Interview: Jane Goodall

  • Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall. (Photo courtesy of The Jane Goodall Institute)

It’s been 50 years since Jane Goodall first began her research of the behaviors of chimpanzees at Gombe National Park in Tanzania. These days, Goodall spends most of her time traveling, meeting with young people to encourage them to think about how their actions affect the people, animals and the environment of this planet. We caught up with her in Chicago this past weekend. She says people see the problems of the world as just too big to tackle.

Transcript

Jane Goodall: You know people are always asking me ‘what can I do?’, and I think one of the main problems is that people just feel so helpless when they look at what’s happening. And so I always say to people, if we could just spend a few minutes each day thinking about the consequences of the that choices we make… they can be small choices like What do we buy? What do we eat? What do we wear? And we ask questions like where did it come from? How was it made? Did it damage the environment? Did it involve child labor in some distant place? Did it involve cruelty to animals? If we start thinking in those terms, we do start making behavior changes, and they may seem small, but multiplied by a couple of billion, you start to see the major kind of change that we desperately need if we’re going to see a planet that’s reasonably hospitable to our great-grandchildren.

Graham: You’ve been working with young people, tell me a little bit about your project ‘Root’s and Shoots’…what’s the goal there?

Goodall: Roots and Shoots began with twelve high school students in 1991, and it’s now in 120 countries and growing, and we’ve got about 15,000 active groups. The main message: every single one of us makes a difference every single day. and every group is choosing three different kinds of projects to make the world a better place for people, for animals, for the environment. And now we span all ages from pre-school and kindergarten right the way through college and university, and actually more and more adults are forming groups because they, too, want to help to make this a better world.

Graham: I know you have a home in London, but I also assume that Tanzania is much your home. How often do you get to go back there?

Goodall: I get to Gombe itself in Tanzania, where the Chimpanzees are, twice a year, but only briefly. Just time to immerse myself in the forest and sort of get a recharge of my spiritual batteries, so to speak.

Graham: I’m wondering if any of the chimpanzee community still recognizes you when you visit Gombe?

Goodall:The older ones do, the offspring of those whom I knew so, so well in the early days.

Graham: And they recognize you when you go back?

Goodall: Yes, absolutely, they certainly do, I’m appearing twice a year.

Graham: How does that make you feel?

Goodall: Well I have that emotional feeling with Fifi, and to some extent with Goblin, Frodo is just such a horrible, and objectionable bully that I can’t really feel anything but a slight dislike for Frodo. His older brother Freud, I always enjoy meeting him out in the forest, and it takes me back a bit to those early days when I lived among them, more or less, and you know, that was the time when I had these close relationships, and it was just such a very special time in my life.

Graham: Thank you very much, I’m sure you are aware of how much people appreciate the work you’ve done, and what you’ve done to raise awareness among us in the West and around the world about the plight of great apes and chimpanzees. I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

Goodall: thanks very much, Lester, and it was nice talking to you.

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Russian Nuclear Material in U.S. Power Plants?

  • The treaty signed by Presidents Obama and Medvedev might bring more business to companies like USEC, which will have recycled the equivelent of 20-thousand warheads by 2013.(Photo courtesy of The White House)

The START treaty signed last week means hundreds of nuclear warheads will be dismantled. Lester Graham reports, that nuclear material could end up as fuel for nuclear power plants in the U.S.

Transcript

The START treaty signed last week means hundreds of nuclear warheads will be dismantled. Lester Graham reports, that nuclear material could end up as fuel for nuclear power plants in the U.S.

There is a historic precedent for this. Not many people know, but half of the nuclear fuel used in U.S. power plants today comes from Soviet era nuclear warheads. In an agreement signed in 1994, the U.S. and Russia entered a program called Megatons to Megawatts. Russia dismantles warheads, processes highly enriched uranium down to low enriched uranium. An American company called USEC buys it, ships it to Kentucky and then sells it to power companies. Jeff Donald is a spokesman for USEC.

“By the time the program is finished in 2013, we will have recycled 500metric tons of high enriched uranium, which is the equivalent of 20-thousand warheads.”

The START treaty signed last week covers a lot fewer warheads, but USEC is prepared to continue the program if asked.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Gallup: Americans Favor Energy Over Environment

  • According to Gallup, Americans are less likely to say they favor environmental protection during down economic times.(Photo courtesy of Chascar CC-2.0)

New polling data show drilling for oil and mining for coal is more important to Americans than protecting the environment. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

New polling data show drilling for oil and mining for coal is more important to Americans than protecting the environment. Lester Graham reports:

For the first time since Gallup started asking the question nine years ago, the pollsters found Americans put a higher priority on energy production than environmental protection. Frank Newport is the Editor in Chief for Gallup. He says 50-percent of those polled put energy production as a higher priority while 43-percent put environmental protection as a higher priority.

“In other words, I think some Americans are saying we don’t have the luxury at the moment of worrying about the environment in the bad economic times.”

Attitudes seem to be affected by the down economy, more than anything else. Even when gasoline was four-dollars a gallon, most of the people put the environment ahead of energy production.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Interview: A Former CIA Director Talks Oil

  • James Woolsey was the Director of the CIA from 1993 to 1995 (Photo courtesy of James Woolsey)

The current recession has caused the price of oil to drop – most think temporarily. James Woolsey was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency – the CIA – during the Clinton Administration. The Environment Report’s Lester Graham recently talked with him. Woolsey has been arguing that, no matter what the price, dependence on oil is a national security problem that we need to solve:

Transcript

The current recession has caused the price of oil to drop – most think temporarily. James Woolsey was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, during the Clinton Administration. The Environment Report’s Lester Graham recently talked with him. Woolsey has been arguing that no matter what the price, dependence on oil is a national security problem that we need to solve:

James Woolsey: Well, I think moving away from oil dependence, period, is extremely important for our security, and it’s important because of climate change. We are funding both sides of the War on Terror. Oil, when it comes into a hierocracy or into a dictatorship, tends to enhance the power of the state. Tom Friedman summed that up very well in his chapter of his new book ‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded,’ the chapter is called ‘Fill’er Up With Dictators,’ and it’s a pretty accurate statement. We’ve also run the risk of oil cutoffs, of terrorist attacks in the Middle East, oil is just a very big national security problem for us, and it has a 97% monopoly on transportation. So, we’ve got to break that monopoly.

Lester Graham: It seems the only time you can get the general public’s attention on this issue is during periods of gas price spikes. What do you think it will take to get a sustained effort at the personal level to become more energy independent?

Woolsey: Most major automobile companies are coming out with plug-in hybrids here before long. Plug-in hybrids let you drive all electric for 30 or 40 or 50 miles before you then become just a regular hybrid using some liquid fuel. Three-quarters of the days, the average American car goes less than 40 miles. You’re driving on the functional equivalent of 50 to 75 cents a gallon when you’re driving on electricity. And that, I think, is going to get people’s attention and provide a real economic incentive to move toward plug-in hybrids – if the up-front cost of the battery is taken care of, by a tax credit, or by leasing the battery instead of buying it, or by some other financial arrangement. So people can then see they can drive on a lot less than the cost of driving on gasoline, whether it’s driving on $3 a gallon or $4 a gallon.


Graham: Now, you’ve stated your concern on climate change, global warming on several occasions, you consider yourself fairly conservative politically, I’m wondering what you make of the controversy and the debate that you recently heard in the House and what we’re likely to hear in the Senate.

Woolsey: Well, I’m kind of liberal on domestic things, and kind of conservative on defense and foreign policy things – which, to me, is a perfectly reasonable balance, but some people don’t see it that way. I think part, and possibly a very important part, of warming and climate change is likely to be being produced, most climatologists would say, by the fact that we’re pumping so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and trapping heat, that creates a problem. We still need to get the job done of stopping, as much as we can, something that could make the world a very, very unpleasant place – in terms of the height of sea levels and other things – for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Graham: I read an article in The Futurist Magazine from the World Future Society which explained you’re doing a lot in your personal life to become more energy independent – what’s worked for you?

Woolsey: Well, we have photovoltaic cells on the roof of our farmhouse, and lead-acid gel batteries in the basement, and a plug-in hybrid. It’s a little expensive, but you can do a lot these days to make it possible to operate your home, at least the key functions of it, even if the electric grid goes down because of an accident or some kind of hacking attack or something. And you can be, at least, partially independent. It’s not ideal, it’s not perfect, it’s going to get better, it’s going to get cheaper, but you can get started now, if you want to.

Graham: James Woolsey is a former CIA Director, and is now a partner at Vantage Point, a venture capital firm. Thanks for your time.

Woolsey: Thank you.

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Commercial Fishing Gets Failing Grade

  • Countries are getting bad grades because there’s a lot of over-fishing going on. (Photo by Stephen Ausmus, courtesy of the USDA)

A new study out in the journal Nature grades countries on their ocean
fishing practices. Rebecca Williams reports even the top countries are not
getting a passing grade:

Transcript

A new study out in the journal Nature grades countries on their ocean
fishing practices. Rebecca Williams reports even the top countries are not
getting a passing grade:

The US, Canada, and Norway are some of the countries doing the best job.
That means they’re fishing in a responsible way.

But they all come in at 60%. That’d be a D, maybe a D-plus.

Tony Pitcher is the main author of the study.

“Wasn’t very encouraging actually that even the top scoring countries were
not really that good. So it wasn’t anything to write home about – we were
at the top but it wasn’t a great field. At the bottom end some countries
were just disastrous. More than half the countries didn’t even pass the
40%.”

Countries are getting bad grades because there’s a lot of over-fishing going
on. There’s illegal fishing. And there’s a big problem with nets and traps
getting lost. They can snare marine mammals, birds and fish.

Tony Pitcher says it’s not always easy to know where your fish came from.
But he says you can look for a blue and white label when you’re shopping.
It’ll say Marine Stewardship Council on it.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Poland Climate Talks Wrap Up

  • Flags of member nations flying at United Nations Headquarters (UN Photo by Joao Araujo Pinto)

Delegates from around the world
recently met in Poland for talks on
climate change. Lester Graham reports
talks started out optimistically, but
that didn’t last:

Transcript

Delegates from around the world
recently met in Poland for talks on
climate change. Lester Graham reports
talks started out optimistically, but
that didn’t last:

190 countries were represented at the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change. The meeting set the stage for replacing the Kyoto Protocol next
year.

Martin Wagner is an attorney with the environmental group Earth Justice. He says,
the first week delegates were talking in the corridors about Barack Obama and U.S.
finally tackling climate change. One person called it the ‘Obama Buzz’. Wagner
says the end of the convention was a buzz-killer as Congressional staffers arrived.

“The staff members of Congressional representatives made statements clearly
intended to reduce any expectations that the U.S. would have the necessary be able
to get an agreement by the end of next year.”

That’s when the agreement is to be signed. The hope is Congress will figure out
what the U.S. is willing to commit to before the Climate Change agreement is
finalized.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Peeking in on Poland Climate Talks

  • Flags of member nations flying at United Nations Headquarters (UN Photo by Joao Araujo Pinto)

Delegates from 190 countries are
meeting in Poznan, Poland for the The
United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change. Lester Graham reports
the delegates are concerned about the
economic costs of reducing the greenhouse
gases that cause climate change:

Transcript

Delegates from 190 countries are
meeting in Poznan, Poland for the The
United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change. Lester Graham reports
the delegates are concerned about the
economic costs of reducing the greenhouse
gases that cause climate change:

With the world in an economic slump, it might be difficult to come to a new climate
change agreement.

But, Yvo de Boer, who’s the Executive Secretary for the convention says, you think
this is bad, wait ‘til you see what happens if nothing is done about global warming.

“This result in an economic failure on the scale of two world wars and the great
depression combined.”

Most countries are looking to see what the U.S. will do.

Angela Anderson is with the Pew Charitable Trusts Environment Group and a
speaker at the climate change convention. She says there’s talk about what the
Obama administration might do.

“There has been a discussion of the ‘Obama Buzz’ as it’s being called here in
Poznan. And you do hear lots of people in the corridors speculating on what the
negotiations will be like next year.”

This time next year is the deadline for an agreement to replace the expiring Kyoto
protocol.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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New Standards for Organic Fish

  • Farmed fish, such as salmon, eat a lot of wild fish that happen to swim into their pens. And that means they could be eating over-fished species. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish & Wildlife Service)

To be labeled organic, animals
have to be fed all organic food. But
under the new proposal that won’t be
the case for fish. Julie Grant reports
that in the recommendations for organic
fish, the standard is much lower:

Transcript

To be labeled organic, animals
have to be fed all organic food. But
under the new proposal that won’t be
the case for fish. Julie Grant reports
that in the recommendations for organic
fish, the standard is much lower:

Some fish is raised in huge net-pens in the ocean. Farmed
fish, such as salmon, eat a lot of wild fish that happen to
swim into their pens. And that means they could be eating
over-fished species.

New recommendations by the National Organic Standards
Board would go ahead and allow farmed fish to eat up to
25% wild food – as long as it’s not from endangered species.

George Leonard is director of aqua-culture with the Ocean
Conservancy. He says these standards would weaken the
organic label.

“You don’t change the organic standard to be consistent with
current practices, you hold the organic standard steady and
you allow or you incentive the industry to change their
practices to reach that standard.”

The new “organic fish” recommendations still need final
approval from the USDA.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Climate Change Panel Moves Ahead

  • Flags of member nations flying at United Nations Headquarters (UN Photo by Joao Araujo Pinto)

The leader of a key panel on climate
change says upcoming international meetings
will have a lot at stake. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Transcript

The leader of a key panel on climate
change says upcoming international meetings
will have a lot at stake. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

The UN intergovernmental panel on climate change has developed a road map for holding down
emissions that contribute to global warming.

The panel will be part of meetings in Poland this December and in Denmark next year.

R.K. Pachauri chairs the panel. He says negotiators must build on progress made so far.

“And if we miss this out, then I think all the momentum that’s been generated would be lost and
essentially we’d be starting from scratch and we know what that means. It means several years
of delay.”

Pachauri says he’s worried that the current global economic problems will hurt efforts to protect
the earth against climate change. He says things like sea levels, weather patterns, crop
production, and the health of some kinds of animals hang in the balance.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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A Stamp of Approval

  • The 2008 Nature of America issuance, Great Lakes Dunes, is the tenth stamp pane in an educational series that features the beauty and complexity of major plant and animal communities in the United States. A description of the dunes and a numbered key to the artwork appear on the back of the stamp pane, along with a corresponding list of common and scientific names for 27 selected species. (Photo courtesy of the USPS)

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

Transcript

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

The new sheet of stamps is the latest in the Postal Service’s “Nature
in America” series.

John Dawson created the painting depicted on the sheet of stamps. It
features 27 different kinds of plants and animals found in the Great
Lakes Dunes.

Dawson says he hopes the stamps will make people more aware of the
beauty of the dunes, and the need to save the whole environment.

“The animals, the plants, the flowers, the bugs, it’s all inter-related.
That’s what’s important about showing this stuff – that it’s important to
keep the environment intact, because there’s so many things that
depend on each other.”

Dawson has designed all ten of the Nature of America series. But this
one is special to him because he started his career living in the Great
Lakes region.

For The Environment Report, this is Heidi Chang.

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