The Canadian government is under attack by environmentalists after it exempted car manufacturers from its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
The Canadian government is under attack by environmentalists after it exempted car
manufacturers from its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Opponents say the government granted the exemption because the car assembly plants are located
in Ontario.
The province is a stronghold of support for the leading Liberal party.
But federal officials say the auto plants were exempted because their emissions are already low.
Many industries are required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions under the newly signed
Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
John Bennett of the Sierra Club agrees that the auto plants are relatively small polluters.
But he’s concerned that the feds lost some leverage as they try to convince automakers to create
more fuel efficient cars.
“It was a short term political tactic, but in the long term, it might mean we won’t get the kinds of
fuel efficiency improvements in cars that are absolutely essential if we’re going to meet the Kyoto
target and go beyond it.”
Thus far, the auto industry is resistant to building more efficient vehicles.
For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
The international commission that keeps an eye on the environmental health of the Great Lakes will hold public hearings later this month on a report that looks at water use in the basin. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports, the findings are not pleasing to some environmentalists:
Transcript
The international commission that keeps an eye on the environmental health of the Great Lakes
will hold public hearings later this month on a report that looks at water use in the basin. And as
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports, the findings are not pleasing
environmentalists:
The International Joint Commission asked a team of experts to examine water issues including
use and diversion, climate change, and conservation. The report says the problem of water
overuse in the Great Lakes has been overstated in the past three decades, while conservation has
been underestimated. It also calls the prospect of diverting water to arid southwest states “a dead
issue.”
Cameron Davis is with the Lake Michigan Federation. He says the report fails to recognize the
issues that will face the Great Lakes in the long term.
“One of the concerns that I have is that, in saying we’re not using that much water, that the
hidden message is don’t worry. We don’t have a problem.”
But the U.S. chair of the IJC, Dennis Schornack, says recognizing the pitfalls of faulty
projections is important to shaping future water policy.
The Commission will hear public comment on the report before drafting its own plan to present
to the governments of Canada and the U.S.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.
As businesses and governments struggle to find ways to revive the economy, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator James Howard Kunstler says that it’s time to re-scale the marketplace. And, ultimately, to re-think how we live and work:
Transcript
As businesses and governments struggle to find ways to revive the economy, Great Lakes
Radio Consortium commentator James Howard Kunstler says that it’s time to re-scale the
marketplace. And, ultimately, to re-think how we live and work:
Not long ago, The New York Times reported that car sales had fallen off 30 percent. The
paper commented that quote “strong auto sales this year have been a key contributor in
propping up consumer spending, which in turn has been the main impetus of economic
growth.”
Is that all our economy is about? Buying and selling cars? In a way, the answer is yes.
The U.S. economy is now based on the creation and maintenance of suburban sprawl and
all its furnishings and accessories.
What keeps the cycle going? The easiest credit the world has ever seen. Often to people
with poor records of repaying loans. What happens when the music stops, and the zero
percent “miracle loans” stop with it? What other economic activity is there in the United
States? We don’t make anything here anymore except movies, TV shows, and pop music,
and only a tiny percent of Americans can be in show biz.
We’ve outsourced the actual making of most mundane products to distant nations where
people work for peanuts. Everyday retail trade is conducted through so-called “efficient”
national chain stores. Behind this mask of efficiency, though, lies the wreckage of
America’s communities, and the complex, fine-grained networks of economic relations
that once supported them. In rural America, ruin and depression are rampant among
small farmers. Today, we subsist on Caesar salads which travel an average of 2,500
miles from field to table.
This a system primed for unwinding. We are fast becoming a nation reliant on everyone
but ourselves. More tragically, as it unwinds, we will be stuck with all the unsustainable
furnishings: the far-flung subdivisions of commodity housing; the redundant chain stores;
the countless miles of blacktop in need of continual repair; the gazillion cars that we can
no longer afford to replace. We’ll be stuck living in places that are not worth living in,
and not worth caring about, far from any food supplies, and with no networks of local
economic interdependency.
These are our prospects, and they can only be worsened by looming international military
mischief, Jihad, de-stabilized oil markets, and terrorism.
There’s really only one reasonable way out of this predicament: the re-scaling of
America. We face the enormous task of reconstructing local economic networks that add
up to real communities, which in turn add up to places worth caring about. It’s time to
re-size and downscale everything we do from farming to schooling to shopping. The
future is telling us very clearly that we have to start living locally, but we are not
listening, and we are not prepared.
James Howard Kunstler is the author of The Geography of Nowhere and other books. He
comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.
There’s a trend among some Native Americans. They’re trying to return to more traditional diets. Many believe various health problems among Indian populations are due, in part, to adopting a diet much heavier in sugars, starches, and fats than their ancestors’ diet. But they’re concerned that pollution has tainted many of the traditional foods, such as fish. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports in the second of a two-part series on communicating the risks of eating contaminated fish to ethnic groups:
Transcript
There’s a trend among some Native Americans. They’re trying to return to more traditional diets.
Many believe various health problems among Indian populations are due, in part, to adopting a
diet much heavier in sugars, starches, and fats than their ancestors’ diets. But they’re concerned
that pollution has tainted many of the traditional foods, such as fish. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports in the second of a two-part series on communicating the
risks of eating contaminated fish to ethnic groups:
A high rate of Native Americans suffer from diabetes and obesity. It’s commonly believed that
the European diet of processed grains, processed sugar, and fatty foods has contributed to the
health problems. So, some tribal members are looking at a traditional diet of fish and game and
the kinds of agriculture practiced by their forbearers. The idea is that traditional foods might be
more healthy for Native Americans.
But it’s become clear that some of those foods, particularly fish, are contaminated by pollutants.
PCBs and methyl mercury have been found in certain fish. Studies show those chemicals can
cause permanent health problems. Tribes have issued advisories, but some tribal leaders are
reluctant to discourage people from eating fish, even if it’s contaminated.
John Pursell works for the Minnesota Chippewa tribe. The tribe has issued advisories about
mercury in fish. But, Pursell says there’s a balance that has to be considered.
“We have to be careful that we aren’t advising people, tribal members, if we say ‘Don’t eat fish
of a certain size or from certain lakes,’ that we’re relatively certain that what they’re going to
replace that protein source with is not going to be more detrimental to their health. And that’s the
big concern.”
Pursell says, for example, his tribe is very concerned about dioxins. The tribe believes that
dioxins are responsible for a higher rate of cancer and other problems. And dioxins might be
present in the foods people in the tribe would eat instead of fish.
“But, we also know from the draft documents that the federal government has issued on dioxins,
that dioxins exist in fairly large quantities in such fatty foods as hamburger and cheeses. And of
course, these are foods that are found routinely in reservation commodity outlets.”
So, if it’s a matter of trading one kind of contamination for another, the logic goes, might as well
eat the healthier food, fish.
But the different tribes have different concerns and no one likes the idea of consuming
contaminated foods of any kind. So, there’s a lot of confusion about the best route to take to
dealing with the health problems among Native Americans.
Kory Groetchs is an environmental biologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission. He says as interest in traditional foods builds, his agency is being asked for
answers.
“They have questions about industrial pollution and their impacts on traditional foods and, you
know, the balance between risks of consuming that food and the benefits of consuming it.”
Groetsch says the Commission is looking for funding to study ways to reduce the risk of
consuming contaminants. For example, one study tried to determine what size and where to catch
walleye with lower levels of mercury. He says more studies like that need to be conducted so
Native Americans can avoid the contaminants that might be present in traditional foods.
“And then definitely point out the situations where there is not concern so people can clear their
minds of these, if they have concerns, and they seem to, about industrial pollution such as methyl
mercury in fish, clear their mind of that and go back to a more traditional diet and eat in a more
natural, traditional way.”
Even those who are responsible for bringing the advisories on contaminants in fish to the
members of the tribe are hesitant. Maria Mabee is with the Seneca Nation in New York. She’s
an environmental activist and concerned about the effects of contaminants on health. At the same
time, she says there’s a limit to what she’ll recommend.
“You know, I can’t tell people to stop using fish for ceremonies. I just can’t do it. I won’t do it.
(laughs) I just, you know, I tell them about the risks, you know. I tell them what I know and I tell
them to make the best decisions for themselves.”
The tribes stress that the health benefits of fish should not be ignored. For many tribes, fish is a
staple. The question to answer they say is, if you don’t eat fish because of the risk of
contamination from pollution, will the food you eat instead be any more safe?
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Some people, because of culture or because of necessity, rely on fishing as a way to supply an important part of their family’s diet. While fish is healthful food, experts warn that fish from lakes and rivers can be contaminated by pollutants. In the first of a two-part series on communicating the risks of eating contaminated fish to ethnic groups… the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… conveying that warning to some cultures is especially difficult:
Transcript
Some people, because of culture or because of necessity, rely on fishing as a
way to supply an important part of their family’s diet. While fish is healthful food,
experts warn that fish from lakes and rivers can be contaminated by pollutants.
In the first of a two-part series on communicating the risks of eating
contaminated fish to ethnic groups… the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… conveying that warning to some
cultures is especially difficult:
As the United States pulled out of Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam war, many people who
had been allies from Laos, Cambodia, and South Viet Nam found their way to the U.S. Some of
these people have always relied on fish for a large part of their diet.
After settling in the United States, they naturally turned to public lakes and rivers and began
fishing. They ran into a couple of problems. First, U.S. conservations laws put limits on the size
and how many fish they could catch, something they were not used to. Second, health officials
and conservation officials began to warn them about contamination. They told them chemical
pollutants could harm development in children and fetuses.
Josee Cung is with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. She says many of the
Southeast Asian immigrants were skeptical. They thought the government was conspiring to get
them to buy ocean fish from stores rather than take free fish from the lakes and rivers. Cung says
the immigrants had never heard of such a thing as contaminants you couldn’t see.
“PCB, mercury, they don’t understand that. So, that’s the big challenge. So, there are real
cultural, but there are also real educational barriers.”
As she distributed fish advisories suggesting that certain fish had higher levels of contamination,
Cung found the Southeast Asian immigrants were astonished. She says they are a practical
people. They feel if that can’t see something wrong with the fish, it must be okay to eat.
“‘But they’re fat! They’re shiny! They are big!’ You know, ‘But they are good to eat!’ So, that’s
the kind of thing. It’s more prevalent than relying on the advisory to change behavior.”
The State of Minnesota had pamphlets of the advisories printed up in the various languages of the
immigrants and handed them out at every opportunity.
Pat McCann is a research scientist with the Department of Health. She’s worked closely with
Josee Cung to try to explain the fish contaminants issue.
“But we found, with the Southeast Asian populations, the written translations aren’t that effective
because that group seems to communicate more verbally. So, in order to do outreach with those
groups, we try to do presentations and reach community groups in that way.”
And so Minnesota took a more hands-on approach. Josee Cung says instead of handing out
pamphlets alone, they started meeting with leaders in the various Southeast Asian communities in
Minnesota. For example, the Hmong, who helped retrieve downed U.S. pilots during the war are
a people of clans. Cung found if they could demonstrate to clan leaders ways to trim away the fat
of fish where contaminants such as PCBs concentrate and show which fish have lower levels of
contaminants, the word would spread throughout the community. Cung also found that it was
important not just to talk to the anglers who got the fishing license – usually men.
“And we go in homes doing cooking. And really check out their kitchen and say ‘Oh, this is how
you should do.’ And it’s most effective because it’s the women that prepare. He hasn’t got a
clue. He bring the fish home and leave it to the women. And the women decide how to cook it.”
Minnesota’s outreach program with Southeast Asian cultures is pretty advanced. Not every
government in the Great Lakes basin is as active. In recent years, the International Joint
Commission, the body that monitors the U.S. and Canadian boundary waters treaties and
agreements, has been admonishing the states and provinces to do more.
Alan Hayton is with the Ontario Ministry of Environment. He says the governments have taken
the message to heart, but finding the money to do the job is always a problem.
“We do have some communications with some groups such as in Ontario, such as the Chinese
community, which is well-organized and receptive to the information that’s in the guide. But, it’s
difficult. We don’t. We do the best job we can given the resources that we have.”
The International Joint Commission warns that it’s important that the states and provinces work
harder to reach cultures, such as those from Southeast Asia, that rely heavily on fish for protein.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
People who do historic restoration have been taking advantage of cloning technology. Historic trees are being cloned to help preserve and restore historic landscapes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:
Transcript
People who do historic restoration have been taking advantage of
cloning technology. Historic trees are being cloned to help preserve and
restore historic landscapes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar
Charney reports:
Michigan’s Fort Mackinac is a military fortress from the American
Revolution. In the mid 1800’s, soldiers stationed there planted a row of eight
sugar maples lining the fort’s parade ground. But these trees are now old
and dying.
Phil Porter is a curator who’s worked at Fort Mackinac for over
30 years. He says he was sad and concerned that they would soon lose this
living link to the fort’s past. So he decided to have the trees cloned.
“We think that by cloning them, by going to that very high level of
reproducing what is there now we can do the most accurate job of
reproducing the environment, the right looking trees, and putting them
back in the same place.”
While the clones won’t look any different from a sugar maple seedling
bought at a nursery, keeping the genes of a historic tree alive through
cloning seems to appeal to people. There are tree cloning projects
underway in Massachusetts, Maryland, and even Australia to help replicate
historic trees people have a connection to.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.
A recent newspaper report says that the White House stopped the EPA from issuing a warning about widespread asbestos-contaminated insulation last spring. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
A recent newspaper report says that the White House stopped the
EPA from issuing a warning about widespread asbestos-contaminated
insulation last spring. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:
Zonolite insulation was produced in this country from the 1940’s through
the 1990’s, and almost all of it was made from ore that came from one mine
in Libby, Montana. Thousands of miners were killed or sickened because
the ore was contaminated with an extremely lethal asbestos fiber.
But it was only last year that the EPA decided to issue a public health
emergency warning to residents and workers who could come in contact with
Zonolite insulation in homes where it had been installed.
A St. Louis Post Dispatch investigation revealed that the White House Office of
Management and Budget intervened, and the EPA never issued the warning.
The Post Dispatch reports that EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman was
outraged by the decision.
Hundreds of thousands of homes in Michigan and Illinois probably have
Zonolite insulation. The insulation is often strewn loose in attics.
It’s silvery-brown and comes in feather-light pieces ranging from the size
of a pea to the size of a nickel.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.
A recent study in the scientific journal Nature suggests the effects of global warming can be seen in people’s backyards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
A recent study in the scientific journal Nature suggests the effects of global warming
can be seen in people’s backyards. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
The study compiles data from scientific papers on climate change and from personal
nature recordings from people all over the world. It finds that plants and animals
appear to be changing their behavior in response to increases in the average global
temperature over the past century.
Michigan State University researcher Kim Hall contributed to the report. She says
for many species, spring events are happening about five days earlier every ten years.
“Those include things like the first arrival dates of birds when they’re migrating into
their summer habitat. Also, sounds, like the first calls of frogs and toads when they
begin the breeding season in the spring. And there’s a lot of different things
related to the timing of plants, such as the first time they bloom in
the spring or when fruits arrive.”
Hall says it isn’t known how earlier springs will affect the environment. But she says they
could spell trouble for many species if food supplies and habitats are not protected.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved rules to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions in the Midwest. Environmentalists say in some states the rules aren’t strong enough. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:
Transcript
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved rules to
reduce nitrogen oxide emissions in the Midwest. Environmentalists say in
some states the rules aren’t strong enough. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:
Ohio is one of the last of the states in the Midwest to submit rules that
would curb nitrogen oxide emissions. The state’s plan would cut harmful NOx
emissions from power plants and other coal-burning boilers by 120-thousand tons
annually starting in 2004. NOx is blamed for causing smog on hot days.
Environmentalists say the new rules are a positive step… but Ohio should be
one of the first states to cut back emissions year-round, not just during summer
months, as the Ohio plan proposes.
Michael Shore is with the New York-based group Environmental Defense.
“The federal government is really failing to protect our air quality.
So the responsibility is really falling to our states at this point.”
Shore says if Ohio takes action to control NOx emissions year-round,
a domino effect will be created, encouraging other states to follow its example.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.
Health and environmental agencies are struggling to find the best way to alert people, particularly women, about the risks of eating too much sport fish contaminated with toxic chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Health and environmental agencies are struggling to find the best way to alert people,
particularly women, about the risks of eating too much sport fish contaminated with
toxic chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Some states cut budgets, including money for publishing fish consumption advisories.
It’s curtailing the efforts of health officials to tell families that children and women of
childbearing age should severely restrict their intake of sport fish.
Most sport fish contain levels of pesticides, PCBs, and/or mercury high enough to
cause neurological and mental developmental problems in children. Barbara Knuth
is a professor at Cornell University.
“Budgets are limited and until the time when resources are made available through state
governments, through EPA, even through foundations to fund both communication efforts and
evaluation and testing of those efforts to improve them, I think it’s still going to be a struggling
effort.”
Knuth says relatively small investments in information now could prevent great costs to
society and children’s lives later.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.