Year: 2008

What’s Behind the Organic Milk Label?

  • Many people now choose organic milk, but there are some problems with the USDA organic certification. (Photo by Adrian Becerra)

Products labeled “organic” used to be associated with
hippie culture. Ever since the National Organic Standards
went into effect five years ago, organic has become big
business. Sales of organic products now total about 20-billion dollars a year in the U.S. But that quick growth
spurt is coming with some growing pains. Julie Grant
reports:

Transcript

Products labeled “organic” used to be associated with
hippie culture. Ever since the National Organic Standards
went into effect five years ago, organic has become big
business. Sales of organic products now total about 20-billion dollars a year in the U.S. But that quick growth
spurt is coming with some growing pains. Julie Grant
reports:


Kara Skora is a part-time college professor, and her family
doesn’t make a lot of money. She’s wearing a hand-me-down
sweater. She’s been eyeing some bracelets at this Target
store, but she quickly walks away. She isn’t going to
spend her money on something so frivolous. Instead, Skora
goes to the dairy case and pulls out a carton of organic
milk. At $3.50, it’s nearly double the price of a regular
half gallon. But Skora thinks the higher cost is worth it
for her two sons:


“Because it’s the one thing. I mean, we don’t go out to
dinner, we don’t waste money on things. We don’t have much
money to spend. But I figured, this is becoming their
bodies. This is becoming their bones and their flesh, and what
little they have, they’re both skinny little boys. So I’m
willing to go into debt to get organic milk.


Julie Grant: “You really go into debt?”


“Oh yeah, we’re in credit card debt. I think a couple
thousand dollars of that every year is organic milk. It’s
the one thing we splurge on.”


Skora used to have to go to a health food store to find
organic milk. These days, she can buy it a lot of places.
And whether she’s buying it at Target or somewhere else,
she trusts that the government’s organic label means the milk
meets certain standards.


It used to be, a label that said “organic” could mean all
kinds of things. Different state agencies and private
organizations each had their own organic standards. Each
trained their own people to inspect farms – to make sure
farmers were meeting their organization’s rules.


Then, five years ago, the US Department of Agriculture
launched the National Organic Program. Now, the people who
inspect organic farms are all looking at the same set of
rules: the USDA’s national standards.


A national standard means farmers know what they need to do
to sell milk as organic in every state. So now big dairy
farms are churning out organic milk to be shipped out
across the nation.


Leslie Zuck is director of Pennsylvania Certified Organic,
one of the certifiers for the USDA. Zuck says the national
program has some problems. The standards aren’t always
specific, so it can be difficult for certifiers and farmers
to know if they’re doing the right things. For instance,
one big concern is how long dairy cows get to be out on grass:


“You go out there and you say, we don’t think enough
pasture, and they say how much is enough and we say, well, we don’t really know but we don’t think you have
enough.”


Since some rules are a little fuzzy, some certifiers are more
lenient than others:


“Some certifiers have interpreted that part of the regulation as
not really requiring that cows have pasture all the time, and that they don’t
really have to have a lot of grass to eat, they just have to be out there walking around few hours a day.”


Zuck says some dairy producers find out which agencies will
interpret the standards the way the farmers want, and hire
those certifiers:


Barbara Robinson: “Well, that shouldn’t be the case.”


Barbara Robinson is USDA administrator of the National
Organic Program.


“Certifying agents should all be applying rules in the same
way.”


Robinson concedes many issues, such as the required amount
of pasture, need to be clarified in the national rules.
Some environmentalists were appalled that a large dairy
producer in Colorado was certified organic. Aurora Farms
confined its cows indoors for nine months out of the year.
Robinson says the USDA considered revoking the company’s
certification, but instead signed an agreement – and she says Aurora
Farms has been improving its practices:


“I don’t have any problems telling consumers who go into
retail market and purchase organic milk at Wal-Mart that
they are purchasing properly labeled certified organic
milk. They can feel comfortable with that.”


And Wal-Mart and Target are exactly the kinds of retailers
that Aurora Farms supplies with its organic milk.


Meantime, the people who buy that milk say they expect the
government to make sure the dairies are living up to the
national standards. Especially since customers like Kara
Skora have to sacrifice so much to pay the higher prices of
milk with an organic label.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Edison’s Invention Getting Dimmer

  • The US government will begin phasing out higher wattage incandescent bulbs in 2012. (Photo by Lester Graham)

One out of every five light bulbs sold in the U.S. is a compact fluorescent. That’s
according to new market data put out by the Environmental Protection Agency. Mark
Brush reports:

Transcript

One out of every five light bulbs sold in the U.S. is a compact fluorescent. That’s
according to new market data put out by the Environmental Protection Agency. Mark
Brush reports:


It appears the days are numbered for Thomas Edison’s most famous invention. That’s because fewer people are buying incandescent light bulbs. The EPA says that compact fluorescent light bulbs made up 20% of the overall light bulb
market last year. That’s more than double than the previous year.


Maria Vargas is with the EPA’s Energy Star Program. She says the compact fluorescent
bulbs – or CFLs – are more expensive to buy, but when you do the math, they’ll save
you money in the long run:


“A CFL lamp will save you about $30 or more in electricity costs over each bulb’s
lifetime. They use about 75% less energy and they last up to about ten times longer.”


The U.S. government will officially begin phasing out the higher wattage incandescent
bulbs in 2012.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Government Drops Jaguar Recovery Plan

  • Jaguars are an endangered species in the U.S., but the federal government has decided that there are too few individual cats in the U.S. to focus a large recovery effort on them here. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)

In a rare move, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it won’t try to
save an endangered animal. Rebecca Williams reports critics say the
government is giving up on the endangered jaguar:

Transcript

In a rare move, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says it won’t try to
save an endangered animal. Rebecca Williams reports critics say the
government is giving up on the endangered jaguar:


The Fish and Wildlife Service says it won’t write a species recovery
plan for the jaguars that live near the U.S.-Mexico border. The agency
says there are not enough jaguars on the U.S. side to make a
difference. The agency says it’d be better to spend money on
larger populations of the cat in Mexico.


The Center for Biological Diversity is in an ongoing lawsuit with the
government about the jaguar. Michael Robinson is with the Center:


“It’s shocking that they’re writing off a U.S. species and stating
contrary to the law that they will not recover it.”


The cats roam back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico. Critics
believe the government scrapped the jaguar recovery plan because it
could interfere with a border fence being built between the two
countries.


The Fish and Wildlife Service says the fence was not a factor.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

More Corn Goes to Fuel

The hunger to turn plants such as corn and soybeans into biofuels is growing. But some
experts say using food for fuel is unwise. Kyle Norris reports:

Transcript

The hunger to turn plants such as corn and soybeans into biofuels is growing. But some
experts say using food for fuel is unwise. Kyle Norris reports:


More and more of the country’s food crops are being used to make biofuels. Last year
twenty-seven percent of the country’s corn crop was used to make ethanol. And seventeen
percent of soybean oil production was used for bio-diesel. The demand for more corn and
soybeans for biofuels has in part driven up the price of grain.


Marion Nestle is a Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York
University:


“The idea that you would grow something that animals or people can eat and use it for
fuel for automobiles seems just crazy to me.”


She says when crops are used for fuel there’s less food for people and animals. And that
contributes to rising food costs. Higher grain prices affect meat, dairy, bread, and many
processed foods.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Farmers Work to Conserve Water

Some experts say water will be the “oil” of the next generation. As it become
more scarce, prices are going to go up. For farmers, that’s serious business.
Kyle Norris recently spent time with several farmers who say they think
about water constantly:

Transcript

Some experts say water will be the “oil” of the next generation. As it become
more scarce, prices are going to go up. For farmers, that’s serious business.
Kyle Norris recently spent time with several farmers who say they think
about water constantly:


Anne Elder and Paul Bantle are farmers, and they’re pretty hard-core about
water. They keep a hollowed-out rock — it’s like a natural bowl — next to
the barn, and every morning they fill it with fresh water for the farm’s
smaller animals:


“And this amazing thing the cat comes and drinks, the chipmunks come and
drink, the birds come and drink and the bees all drink from the same stone.”


These folks consider water to be a valuable resource. They use it to grow a
variety of fruits and vegetables on their eleven and a half acres. The farm is
a biodynamic farm. Which means it’s organic, but it kind of goes a few steps
further. Anne Elder says biodynamic farming emphasizes healthy soil, and
how to make soil benefit the most from water:


“Healthy soil means it’s alive, it’s active, it’s not compressed but fluffy. It
will have a lot organic matter which will make it more sponge-like rather
than compacted hard tight soil. So when it does rain or when moisture does come,
fluffy soil can take that in and it can just drain through and the roots can
absorb it.”


They till an organic compost into the soil. It’s made of manure, vegetable
matter, hay, and straw. And as biodynamic farmers, they spread herbal teas
on their fields. They do this to feed the plants, and to fight-off problems like
fungus. Their farm is in southeastern Michigan and they get plenty of rain
storms. Paul Bantle says they try to take as much advantage from the rain as
possible:


“Rainwater is way better than any kind of water you’re going to pull from
earth. Irrigation water is cold when it comes from 65 feet down, it’s cold.
Whereas rainwater is warm, in the summer, obviously. And in the late spring
and early fall.”


The thing about cold water is that it shocks plants that have been sitting in
the warm sun all day. And that’s no good. When they need to water the
fields, they pump water from a 65-foot well.


Bantle says he thinks long and hard before using this water for irrigation. He
doesn’t want to dig down further to tap deeper aquifers, even if that means
that the crops will go through a hard time:


“It’s an issue. I mean it’s a huge problem. So definitely I try to be very
conservative about pulling water for irrigation.”


Basically, there are two main irrigation techniques typically used in farming. The first is
drip or trickle irrigation, and this is what Bantle and Elder use. It’s a slow,
easy method that takes time for the water to soak deep into the soil. It’s kind
of like a light, slow rain.


The other technique is overhead irrigation. Picture your garden hose on
spray, with overhead irrigation the water sprays all over. The downside is
that it wastes water because it evaporates and runs-off from the fields.


Lyndon Kelley is an irrigation educator with Michigan State University and
Perdue Extensions. He says drip irrigation is like a mini-van and overhead
irrigation is like a school bus:


“It’s sort of like are you going to take three or four kids to the baseball game
after school each day, well then you’re going to take the mini-van. But if
you’re going to take fifty kids to the baseball game after school every day
then you’re going to want a school bus.”


So, drip is typically used on smaller operations and overhead is usually
used on the larger ones. But Kelley says drip irrigation can be used on larger
farms. It depends on how the roots of the plant take-in water. Grape
vineyards, tomato plants, and some other vegetables respond well to drip
irrigation.


The farm that Anne Elder and Paul Bantle run is a relatively small operation.
They pay a lot of attention to their crops and they water them accordingly,
and all that effort takes a thought and labor:


“It’s almost like a holding-back mentality. How can I let these plants do
what they need to do, until which time the rains will come.”


Farmers are going to have to reevaluate the ways in which they use
water. Some scientists believe climate change will make some places much
drier, and a growing population is already putting heavier demands on the
existing water sources.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Autos Part 2: Carmakers Slow to Adopt New Battery

  • The powertrain of the Chevy Volt. This concept image shows the lithium ion battery pack running down the center of the vehicle. (Image courtesy of GM)

Car companies are making plenty of promises these days about future
cars that will save you gas. To make them happen,
automakers are counting on a new kind of battery. They’re called lithium ion
batteries. These batteries could bring about a revolution in automobiles.
In the second part of a two-part series on green cars, Dustin Dwyer reports it could take a while for the revolution to get
here:

Transcript

Car companies are making plenty of promises these days about future
cars that will save you gas. To make them happen,
automakers are counting on a new kind of battery. They’re called lithium ion
batteries. These batteries could bring about a revolution in automobiles.
In the second part of a two-part series on green cars, Dustin Dwyer reports it could take a while for the revolution to get
here:


Lithium ion sounds like a complicated term. And you don’t necessarily need to know
what it means. But it might help to know that you already use lithium ion batteries every
day:


“It’s being used now in video cameras, personal phones, it’s in iPods, it’s in a lot of small
electronics and in, of course, laptop computers.”


That’s Jim Hall. He’s a consultant to the auto industry. His company is called 2953
Analytics. Hall’s had some experience working on battery powered cars. He says lithium
ion batteries are attractive because they can store a lot more power than the batteries in
today’s hybrid vehicles, and Hall says in the race to get lithium ion batteries into cars,
there are two leading companies: General Motors and Toyota.


They have different approaches to getting the batteries ready, but they both depend on
contractors outside the company to figure out the complicated chemistry. Hall says the
problem is right now, they need a breakthrough:


“And the breakthrough could come from an entirely different source. It could be from
another company that neither company is dealing with. It could. That’s the thing with
breakthroughs. You can’t predict how and when they happen.”


As we mentioned, battery engineers have already invented ways to make lithium ion
work in small things like cell phones, laptops and power drills. But it’s not as easy to
make the batteries work for something big, like a car.


Hall says one problem is cost. Lithium ion batteries are expensive. Another problem is
heat. The more energy you store in a lithium ion battery, the better the chances that the
battery could become unstable. If it becomes too hot, the battery could explode. That’s
already been a problem in some laptops.


Bob Lutz is the Vice Chairman of General Motors. He says his company has already
solved the heat problem with lithium ion batteries by using a different chemistry than
what’s in laptops:


“We’ve cycled ’em in hot rooms, maximum discharge rate, and cut out the cooling system
to simulate a cooling system failure in the car, and we’ve had a temperature rise of maybe
eight degrees centigrade, I mean, just not enough to worry about.”


GM expects to put the batteries in test cars and start running them on roads late this
spring. The goal is a lithium ion powered hybrid car named the Chevy Volt. It will go
forty miles on battery power alone, before a gas engine has to kick in. Lutz says he has no
doubt that the Volt will be ready to go by mid-2010, but officially, GM has not
set a production date.


Toyota says it’s also shooting to have the technology ready by 2010. But no other
automaker will even mention a date for lithium ion batteries. Not Ford. Not Honda. Not
Chrysler. Chrysler President Tom Lasorda says there’s a reason for that:


“When you’re trying to predict when a technology is going to be ready for mass market,
it’s very tough. Because you don’t know what the surprises might be.”


In the next few years, you can expect auto executives to make a lot of references to
lithium ion batteries. And basically anyone you talk to in the industry says these
batteries are no doubt, the next big thing that will save you gas.


The question is when. When will lithium ion batteries actually be in your car? Maybe
2010. Maybe a lot later. No one can really say for sure.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Autos Part 1: Making Green Mainstream

  • Fisker Automotive plans to sell 16,000 of its Karma plug-in hybrid sports cars beginning in 2009. (Photo courtesy of Fisker Automotive)

For a lot of people, the words “hybrid vehicle” bring to mind dinky little
commuter cars that would get creamed in the fast lane. But red-blooded
horsepower fans might soon be able to get speed, performance, and fuel
efficiency in the same car. In the first of a two-part series on green cars, Sarah Hulett brings us this story about the marriage of
mean and green:

Transcript

For a lot of people, the words “hybrid vehicle” bring to mind dinky little
commuter cars that would get creamed in the fast lane. But red-blooded
horsepower fans might soon be able to get speed, performance, and fuel
efficiency in the same car. In the first of a two-part series on green cars, Sarah Hulett brings us this story about the marriage of
mean and green:


Tougher fuel economy standards are on the horizon, and record oil prices are
already here. So it’s no surprise to hear auto executives talking up the green
virtues of their products.


(Montage:) “GM will continue to drive the development of electrically-
driven vehicles…It’s Chrysler’s mission more environmentally responsible…plug-in hybrid…Saturn has a green
heritage…more fuel efficient, more environmentally-friendly vehicles.”


But typically, performance has taken a back seat to fuel efficiency, and vice
versa.


David Cole is president of the Center for Automotive Research. He says in
the past, the auto industry has taken a bipolar view of the car-buying public:


“One pole was fun, people want to have fun in a car, and another pole was
green, and if you’re green you’re probably not going to have a lot of fun. But
I think what we’ve seen is that they’ve come together.”


(Eric Merkle:) “That was the most unusual thing I saw at this year’s auto show: a biofuel
Ferrari, a Ferrari that runs on corn.”


Erich Merkle is an auto analyst with IRN. That’s a car industry consulting
firm. Merkle is talking about the recent Detroit auto show where Ferrari
showed an F430 Spider with a biofuel engine:


“It just seems so… odd, I guess, to see a vehicle like an F430 running on
ethanol. But Ferrari’s trying to put their hat in, throw their hat into the ring
too, and trying to do their part.”


Ferrari officials say the biofuel sports car is part of the company’s effort to
cut its emissions by 40% over the next five years, and Ferrari’s not the only
luxury performance car company offering wealthy car buyers a greener
option.


Fisker Automotive has a plug-in hybrid it plans to put on the market by the
end of next year. The Karma sports car has batteries that can power the car
for 50 miles. It also has a high-performance, four-cylinder engine for
backup:


“This re-defines performance. It’s performance that doesn’t hurt the
environment.”


Vic Doolan is the former president of BMW North America, and he now sits
on the board at Fisker. He says the Karma can do zero to 60 in under six
seconds:


“The person buying this car will want to drive a nice car, want to be seen in
the right circles, but on the other hand, they want to do something that not
only feels good to drive, but feels good to the heart. It’s to my mind a car
with a conscience, and I think it’s for people with a conscience – about the
environment, at least.”


A Fisker Karma could be yours for 80,000 dollars.


But analyst Erich Merkle says he’s not overly optimistic about the greening
of the luxury, high-performance car market:


“I still don’t think it’s the customer that’s really asking for that. And the other
thing you have to ask yourself is what kind of a difference can a company
like Fisker actually make. Sure, it’s nice, it’s something to see, and
something to kind of ooh and aah over. But at the end of the day, it’s still a very,
very low-volume vehicle, if it even makes it to market.”


Fisker plans to make 16,000 of the sports cars. That’s not a lot of volume.
But the big companies are also looking to sell efficient performance vehicles
to the masses.


Chrysler design chief Trevor Creed says the company had a certain customer
in mind when it created its Dodge concept sports wagon:


“They want to be environmentally responsible, but they also have a need for
speed. We can meet all of those needs, by combining our shared electric
motor with a lightweight aluminum structure to create a future performance
vehicle like this. Ladies and gentlemen: the Dodge ZEO.”


You’re probably not going to see the electric-only ZEO in your local Dodge
dealer lot any time soon, but another big car company is making
turbocharged engines that’ll be available in some cars as soon as this year.
Ford’s EcoBoost powertrain promises 20% better fuel economy, without
sacrificing performance. So Ford says its new cars will be fast, and efficient.


And if you’re looking for a cool, green car for your mid-life crisis but the
Ferarri’s out of your reach, the sporty plug-in Chevy Volt is expected to be
available in 2010.


For the Environment Report, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Satellites Could Help Great Lakes

  • Scientists say there's no money to support using satellite images to help spot problems in the Great Lakes. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Scientists say satellite images could do more to help spot major problems in the Great Lakes, if
there were more federal money for those kinds of programs. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Scientists say satellite images could do more to help spot major problems in the Great Lakes, if
there were more federal money for those kinds of programs. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Researchers have occasionally used satellite data from the Great Lakes, including to map ice on
the lakes. But the International Association for Great Lakes Research says federal funds for
satellite programs to monitor water quality and other conditions in the lakes have dropped
substantially since the 1990s.


Research group Executive Director Robert Sweeney says the lack of infrared and photo data
means it’s hard to tell if pollution clean-up programs are working:


“We don’t know if the removal of certain pollutants really make sense in terms of how the water is
responding.”


Sweeney says there are not enough research boats or coastal programs to get the answers. The
Bush Administration has been trying to coordinate Great Lakes environmental efforts through a
collaboration plan, but scientists complain there’s no new money.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Asian and Black Kids Misdiagnosed

A new study has found that a test used to identify kids with asthma could
misdiagnose children of certain ethnic backgrounds. Karen Kelly has the story:

Transcript

A new study has found that a test used to identify kids with asthma could
misdiagnose children of certain ethnic backgrounds. Karen Kelly has the story:


Until now, doctors looked for a standard level of nitric oxide in a child’s breath when diagnosing asthma.
But a study of 650 kids in Detroit and neighboring Windsor, Ontario led to a surprising discovery: healthy kids of Asian descent had two times more nitric oxide than what’s
considered normal, and healthy African-American kids exhaled 50 percent
more of the gas.


Dr. Thomas Kovesi conducted the study, which was published in the journal
Chest.


“If based on this test, a child gets diagnosed with asthma when they don’t have
asthma, it’s possible that they’ll end up on medications the child won’t benefit
from. Every medication has potential side effects.”


Kovesi tells parents to ask their doctors to consider their child’s ethnicity if the
kid is taking an exhaled nitric oxide test.


For the Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

Starbucks Drops Organic Milk

  • Starbucks has switched to rBGH-free milk. (Photo by Mark Brush)

You won’t be able to get organic milk in your latte at Starbucks anymore. Mark Brush
reports the company says they’re trying to meet consumer demands:

Transcript

You won’t be able to get organic milk in your latte at Starbucks anymore. Mark Brush
reports the company says they’re trying to meet consumer demands:


(Sound of Starbucks store)


Starbucks says only about one percent of its customers bought organic milk. The coffee
retailer says the main reason they asked for organic was because of a concern about
recombinant bovine growth hormone. rBGH is an artificial hormone injected into dairy
cows to make them produce more milk.


The company said they decided to address that concern alone rather than carry organic
milk. Organic milk is also made without artificial hormones, as well as without
antibiotics. And the cows are given access to pasture lands. Starbucks says that’s more
than most customers asked for.


The company is now using rBGH free milk and is phasing out its organic milk.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links