?

Holdren: Sure, when the president issued his memorandum on scientific integrity on march 9th of last year, he actually enunciated at that time a set of principles, and those principles are already a solid basis for ensuring scientific integrity. What has not been forthcoming yet from my office, and for that I take responsibility, is a set of more detailed recommendations about how to proceed in some of the difficult questions that come up. Like the need of an agency to be sure that it is relying on the best peer-reviewed science, and the desire of every scientist in the agency to be able to express his or her own opinion. There are real tensions there. That has proven to be a more difficult task than I or the president realized at the time he issued the deadline for completing those, and the result is we missed a deadline, but we will be coming out soon with those additional guidelines.

Graham: How soon?

Holdren: I would guess in the next couple of months.

Graham: On energy policy, environmentalists are disappointed the Obama administration is encouraging the idea of clean coal technology, and a new generation of nuclear power. I’m not saying you’re not spending more on solar and wind, but I’m asking why not take all those dollars from clean coal technology and nuclear, and put it all into these green renewable that the environmentalists like.

Holdren: I think we need a diversity of options for addressing the energy challenges we face. You never want to put all of your eggs in one, or only a few, baskets. Today in this country we get 50% of our electricity by burning coal, we’re going to continue to do that for some time to come. It is, therefore, appropriate and necessary that we improve the technologies with which we burn coal in order to substantially reduce the environmental harm that comes from that. We get 20% of our electricity in this country from nuclear energy, and it’s one of the ways that we can get electricity without emitting greenhouse gases. There is no free lunch; that doesn’t mean we should do nothing, we should be working to improve all of these technologies, and then use the mix that makes the best sense in terms of all of the relevant characteristics—the economic ones, the environmental ones, the social ones.

Graham: John P Holdren is President Obama’s science and technology adviser, and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Thanks for the time.

Holdren: Thanks very much.

Related Links

Stripping Politics Out of Science

  • The Union of Concerned Scientists says the explicit written policies Obama promised last year are crucial to ensure scientific integrity in government. (Photo courtesy of Planar Energy Devices, Inc.)

President Barack Obama promised to protect scientific research from politics. He wanted guidelines in four months. It’s been a year now and still there are no guidelines. Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

President Barack Obama promised to protect scientific research from politics.

He wanted guidelines in four months.

But Shawn Allee reports, it’s been a year now and still there are no guidelines.

Francesca Grifo tracks the issue of scientific integrity for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.

She says the issue can be a matter of life and death.

Grifo has lots of examples.

“Basic things like the way the Clean Air Act is implemented, the way we look at drugs before we put them out for the public, all of these big, government processes that we don’t pay a lot of attention to, if we don’t have them be transparent, we end up with inappropriate influence on those decisions.”

Grifo says Obama has improved the situation at some agencies, but he should finish explicit, written policies on things like protecting scientists who become whistle-blowers.

That way the next president has high standards, too.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy did not return calls for comment.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Interview: ‘Sound Science’

  • Oliver Houck is a Professor of Law at Tulane University in New Orleans. (Photo by Paula Birch, Courtesy of Tulane University)

Every once in a while, we
hear politicians using a
term that everybody thinks
they understand, but people
define differently. Lester
Graham talked with an expert
about one such term heard
a lot these days:

Transcript

Every once in a while, we
hear politicians using a
term that everybody thinks
they understand, but people
define differently. Lester
Graham talked with an expert
about one such term heard
a lot these days:

Lester Graham: I got to thinking about that when I heard Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma call for “sound science” at a recent subcommittee hearing, and then moments later senator David Vitter repeated that call for “sound Science.”

Vitter: “I think the answer is exactly what senator Inhofe and others have been saying—“sound science” complete focus on, complete reliance, on sound science above all else.”

Graham: So sound science, I think most of us think that means well researched, unbiased, verifiable, science. Joining us now, is Oliver Houck, he is a professor of law at Tulane University. So professor, what’s that term—sound science—mean to members of congress?

Oliver Houck: It means whatever they want it to mean. The first thing you have to understand is sound science is not a scientific term at all. It has no scientific definition. It’s like saying sound congressman or sound senator. It’s in the eye of the beholder. In the legal world, everyone knows what sound science is—it’s the science that supports your client’s position, and bad science is the science that’s on the other side. So, in the real world, it’s a very cynical term, and it’s very cynically used. That isn’t to say there isn’t junk science, but in the political world, this is a political term. Frank Lutz, the republican strategist in the early 2000’s sent a very well-known memorandum out to all republican congressman and senators saying that the coming issue was climate change, and the world consensus that this was urgent and something had to be done was overwhelming and irresistible. The only loophole—the only point of attack would be to attack the science. And so they did, with great success.

Graham: Has this term ‘Sound Science’ always been attached to this political baggage?

Houck: Yes it has, but it’s come in different forms, and it’s not always been purely environmental. The term was actually invented by Phillip Morris, and the tobacco institute back in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s when the tobacco wars were going on and the industry was denying any addictive effects and any carcinogenic effects. And so Phillip Morris had the audacity in 1992 to set up something called the “advancement of sound science committee” and that was, of course, its lobby to pick apart scientists whose findings were otherwise. While of course Phillip Morris buried all findings of the same effects, and burying that ultimately lead to civil suits and brought it down—but only a peg. This has always been the blast back—if you can stop this thing at the beach by discrediting the science, you don’t have to deal with any regulatory or any other requirements. So-

Graham: So calling for sound science is a delay tactic.

Houck: oh, clearly so, clearly so. And they know it, and they know it.

Graham: Oliver Houck is a professor of environmental law at Tulane University in New Orleans, and author of the book Taking Back Eden: Eight Environmental Cases that Changed the World. Thanks very much.

Houck: My pleasure, thank you.

Related Links

Interview: Dr. James Hansen, Part 2

  • Dr. James Hansen's book, 'Storms Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About The Coming Climate Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To Save Humanity' (Photo courtesy of Bloomsbury USA)

James Hansen is the author of
‘The Storms of My Grandchildren:
The Truth About The Coming Climate
Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To
Save Humanity.’ This is the second
half of our interview with Dr. Hansen.
He’s a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify
before Congress about climate change.
He stresses, he’s not speaking for
the government, but only for himself:

Transcript

James Hansen is the author of
‘The Storms of My Grandchildren:
The Truth About The Coming Climate
Catastrophe And Our Last Chance To
Save Humanity.’ This is the second
half of our interview with Dr. Hansen.
He’s a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify
before Congress about climate change.
He stresses, he’s not speaking for
the government, but only for himself:

Lester Graham: Doctor Hansen, in the book you say we should scrap the cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gases, and instead go with a fee on fossil fuels and then give that money to the people directly to help them adapt to higher energy costs. How would that work?

Dr. James Hansen: The fee would be charged at the mine or the oil head or the port of entry for imported fossil fuels. It’d be collected from the fossil fuel companies and then they money should be distributed to the public on a uniform basis. You’d introduce this gradually so that people can change their habits, the technology that they use, the vehicles that they use, for example. So, you introduce it gradually, but by the time it’s reached a dollar of gallon on gasoline, at the rate of fossil fuel use last year, that would be generating $3,000 per legal resident of the country with to half a share to each child, up to two children per family. So a family with two or more children would be getting $9,000 a year in this dividend, which should be sent to them monthly just automatically, electronically, to their bank account or their debit card if they don’t have a bank account.

Lester: We’re talking about getting that through Washington D.C, where special interests drive the agenda often. I don’t want to accuse you of being naïve, but I believe many in Washington would.

Dr. Hansen: Yes, they do, however, there is a growing realization, environmental groups, like Friends of the Earth, which now recognize this is exactly what’s needed and they’re beginning to promote that. I think that’s why it’s a good thing that we’re kinda taking, probably taking, a year off dropping this cap and trade and give us a chance to discuss this because it’s what’s in the interest of the public as opposed to the lobbyists.

Lester: Since you first made congress aware of climate change as a pressing issue, the Clinton-Gore administration did nothing. President George W. Bush indicated he would deal with the emissions causing climate change, and then evidently Dick Cheney worked to kill that effort and Bush reversed his position. Now President Barak Obama has indicated we must do something, but legislation in Congress is stalled right now. What do you this is stopping this effort if this is such a serious threat?

Dr. Hansen: It is the role of money in Washington and other capitals around the world. Special interests have more influence on these policies than the public’s interest and that’s why, you know, we had hoped with the election of the new president things were really going to change, but I think he hasn’t really looked at this issue closely enough to really understand what’s in the people’s interest. And I hope that over the next year we can convince them that we need to move in a direction that is in the people’s interest rather than in the big businesses interest.

Lester: James Hansen is the author of The Storms of My Grandchildren, the truth about the upcoming climate catastrophe and the last chance to save humanity. Dr. Hansen, thank you very much for your time!

Dr. Hansen: Uh huh, thank you!

Related Links

Interview: Dr. James Hansen, Part 1

  • Dr. James Hansen is a climate scientist for NASA and the author of the book, 'Storms Of My Grandchildren.' (Photo courtesy of Bloomsbury USA)

James Hansen is the author of ‘The Storms
Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About
The Coming Climate Catastrophe And
Our Last Chance To Save Humanity.’
He’s been a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify before
Congress about climate change. In the
book, Hansen wrote about climate change,
‘We seem oblivious to the danger, unaware
how close we may be… to our demise.’
Lester Graham talked to Hansen and noted
that we don’t often hear strong language
like that from scientists:

Transcript

James Hansen is the author of ‘The Storms
Of My Grandchildren: The Truth About
The Coming Climate Catastrophe And
Our Last Chance To Save Humanity.’
He’s been a climate scientist for NASA
and was the first scientist to testify before
Congress about climate change. In the
book, Hansen wrote about climate change,
‘We seem oblivious to the danger, unaware
how close we may be… to our demise.’
Lester Graham talked to Hansen and noted
that we don’t often hear strong language
like that from scientists:

Dr. James Hansen: Well, the public is unaware of the situation, and that’s partly because of the way nature works. You know, weather is highly variable – 10 or 20 or 30 degree variations are common – while the global warming, so far, is about 1 degree Celsius, which is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. So, people have a hard time seeing it. But the consequences are already becoming apparent, as we see with the melting sea ice in the arctic. The Northwest Passage is now actually open. Mountain glaciers melting around the world, sub-tropics expanding – which is affecting the Southwest United States and the Mediterranean region and Australia. And the problem is that those things are going to grow, and we’re going to pass tipping points, which will have disastrous consequences if we pass them. We don’t have to pass them though. And that’s why it’s appropriate for us to try to communicate the situation to the public, because the kinds of things that we need to do with our energy systems make sense anyway for different reasons.

Lester Graham: The evidence for climate change is growing – almost every week more studies are released, often indicating the future will be worse than first thought. What do you think we need to do to minimize the effects of climate change?

Dr. Hansen: Well, it’s very clear what we need to do. The carbon dioxide is increasing because of the burning of fossil fuels. If you look at how much carbon there is in oil, gas, and coal, you see that coal is, by far, the biggest reservoir. And then there’s the unconventional fossil fuels, like tar shale and tar sands. What we need to do is phase out the coal use and prohibit the use of these unconventional, dirty fossil fuels – and we could solve the problem. But to get there, there’s a very practical requirement, and that is that we begin to put a price on carbon emissions. The reason that people use fossil fuels as their main source of energy is that it’s the cheapest energy. And, as long as that’s the case, we’re going to keep using more and more. But the reason that they’re the cheapest is that we subsidize them – our government subsidizes them – and they don’t make them pay for the costs that they cause for society. The human health problems due to air pollution and water pollution, the mercury and the arsenic that comes from coal, and the costs of future climate change for our children and grandchildren – all of these are free for the fossil fuel companies. They don’t have to worry about those at all. The way we would solve that is to put a gradually rising price on carbon emissions. And there’s actually some good news in the newspaper, and that is that Senators Kerry, a Democrat, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican, announced that they’re not going to push cap-and-trade – which had been the big banks’ proposed solution to put a ‘cap’ on carbon emissions, and then they, you would (chuckles) – it was a complicated system where you could trade the rights to pollute. But the big winners would be the traders and the losers would be the public.

James Hansen is a climate
scientist for NASA and the author of the
book, ‘Storms Of My Grandchildren.’ He
spoke with The Environment Report’s
Lester Graham. We’ll hear
more from Dr. Hansen tomorrow, including
his idea on how to reduce using fossil fuels.

Related Links

Trying to Speed Up Green Tech

  • The US Patent Office is working through 25,000 green tech patents. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

It takes time for green technology
to develop. The US Patent office
has one idea to speed things up,
but Shawn Allee reports
that probably won’t solve the problem:

Transcript

It takes time for green technology
to develop. The US Patent office
has one idea to speed things up,
but Shawn Allee reports
that probably won’t solve the problem:

The US Patent Office is working through 25,000 green tech patents for things like better solar panels.

The office wants to give preferential treatment to 3,000 green tech patent applications. That could save a year of waiting time for approval.

But not everyone thinks a Patent Office backlog is the problem.

Stuart Soffer is a patent analyst in Silicon Valley. He says green tech just takes time and money.

“It really takes an investment, infrastructure and R and D. We can make a little wind mill that will generate power in your back yard, but scaling that to power cities is a different problem.”

Soffer says sometimes, patent delays are companies’ fault, not the government’s. So, speeding things up at the Patent Office might not get green tech in the marketplace any faster.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Behind Big Oil’s Green Motivations

  • The Maryland Science Center is running a pilot project, renting out a handful of bright green battery powered cars to Baltimore residents and tourists. The cars use a battery that employs a special polymer film developed by Exxon Chemical. (Photo courtesy of the Maryland Science Center)

Some well known oil companies
are very publicly getting behind
alternative energy initiatives.
But are these serious efforts
or just a case of green-washing?
Tamara Keith tries
to get some answers:

Transcript

Some well known oil companies
are very publicly getting behind
alternative energy initiatives.
But are these serious efforts
or just a case of green-washing?
Tamara Keith tries
to get some answers:

The first thing oil giants like Exxon Mobil, BP and Chevron would
like us to know is that they’re not oil companies. They are energy
companies. So, they say, investing in biofuels, solar panels and
geothermal power really isn’t out of character… even if those things
only make up a fraction of their total business.

And I guess that’s how you end up with an electric car that says
“powered by Exxon Mobil” on its bumper.

Reiner: “So, you want to go take a look?”

Keith: “Yeah, sure.”

Vann Reiner is the CEO of the Maryland Science Center.
The center is running a pilot project, renting out a handful of
bright green battery powered cars to Baltimore residents and tourists.

Reiner: “Here’s the gas cap.”

Keith: “It’s an outlet.”
Reiner: “It’s an outlet, that’s right. And you see it’s 110 volt
15 amp – so household current.”

The cars use a battery that employs a special polymer film developed
by Exxon Chemical.

“So, you turn the key the way you normally would.”

(sound of car)

Exxon Mobil said it couldn’t make anyone available to be
interviewed for this story.

Reiner: “Nice job on acceleration.”

Keith: “Thank you.”

So I asked the science center’s Reiner what I wanted to ask
the folks at Exxon Mobil. Why in the world is an oil company
promoting an electric car? Isn’t that like working to put themselves
out of business?

“I see it as a technology company who has made a lot of money
in oil, no getting around that. But what else can you do? And
this is a way to insure their future, in my opinion. But I’m just
delighted that they chose us.”

Exxon Mobil also recently announced a 600-million dollar investment
in algae as a future biofuel – and the company is making sure we all
know about it with with newspaper and television ads.

“And they absorb CO2. So they help solve the greenhouse problem as well.
We’re making a big commitment to finding out just how much algae can help
to meet the fuel demands of the world.”

Still, Exxon Mobil is planning for oil, gas and coal to continue dominating
the world’s energy supply for at least the next 30 years.

Alex Yelland is with Chevron, and he says that’s what his company is projecting, too.

“Renewables is currently around 10 percent of the energy mix, and, in the
coming decades, that’s not expected to change a huge amount but from its
current state it’s relative state, it will grow significantly.”

Over the next 2 years, Yelland says Chevron plans to spend 2-point-7
billion dollars on renewable energy and energy efficiency. But Yelland
insists that kind of investment in energy sources other than oil isn’t
counterintuitive.

“For us, it’s about building a sound business for the future and
understanding where global demand is going and how we can meet that.”

“I think it definitely is smart PR.”

Edward Wu is with Cora Capital Advisors in New York. His firm specializes
in alternative energy investing. He says these companies are worth hundreds
of billions of dollars and, by comparison, their green investments are fairly small.

“They’re not going to replace oil, but I think they’re hoping that
they’ll be somewhat economically viable and at the same time definitely
serve a PR purpose right now.”

But Wu says the sprinkling of investments isn’t just about having something
to talk about in their ads.

“They want to have some biofuels in the mix. They want to have some battery
companies in the mix. They’re essentially dipping their toe in the water to
essentially hedge their bets.”

Because no one will want to be an oil company if, or perhaps we should say when,
oil stops dominating the energy landscape.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

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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