World Governments Failing on Biodiversity

  • The recovery of the European Bison is one of the recent successes in the fight against biodiversity loss. Despite some improvements, the UNEP report suggests efforts to address the loss of biodiversity need to be substantially strengthened.(Photo courtesy of Gil Wojciech, Polish Forest Research Institute, Poland)

Transcript

A new report finds an agreement among the world’s governments to protect nature is failing. Lester Graham reports on the assessment which finds more animals, forests and other habitats are being lost.

World governments signed the 2002 Convention of Biological Diversity, agreeing to protect more habitat and species that are at risk. An assessment of the progress has been published in the journal Science and it finds biodiversity is at greater risk than it was when the agreement was signed eight years ago. Matt Foster is with the environmental group Conservation International. He says despite some government efforts to protect habitat, there have been more pressures destroying habitat and biodiversity.

“And it’s a scary prospect, not just from a biodiversity side, but considering that there are so many vulnerable people around the world for whom the services provided by nature and biodiversity are essential such as for water, for food and all of us depend on nature and forests especially to try to mitigate climate change.”

Foster says much more needs to be done by governments and the private sector to preserve natural areas and protect species.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Federal Government Invests in Sustainable Planning

  • Getting to work is now the second biggest expense for most Americans, after housing. (Photo courtesy of the Federal Highway Administration)

Planners say people are being forced to spend too much money to get to and from work. The government sees that problem in regions around the country and is ready to spend millions of dollars to plan improvements. Julie Grant reports.

Transcript

Planners say people are being forced to spend too much money to get to and from work. The government sees that problem in regions around the country and is ready to spend millions of dollars to plan improvements that put jobs and housing closer together… or at least give people more transportation options to get to work. Julie Grant reports.

Dwayne Marsh says for decades, the department of Housing and Urban Development has built housing in one part of a community, while the Department of Transportation invested in another — with no coordination.

“I THINK THAT BECAUSE THE RESPECTIVE AGENCIES WEREN’T IN TIGHT ALLIANCE, THERE OFTEN WOULD BE REGULATIONS THAT WERE AT CROSS PURPOSE.”

That’s one reason why highways often bypass rural communities entirely and split inner-city neighborhoods in two.

Marsh works in a new office within HUD that’s working to integrate housing planning with Department of Transportation, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency.

“NOW WE’RE WORKING REALLY HARD TO ELIMINATE THOSE BARRIERS, SO WHEN COMMUNITIES GET FEDERAL DOLLARS THEY CAN BE USED IN A SYNCHRONOUS WAY.”

The three agencies have 140-million dollars in grants for local governments and regions around the country to do better planning.

And HUD has done something no one can remember it doing before: it’s gone on tour — to Seattle, Denver, Cleveland, and elsewhere. Before HUD starts doling out the planning money, Marsh says they want to hear the vision local communities have for sustainable development.

“YOU KNOW, I’M SNARKY ABOUT THE WHOLE THING ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY.”

Ned Hill is Dean of the college of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. He says sustainability means so many different things to different people.

To him, sustainable goes beyond environmental effects.

“AT THE FOUNDATION OF ANY SORT OF SUSTAINABILITY IS HAVE AN ECONOMY THAT’S SUSTAINABLE. AND IN THE OLDER INDUSTRIAL CITIES, OUR FIRST CHALLENGE IS TO RELOAD THE ECONOMY.”

In many of those older cities, as people have moved farther into the suburbs, they’ve started new businesses close to where they live. Hill says that’s why in areas like Cleveland, the central city is no longer the central business district.

Highways have been built to connect the different suburbs – and people are driving all over the place to get to work in those suburbs.

But, getting to work is now the second biggest expense for most Americans, after housing.

Shelley Poticha doesn’t think that’s a sustainable model. She’s director of that new HUD sustainability office.

Poticha says the regions where people have to drive the farthest to get to work –and spend the most to get to work—also have the highest numbers of foreclosed homes.

“THE REGIONS THAT FARED THE BEST WERE THOSE THAT HAD A PATTERN OF LAND USE THAT MADE IT POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO GET TO WORK WITH OUT HAVING TO DRIVE.”

Poticha points to regions like Denver, where they plan a 100 miles of commuter rail, and bus rapid transit lanes, linking the 32 communities surrounding Denver proper. She says Denver wants to use this new federal grant money to design urban villages around those transit stations. So instead of acres of parking lots, there could be a grocery and other retail stores.

The idea is that people won’t have to drive to work and then drive to the store. Instead, they can take mass transit, and get their shopping done and not have to drive all around.

Poticha says that can help reduce pollution and help families to save money.

Dwayne Marsh says the Obama administration is sending a clear message: improving the economy is dependent on transportation options, housing affordability and a cleaner environment:

“AND BECAUSE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PLAYS A ROLE IN ALL OF THOSE ACTIVITIES, WE NEED TO BE FOSTERING INNOVATION COMING FROM LOCAL COMMUNITIES THAT CAN TAKE ON SOME OF OUR TOUGHEST NATIONAL PROBLEMS. AND WE CERTAINLY DON’T WANT TO BE AN IMPEDIMENT TO THAT CREATIVITY.”

Marsh says his HUD office will work with the Transportation Department and the EPA to help – instead of getting in the way – of local areas’ creative solutions.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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On Board ‘The Waterpod’

  • The pod docked at the Worlds Fair Marina in Queens. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

So, maybe you think you do good
by the environment. Maybe you buy
local, maybe you go to the farmers’
market, maybe you even walk to work.
But you’ve probably got nothing on
the crew aboard the Waterpod – a
converted barge anchored in New York
City. Samara Freemark
went to the Pod to see just how
sustainably people can live:

Transcript

So, maybe you think you do good
by the environment. Maybe you buy
local, maybe you go to the farmers’
market, maybe you even walk to work.
But you’ve probably got nothing on
the crew aboard the Waterpod – a
converted barge anchored in New York
City. Samara Freemark
went to the Pod to see just how
sustainably people can live:

When I caught up with the Waterpod barge, it was docked at a marina right next to
Laguardia Airport.

(sound of a plane)

That’s the sound of people and products moving all around the world.

But on board the Waterpod, four artists have spent the summer living locally – about as
locally as a group of people can possibly live. They’ve been surviving almost entirely on
what they can make, grow, or gather on a 3000 square foot barge.

Which is where I found artist and Waterpod creator Mary Mattingly.

“Hi.”

Last spring, Mattingly and some friends rented the barge and spent a month converting it.
They built a kitchen, 4 bedrooms, gardens, and a whole lot of alternative energy and
water systems. They wanted to see whether they could create a floating self-contained
ecosystem – one that could adapt to a future where resources were scarce and rising sea
levels had swamped coastal regions.

“We’re probably going to need to find new ways to make land that’s usable. So can you
just recreate it on a platform like this? So what’s the answer? I think so.”

Waterpod launched in June. It’s been traveling to docks in the New York City area since
then. The barge is towed around by tugboats – not exactly a sustainable energy source,
true, but the crew does pretty well producing just about everything else.”

We have 33 vegetables and 2 fruits. In this garden we’re growing kale, potatoes,
tomatoes.”

There’s also a coop for 4 chickens, which each produce an egg a day.

“Their names are Gilly, Rizzo, Marble and Bonzai.”

Between the chickens and the gardens, Mattingly says Waterpod is almost self-sufficient
for food. The barge gets its water from collected and purified rain.

“We get enough water barely. We are very close to not having enough water. We only
use a 55 gallon jug of water a day. So split between four people that’s about maybe 10
gallons a day at the most. So we’re taking really short showers.”

Solar panels and a power-generating stationary bike provide energy – enough to power
the lights and the fridge and an impressive collection of laptop computers. The crew uses
those to collect and analyze data on how their various survival systems are functioning.

Crew member Ian Daniels says the data could eventually be used not just by people
embarking on radical living experiments – but also by regular folks who just want to
make their homes a little more sustainable.

“We have 3000 square feet here. So what would happen if you cut that in half? Or a
third? What can I use that space for? Maybe you’re growing food on your roof or in your
window. Maybe you just take this example and take it down a notch, just do what’s
plausible in your own world.”

The Waterpod experiment is ending. So, I asked the crew for the biggest lesson they
learned this summer about living sustainably. Was it about energy conservation? Or, a
new method for collecting rainwater? Actually, Mattingly told me, it was mostly about
getting along with other people.

“I guess I didn’t really consider what it would be like to live in such a small space for
such a long time with other people and the psychology of that became a really interesting
part of the day to day life, and how we managed to make that work and how we would
have to have that dinner every night to reconnect and get back together.”

Which, she says, is a lesson that translates pretty well back on land.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Sustainability in the Sermon

  • Gloria Dei Pastor David Carlson says the Christian bible offers many lessons about the importance of living in ways that sustain other creatures (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Many business people are rethinking their

operations. They’ve been influenced by a

science-based approach to sustainability

that started in Sweden. It’s called the

Natural Step. Stephanie Hemphill reports

some non-profits are getting involved.

She recently visited a church that’s

thinking more about its impact on the

environment:

Transcript

Many business people are rethinking their

operations. They’ve been influenced by a

science-based approach to sustainability

that started in Sweden. It’s called the

Natural Step. Stephanie Hemphill reports

some non-profits are getting involved.

She recently visited a church that’s

thinking more about its impact on the

environment:

The folks at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Duluth Minnesota are studying
more than their Bible these days. They’ve been learning about how the
ideas in the Natural Step can make their church operate more sustainably.

One Saturday in the church basement, about a dozen people from churches
around the region are talking about what sustainability means.

Judy
Isaacson is from a small church in the country.

“It’s a growing understanding that we as individuals have to be responsible
for what we do, and then I think a big part is helping people understand
it’s not that difficult to live up to what our values are and what we see
happening.”

Isaacson says it’s easier to talk about the practical ways to be
sustainable than to expound on the theory. She’s been learning how to
encourage everyone in her church to get involved in making small changes.
Like using less electricity.

“We’re the newbies at our church; we’ve only been in the church six years.
And by having someone who’s been there forever change the light bulbs, it
was very easy because she had credibility within the congregation.”

For many Christians, the Natural Step fits right in with what they call
“creation care.” For them it means taking care of what God created.

The Natural Step publishes its principles on the internet, along with
inspiring examples of how it’s working in various places around the world.

In Duluth, a non-profit group brought the Natural Step to town. Experts
from Canada gave several day-long training sessions to about a dozen
businesses and organizations that committed to a year-long effort to put
the ideas to work.

Sue Anderson took part in the training. At the Saturday workshop in the
church basement, she mentions some of the things the church has done.

“The use of glasses and cups, reuseable items. We kind of got that going
through a lot of different committees, you know our neighborhood breakfast
and things like that.”

No more throw-away styrofoam cups. That fits in with one of the principles
of the Natural Step: don’t wreck the earth by building more landfills than
you absolutely have to.

Another principle is: use less fossil fuel, and other resources that have
to be mined from the earth.

When they replaced the roof at Gloria Dei, they added a lot of insulation.

David Carlson is pastor of Gloria Dei. This year he used Lent as a chance
to educate the congregation. He asked people to go on a “carbon diet” for
Lent.

“There’s usually a confession and forgiveness of not only the brokenness
that we have with God and between us and other people, but also the
separation that we have with creation. And this is one way that we can
participate in the healing of God’s creation.”

Carlson says a lot of church members are taking on projects. One man is
promoting the idea of ride-sharing to church.

“He is offering a free pillow-pack of fair trade coffee to anyone who comes
to him during coffee hour and says that they car-pooled that day. It’s
trying to remove barriers for people that may be in the way of taking
further steps. And they may be small. But they may make a difference.”

The biggest difference this group might make is offering their experience
to others. The non-profit group behind the Natural Step in Duluth is
documenting their progress and hoping others will join in.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Sushi Sustainability Guide

  • blueocean.org has created a guide that ranks sushi on how sustainable it is (Source: Hatago at Wikimedia Commons)

Some ocean conservation groups have
teamed up to make a color-coded guide that
ranks popular sushi. Lester Graham reports
the rankings are based on whether the fish
are caught or raised in sustainable ways:

Transcript

Some ocean conservation groups have
teamed up to make a color-coded guide that
ranks popular sushi. Lester Graham reports
the rankings are based on whether the fish
are caught or raised in sustainable ways:

You can download this sushi guide, print it out and carry it around with you if you
want, but Kate McLaughlin with the Blue Ocean Institute’s Seafood Program says
you could just look at it on your mobile device next time you go to a sushi bar.

“You can download a PDA formatted copy of the guide to your mobile device. Or
text the word ‘fish’ and then the name of the fish in question. Pretty much
immediately you get a response with the ranking.”

And it will tell you things like popular sushi such as bluefin tuna and farmed salmon
are on the “red” list, which means they’re either over-fished or farmed with
aquaculture methods that pollute the ocean.

You can get the guide at blueocean.org.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Using Dams to Make Hydrogen

  • The Adirondack Trail. (Photo courtesy of the Adirondack Regional Tourism Council)

Across rural America, there are old dams and
millponds sitting unused. A century ago, they provided
vital hydro-power for local industry. But many of them
were shut down as big power companies offered more and
cheaper power. Now, one community wants to use its
hydro-dam to power a hydrogen making facility. Jacob
Resneck reports:

Transcript

Across rural America, there are old dams and
millponds sitting unused. A century ago, they provided
vital hydro-power for local industry. But many of them
were shut down as big power companies offered more and
cheaper power. Now, one community wants to use its
hydro-dam to power a hydrogen making facility. Jacob
Resneck reports:

(rushing water noise)

We’re standing beside an old dam next to a public area still known as Power Station Park.

“Back in the 1800s, where we’re standing now was a sawmill.”

Mayor Jamie Rogers is the mayor of Lake Placid, New York.

Two dams on this river create Mill Pond.

“As you look to your left, that was the old turbine house. It was one of two
turbines in the community that generated power for the village.”

After the massive hydro development in the late 1950s, Lake Placid’s hydro-electric turbines were
removed in favor of cheaper imported power.

Now the village is working on a project to again harness this local energy source. But this time it won’t
be for conventional electricity.

“We’d be generating power to start electrolyzing water to create hydrogen.”

Electricity from the dam would be used to extract hydrogen from the water. The hydrogen would then
be stored in high pressure tanks. The fuel could be used to operate vehicles without emitting any
greenhouse gases.

The researcher behind the Lake Placid proposal is Richard Greeley. He’s a former professor who’s
worked on other cutting edge energy projects.

“You use air from the atmosphere on one side and hydrogen on the other and they combine on the
electrode and it forms water and electricity.”

Greeley’s founded a company called Aqua Green Electric Energy. He hopes to develop local sources
for powering hydrogen fuel cells.

“This turbine set up I have could fit on any dam. Why you can renew it and generate electric power again from any number of dams, big, small,
little – any size. So, I’m thinking this whole feature can be duplicated once we show everyone that this thing works.”

The project is expected to cost $1.5 million dollars. The Village of Lake Placid won’t spend local tax money,
but plans to try to get state and federal dollars to pay for the project.

It’s expected to take at least 18 months to build. If it is built, it’s believed to be the first of its kind in the
country.

This project won’t be a money maker. The amount of hydrogen that could be produced would be at
most, about 25 kilograms a day – the equivelant of about 25 gallons of gasoline.

Eventually, local production facilities could spring up all over the country. Daniel Sperling is director
of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. He says as the sun sets
on the era of cheap oil, the nation and the world will have to start making other arrangements.

“It’s becoming increasingly urgent to reduce the amount of oil we use and to reduce the amount of
greenhouse uses. And in both cases hydrogen has great potential. Many people think that in 30 or 40
years it will be the dominant fuel source for vehicles, and for other uses as well.”

A 1998 survey by the U.S. Department of Energy found 212 untapped sites with significant hydro-
electric potential. That’s in the state of New York alone.

Lake Placid Mayor Jamie Rogers says all that unused power could eventually add up, cutting total
greenhouse emissions.

“If you look at small dams like this across the Northeast, across this state and probably across this
country, there’s a lot of potential to generate hydrogen fuel on sites from existing dams that are already in place.”

And he hopes his town is the first to show that it can be done.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jacob Resneck.

Related Links

Interview – Greening the Business World

Some businesses once considered
‘bad actors’ by environmentalists are now being
praised for leading the ‘corporate greening’
movement. Lester Graham spoke with an advisor who
helped some of those companies, John Elkington.
Elkington is the founder of the consulting firm
SustainAbility. He says not all corporations have
realized the importance of becoming more
environmentally-friendly at the same time:

Transcript

Some businesses once considered
‘bad actors’ by environmentalists are now being
praised for leading the ‘corporate greening’
movement. Lester Graham spoke with an advisor who
helped some of those companies, John Elkington.
Elkington is the founder of the consulting firm
SustainAbility. He says not all corporations have
realized the importance of becoming more
environmentally-friendly at the same time:


JE: Around the world, different regions are in very different places
and companies are in different places as a result of that. In the
United States you’ve had a period of, to some degree on issues like
climate change, denial. And that’s beginning to break down, and it’s
breaking down very rapidly. So you see companies, for example in the
financial sector like Goldman-Saks, talking about the environment and
green issues in a very, very different way than they would’ve done a
few years ago.


You see General Electric, which hasn’t been a great ally of
environmental movement, launching it’s Ecomagination initiative. And
initially, people dismissing that very much as greenwash, but when you
look at the numbers, very serious growth going on inside that business
and some of these areas. And then, perhaps to top it all, you see Wal-
Mart, most peoples’ sort of bogey company in a way, announcing some if
its initiatives around renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable
fisheries and so on. And in a sense, it almost doesn’t matter whether
Wal-Mart is serious or genuinely wanting to go green or whatever. This
stuff is starting to cascade through the supply chain. They have 61,000
vendors, these companies around the world. And the work that we do with
companies, they’re saying, whether they’re 3M, or Dupont, or Dow…
they’re saying this company is serious and it’s driving us to do things
we hadn’t previously thought were possible.


LG: Let’s look at consumer level. I think typically, most people are
not spending a lot of time researching which brand of corn flakes is
most carbon-free or sustainable. I think most people make their
decisions on commercials or packaging at the store. How can they make
better choices about sustainable products or companies?


JE: You’re absolutely right. I think most people rely on things like
brands. I mean, they trust a brand or they don’t and they hope a brand
will deal with environmental or fair trade or whatever issues
appropriately. But there are certain moments when things start to speed
up, and this is one of them, and then a different set of actors come
in.


I mean, traditionally, the activist campaigning groups, the NGOs, and
so on, play an incredibly important role in denting brands or building
the credibility of particular brands. And increasingly you get these
standards around environmental and fair trade issues. But I think
actually the key actors at the moment – this is certainly true in
Europe and my own country, the United Kingdom – you’re seeing
supermarkets getting involved again. They did it in the late 80s, early
90s, they played a very important role. That has a huge knock on
impact.


LG: Let’s talk about the energy sector for just a moment. We’ve seen a
lot of renewable energy being built around the world lately. But we
seem to see a lot of power companies, some oil companies still digging
in their heels and fighting tooth and nail to keep things just the way
they are. Are we going to see a sea change in the energy sector like we
are beginning to see in many of the other sectors of the economy?


JE: That’s a very difficult question to answer because I think you’re
going to see several different trends at the same time. You’re going to
see for example, the coal industry, Peabody and people like that,
digging in and saying basically, we’re going to burn a huge amount of
coal. Yes it’s going to have to be clean coal but you’re going to have
that trend. You’re going to have the Exxon Mobiles of this world trying
to look a bit more civilized and say we’ve been misunderstood, we’ve
got to communicate better and so on… But basically still, anti-
climate change is a big issue.


And then you’ve got a bunch of actors. In Europe, you’ve got companies
like Statoil, BP, Shell, who’ve actually gone through that tipping
point quite a number of years back, basically believe climate change is
a reality… Still thing fossil fuels is a very large part of our
energy future, but still starting to explore renewables and energy
efficiency and so on. So I think you’ve got a differentiation and I
don’t think this is an issue of leopards changing their spots. I mean,
some of the companies that are finding this very difficult to deal with
will continue to find it very difficult to deal with even if they
become a bit more sophisticated on the communication front.


HOST TAG: John Elkington is the founder of the consulting firm
SustainAbility. He spoke with the Environment Report’s Lester Graham.

Related Links

Colleges Graded on Sustainability

A new report on sustainability is grading
the top 100 colleges and universities in the
country. Tracy Samilton reports the grades
reflect the institution’s environmental and
endowment practices:

Transcript

A new report on sustainability is grading
the top 100 colleges and universities in the
country. Tracy Samilton reports the grades
reflect the institution’s environmental and
endowment practices:


The top 100 colleges and universities in the country just got their
report cards grading them on sustainability. There are a few A’s, a
lot of B’s and C’s, and more D’s than you might really hope to see.


Mark Orlowski is head of Sustainable Endowments Institute. He says
colleges were graded in seven areas, including recycling and whether
the institution considers more than profit when managing its endowment
portfolio.


He says Dartmouth, for example, buys locally produced food, and
Stanford stands out for its endowment practices:


“We recognize Stanford for being the first school in the
country to adopt climate change shareholder voting guidelines.”


Orlowski says he hopes the annual report will encourage colleges to
make sustainability more of a priority.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Related Links

Region’s Timber Cutting on the Rise

  • The demand for timber has increased in the past year and is expected to continue to rise. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The sale of timber from national forests in the upper Midwest is expected to be up ten percent this year. That follows a ten percent increase last year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette Reports:

Transcript

The sale of timber from national forests in the upper Midwest is expected to be up 10 percent this year. That follows a 10 percent increase last year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette Reports:


Two years ago, the six national forests in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota sold 230 million board feet of timber. Next year the industry expects sales to top out at more than 300 million board feet.


The forest service has been drafting new management plans. Altogether those plans propose an increase in the amount of logging in the forests. Jim Crouch is a consultant for the Lakes States Federal Timber Purchasers.


“All six plans are either complete or at least in draft form, and so there’s new clear direction on what the forest should be doing and that equates to substantial increases in what we’ve seen happen in the past.”


Environmental groups have fought the new management plans in every state. They say the forests are already being harvested at unsustainable rates and the new plans will make things worse.


For the GLRC, I’m Peter Payette.

Related Links

Drawing Up an Energy Efficient Mortgage

  • A mortgage program through Fannie Mae can help people buy older homes and make them more energy efficient with one loan. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Winter is here, and homeowners are preparing for another
round of expensive home heating bills. The U.S. Energy Department
says depending on the fuel you use, home heating costs will rise between
nine percent and 30 percent this winter over last. The high cost of energy
has prompted at least one family to go deeper into debt to save on energy
costs in the future. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner has
more:

Transcript

As homeowners face another winter of rising heating bills, one loan officer in the
region
is promoting energy efficiency when people shop for a mortgage. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


The government and government-chartered companies such as Fannie Mae offer Energy
Efficient Mortgages. But relatively few homeowners take advantage of them. Under the
program, new or existing homes are inspected and rated for energy efficiency. The
homeowners decide which energy-efficient improvements to do, and then roll the cost of
them into their mortgage.


Joel Wiese is a loan officer. He recently closed one of the few non-governmental
energy
efficient mortgages in the Great Lakes region.


“When you start looking at the total housing expense, utilities on top of the rest
of what
you’re doing, you’re basically going to spend less money than you normally would.
Because you’re reducing your utilities. Even though you’re increasing your mortgage
slightly, you’re reducing your utilities significantly. It’s a win-win.”


Wiese says there haven’t been more energy efficient mortgages in the region because
few
realtors, loan officers and lenders know how to use the program.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links