Welcome to the Environment Show, exploring issues and events of the planet, I'm Thomas
Lalley.
The Environment Show is a national production made possible by the W. Walton Jones Foundation
and Heming's MotorNews, the monthly Bible of the Old Car Hobby 1-800-C-A-R-H-E-R-E.
Your host is Peter Burley.
Thanks, Thomas.
Coming up on this week's Environment Show, humanity's need for energy is taxing us in ways
we sometimes don't realize.
Ozone depleting gases are being phased out, and smugglers are taking advantage of the higher
prices, but alternatives have arrived.
In many parts of the world, the need for firewood is threatening every tree.
Now low technology is helping people cook with a sun.
Some nuclear power plants are being shut down and will pay for it every time we turn on
the lights, and we're consumed by mosquitoes in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
These stories and we're coming up this week on the Environment Show.
A lot of human effort goes into harnessing energy.
In the developing world, some folks spend days on ends searching for firewood to cook
with.
Industrialized nations pour enormous amounts of money into generating and controlling energy.
The methods and substances we use for energy influence the environment.
We'll look at some of the impacts.
Cooling.
Either to store food or keep our homes comfortable takes energy and coolance.
Since the 1930s, we've used CFCs for refrigerators and air conditioning.
But CFCs erode the Earth's protective ozone layer, even though they were touted as
wonder chemicals.
Today they face a worldwide phase out.
The most widely known CFC is called Frian.
Because of the phase out, the price of Frian has skyrocketed, opening the door for alternatives
which are less harmful.
But some environmentalists fear that Frian's smuggling and disagreement over which new
substance is best may threaten progress made on eliminating ozone depleting gases.
Which will produce retomas lally reports.
If you've recently had to buy a new refrigerator or get your air conditioner charged, you probably
know all about the global phase out of ozone depleting gases.
1996 signaled the start of new laws which will slowly weeness of our appetite for Frian
and other compounds which are contributing to ozone depletion.
Although these gases are no longer produced for developing nations, there's still a lot
of it around and the dwindling supply has meant a big increase in price.
The big money in Frian has led to smuggling, which by some accounts is second only in South
Florida to the smuggling in illegal drugs.
John Posicantondo is with ozone action.
He says smuggling has the potential of knocking the planned phase out, off course.
It's one of the critical links.
And if this link falls out of the chain, it'll mean that all so many other very important
efforts to protect the ozone layer will be for naught.
And if you look at ozone depletion right now, we're seeing record levels of depletion
over the South Pole and the Antarctic where the ozone hole traditionally is.
But we're also seeing severe depletion like has never been recorded before or expected
over the northern hemisphere, over the populated parts of the globe.
But while smuggling is a problem, U.S. law enforcement officials are working to catch
the criminals.
Last month, the Justice Department brought the largest environmental exercise tax case
ever against three people charged with smuggling more than 4,000 tons of Frian into the United
States.
Tom Fitzgerald is the assistant U.S. attorney in Florida.
He says the 164 count indictment is typical of cases of Frian smuggling.
The indictments in these cases normally have conspiracy charges, which is sort of a criminal
partnership count.
They typically have smuggling charges because the material is illegally entered into the
United States, which is just another way of saying smuggled.
There are at least half the cases tax evasion counts.
And in some of the cases we have had money laundering charges because the illegal proceeds
of the sale of this material is laundered.
And we've also had bribery and obstruction of justice counts where individuals have tried
to persuade witnesses not to cooperate or not to tell the truth to a grand jury.
Fitzgerald says it's next to impossible to know which Frian is legal and which is illegal
once it is left the port.
This means big profits for the smugglers and price gouging for consumers.
If the price is kept close to legitimate market price, your local auto air conditioner repair
facility would have no way of knowing what they were buying was legal or illegally in
the country.
So it's also quite possible for a consumer to go to a repair shop and wind up with the
legal Frian in their tank.
I am afraid so.
In fact, it's often the subject of discussion among the agents of myself about which of us
may be driving around with smuggled Frian in our auto air conditioner.
Fitzgerald says everyone in his office has switched to one of two Frian alternatives.
But those compounds have problems of their own.
The first is HCFC which still depletes the ozone layer but much less so than Frian.
The other is HFC which is not an ozone depleter but is an extremely potent greenhouse gas.
Hillary French is with the World Watch Institute.
She says the best alternative HC has been kept out of the US market.
In terms of HCFCs and HFCs, the chemical industry has invested very heavily in both of
these over a billion dollars I believe was one of the latest estimates.
So they definitely have a strong interest in seeing that they recoup these very large
investments that they've made in these technologies.
HCs on the other hand hydrocarbons have not been promoted by the chemical industry.
Instead they've tended to be promoted by quite small companies.
The leading example for domestic refrigeration is a technology called green freeze that
was developed by green piece actually in Germany originally.
Right now products using HCs are not available in the US.
Appliance manufacturers here have spent years designing highly energy efficient appliances
which use HFCs.
They argue the efficiency offsets the greenhouse effect of the HFCs.
At French says the demand for products which use coolants is exploding and the most
benign technology the HCs should be the standard.
We need to accelerate our response to ozone depletion and because we need to get serious
about doing something about climate change.
And as far as the use of refrigerants is concerned worldwide, where is it headed?
It's going on pretty dramatically particularly in the developing world of course where the
demand for consumer goods like refrigerators is skyrocketing.
Understandably as countries develop that's one of the first things people want is some
way of storing food.
If all this talk about coolants is getting you dizzy you don't have much to worry about.
Although Europe is making a transition to HCs, the one compound that is neither ozone depleting
or a greenhouse gas is not available in the US.
For refrigerators and air conditioning systems will likely change as the phase out continues
but for now consumers don't have many choices.
For the Environment Show I'm Thomas Lalley.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burlitt.
In the near term, cooking with a sun may be one of the most important applications of
solar energy.
Environmentalists talk about solar energy until your eyes glaze over.
They describe passive solar with exotic heat storage materials and roofing shingles with
built-in photovoltaic cells.
For them it's a world of high-tech gizmos that the affluent adventurer can play with to
beat the utility company.
But the solar cooker makes her stove out of a cardboard box with some aluminum foil or
some stiff material covered with foil and a plastic bag.
Or bamboo and dung shaped into a parabolic dish.
It's about as low tech as you can get but the environmental significance of solar cooking
for a huge proportion of the earth's population could be tremendous.
There's a growing problem in many parts of the world today where wood is becoming very
scarce and it's the primary means of cooking daily meals for a lot of families.
It's estimated by UN organizations that one third of the families on this planet already
are suffering fuel wood shortages.
But this adds a lot of burdens to people who are already having a hard time surviving.
That was Bev Bloom, executive director of Solar Cookers International, a small educational
nonprofit group devoted to promoting solar cooking to benefit people in the environment
worldwide.
Solar Cookers has developed a new cooker which they find to be particularly effective.
Our volunteers have developed a new very simple device which we're very excited about.
It's a simple open panel which can be made from something as simple as cardboard and
a bit of aluminum foil and a plastic bag and you can cook family meals with it.
And it's simple enough so I could look at yours and say gee I could make one of those
myself.
Solar Cookers has projects in the Dobrefugee Camp in Kenya and has recently been funded
by UNESCO to run two projects in Zimbabwe.
Typically they train about 50 people who are then expected to train others.
In parts of Zimbabwe about one quarter of a family's income is spent on fuel wood.
Solar cooking can improve the standard of living and alleviate the relentless pressure
constant wood gathering puts on the landscape.
Bloom says solar cooking is particularly important in refugee camps.
These refugees are put off in very remote, very fragile environments where there are just
nothing to work with.
And there are many cases where people may get some eager food rations but if they don't
have fuel to cook it with then they have to barter away part of their food to get the
fuel to cook the rest of it.
Making people to accept solar cooking is another challenge.
One analyst writing for the Journal of Technology Studies branded the Solar Cookers International
efforts in Lissotto in southern Africa a failure because the solar boxes were being introduced
and given away by well-meaning foreigners.
Nevertheless solar cooking does work.
You can try it yourself.
Solar cooking international sells a book with all of the details about making and using
cookers from cardboard and aluminum foil.
They can be reached on the web search for solar cookers international.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burling.
Still ahead.
A nuclear plant in Connecticut is closing.
It signals the beginning of the end for nuclear power which is just too expensive.
The photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum brings us a portrait of the whole world and we're
consumed by mosquitoes and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
These stories still ahead on the Environment Show.
An economic analysis commissioned by the owners of the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power
Plant and Hadamnack Connecticut has just been completed.
The analysis concluded that the continued operation of the plant was not in the best interests
of the owner company's nor of their consumers.
That's corporate gobbleday book for saying that the plant needs to be shut down otherwise
everyone is going to go broke.
The potential loss to our joint owners and subsequent customers in the best case scenarios
over the next 10 years which is what we have left on our operating license would have
been a break even.
The worst case could have gone to a $100 million loss if we had extended outages and poor
runs just as an economical to continue to operate.
That was Tony Norichio, spokesman for the Connecticut Yankee plant.
He emphasized that the cost of the presently needed repairs was not the determining factor.
Instead it's the high cost of nuclear power generally in a market which is being deregulated
and electricity can be made far more cheaply using fuels like natural gas.
You might think that shutting down a power plant that's too expensive to operate and substituting
cheaper electricity will save the consumer or rate pay or some money.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.
When the plant was built in 1967 it cost about $100 million.
Decommissioning the plant in 1997 will cost $423 million.
Norichio describes how that cost will be met.
We have a fund that we have been collecting from rate payers our joint owners have and
that's funded through to the price of $190 million in a reserve trust.
The difference between the $423 million decommissioning cost and the $190 million reserve will be paid
for by you and me, the consumer.
Yankee will buy cheap power elsewhere.
Sell it for the same price they are getting for the high cost nuclear power and apply the
difference to the decommissioning and nuclear fuel storage costs.
It appears that the collapse of the Yankee nuclear plant will be repeated elsewhere.
David Moscois, director of the Regulatory Assistance Project and former Public Utility
Commissioner for the State of Maine says economic competition will probably close a significant
proportion of the nation's nuclear plants.
I think there's a fairly significant part of the nuclear industry and maybe as much as
a quarter of the existing plants that probably would not cut it in a competitive environment.
And depending on where they're located in the country, how fast those areas, those regions
or those states are turning to a competitive market for power will probably dictate how
quickly that sort of part of the nuclear industry ends up shutting down prematurely.
Moscois confirms that the cost of decommissioning and the cost of storage of nuclear waste,
which will probably stretch out for generations, will be paid for by users of electricity
as far into the future as we can imagine.
Consumer reaction is predictable.
It will make a lot of people very angry.
Thus it appears that the age of the nuclear power plants is coming to an end.
And the thing that's killing off the atomic behemoths is not issues of the environment
or safety, but plain old dollars and cents.
The problem is we may be paying the cost of the nuclear generating adventure through
higher electricity bills for generations.
We all have places which are special to us.
They could be city streets or places deep in the wilderness.
Robert Glenn Ketchum is the author of Northwest Passage, a book of photography published by
Aperture.
His special place is the whole world.
On today's show, we've told you about environmental challenges from the U.S. to Kenya.
Ketchum believes a problem in one place affects everywhere else.
He says he's odd looking at the world as a whole and feels fortunate to be one of its
citizens.
I am a writer and a photographer whose career has been blessed with the opportunity to travel
the world.
From Africa to Alaska, the poles to the equator, Russia, China, India, Indonesia, each has
presented me with something entirely different and all have left me wanting to return for
more.
I'm often asked what in all of the traveling is my favorite place and without hesitation
I always answer, Earth.
Beyond any question of a doubt in my mind, this planet is the most astonishing location
in the known universe.
And I can hardly wait to wake up in the morning and enjoy wherever I am and whatever the day
presents me.
From the miniature gardens of Alpine mountain tops to the fertile, food-rich valley floors,
from the sparity of deserts to the extravagant lushness of an old-growth rainforest, from the
height of the blue-blue sky to the bottom of the deepest sea where fish produce their
own neon light.
I know intuitively as one of the creatures blessed by being here that there is nothing
like this place anywhere else.
Our space probes may have found signs of life on neighboring planets, but from what we presently
know, these few primitive forms pale by comparison to the profusion of life we experience as
Earth inhabitants.
It's more importantly, those probes into space have afforded us a rare opportunity to look
back upon ourselves and consider our world, our home.
Those pictures show a tiny planet floating in the vastness of the universe, radiantly
beautiful as the blue of the prolific oceans sparkle through the precious clouded atmosphere
that supports and protects us all.
Magnificent, we sparkle like a jewel against the black void of infinite space.
Everything else we have discovered so far comes even close, and we discover more about
this place each day.
The closer we look, the greater the richness seems to be.
Regardless of where or to what minute degree our inspection takes, we find fantastic living
things have adapted to every single niche and cranny.
All of these other creatures are our lifelines, our support system, and if we disrespect their
contribution, the poor or our existence will be because of it.
These other living organisms are our considerable friends and neighbors.
From the dragonfly to the packarderm, welcome to our herd, welcome to our family, tied by
the bonds of air, water, and the circumference of this globe.
This place is our life, and with its diversity are those upon whom we will depend and with
whom we will pass the time.
Each one's presence is critical to some other presence, and the divisions of genus and
species completely fail to describe the wonder of all the differences, a biodiversity perhaps
unmatched in the entire universe.
That view from space also makes it clear that we are a finite and fragile system, and there
does not seem to be any immediate help in the near vicinity if we breach the protection
of it and precipitate our own demise.
May we never be in such a hurry to serve ourselves that we take for granted the greater world
which supports us all.
May we never fail to recognize how extraordinary it is.
As light comes into the world and gives color to it, as flowers bloom out and trees rustle
in the breeze, as butterflies float by and fish swim shimmeringly through.
As fall comes to the deciduous forests and snow dust the mountain summits, we should stand
in awe of our good fortune of being here.
This beyond human imagination if there ever was a garden of Eden, this is it.
Robert Glenn Ketchum is author of Northwest Passage, published by Aperture.
And now it's time for the Earth Calendar.
Last week, 14 inches of rain fell on Brownsville, Texas along the Rio Grande River.
That incredible belluge ended a drought that has been eight months in the making.
Karen Chapman is director of the Seable Palm Grove Wildlife Sanctuary for the National
Autobahn Society.
It's located on the Rio Grande River bank on the southernmost piece of land in the Continental
United States.
She says the rain has had an immediate impact.
The mosquitoes which had been waiting for nine months just also exploded in population
and we're really, really getting overrun with them right now.
A lot of people are complaining and so cities are going around spraying to reduce the
risk of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever which we had an outbreak of a couple
of years ago here.
And they are unfortunately using malatheion which also kills beneficial insects.
So we've got some positive and negative things coming from this flooding.
Now I presume all of the insects probably look pretty good to some migrating birds.
So what happened there?
Yeah, we had right after the rains and of course they brought heavy winds and a lot of the
migrating species of warblers were brought down by that.
And here on the sanctuary the day after the rain we were just inundated not only with
water but with warblers everywhere.
We had red starts and hooded warblers and black-throated greens and black-burnians everywhere
in the trees and we're just going nuts with all of the insects around.
The sanctuary has the largest and oldest tract of stable palms left in the country.
It's about 50 acres.
The rain has brought an immediate response from the trees.
When we get a rain like this which pretty much constitutes almost 80% of our entire rain
for the year they will certainly take advantage of that and I expect to see them grow, put
about new leaves here and a lot of them are already.
Some of the palms that had fallen down in the forest and I thought were dead have actually
sprouted new leaves as a result of this flood so they're taking off again, just taking advantage
of the water.
So the rains came, mosquitoes are buzzing, the palms are sprouting and the warblers are
falling out of the sky in the Rio Grande Flood Plain.
If I were a Texan making this earth calendar a Texas-sized tall tail, I would tell you
that Noah's event was nothing more than a heavy do comparison to this flood.
The mosquitoes are the size of vultures, the warblers are the size of eagles and this
is the greatest radio show ever broadcast in the history of humankind.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show.
I'm Peter Burley.
For cassette copy of the program called 1-800-323-9262 and asked for show number 355.
The Environment Show is a presentation of national productions which is solely responsible
for its content.
Dr. Ellen Shartuck is the executive producer, Thomas Lally is producer and Stephanie Gortzman
is the associate producer.
The Environment Show is made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation and Heming's Motor
News, the monthly Bible of the Old Car Hover 1-800-C-A-R-H-E-R-E.
So long and join us next week for the Environment Show.
