Hello friends, it's the Environment Show and welcome.
John McConnell says, Earth Day Revellers miss the mark by over a month.
He says the real date is in March on the first day of spring.
Why does he speak with such authority?
Stay tuned.
And Lenny Combe, photographer and activist.
By his calculations, he says we should not need the oil, thought to be under the Alaska
National Wildlife Refuge.
It is absurd that we would destroy the heart of the last complete ecosystem in North America
and native cultures that are thousands of years old because we are too lazy to stop at
a filling station and put the proper amount of air in our tires.
These stories coming your way on the Environment Show, a national production made possible by
Heming's Motor News, the national Bible of the Old Car Hobby, monthly from Bennington
Vermont and by the J.M. Kaplan Fund of New York and this is Bruce Robertson.
You say you are a conscientious environmentalist, and this year you celebrated Earth Day on
the 22nd of April as you do each year.
Well, what if we told you you were late in celebrating by one month?
By rights, you should have done your duty on March 21st of Vurnal Equinox.
According to John McConnell, the spring equinox is the real Earth Day.
McConnell should know about the date, he picked it.
McConnell has chairman emeritus of Earth Society Foundation and founder of Earth Day itself,
and he joins us now from New York.
Mr. McConnell, we can only guess at the interesting story behind this.
Tell us all about it, would you?
Well, it seems that my life through a long period led up to it.
My father was an evangelist and some people say I'm still preaching, but I was in a
research laboratory.
We built a plastic plant on the west coast way back in 1938 and George Pepperdine was
a partner and then I published some newspapers.
I just skipped through very quickly, but what really led to Earth Day?
I wrote an editorial in 1957 right after the first butnik, urging a bright visible star
of hope satellite that our venture into space should be a grand adventure for the whole
human race.
And this satellite would be a symbol of understanding and goodwill and help to bring
us together.
My editorial was picked up by the wire services and went all over the world and Mrs. Roosevelt
had me come and see her.
I flew across the country with Werner von Braun.
I have my picture with Eisenhower, but the thing is the satellite was not launched.
That was the period of the Cold War being very intense.
However, we did get interest around the world, including in the Soviet Union.
And I know later I was told this helped emphasize peaceful cooperation in space when NASA was
formed.
So anyway, with that background, I guess that got me thinking globally and then I was
involved with something called a Minute for Peace.
I was publishing a newspaper in Northern California and Mountain View when President Kennedy
was assassinated.
And we ended the period of mourning for President Kennedy with a Minute for Peace.
This was something I had interested San Francisco in.
In fact, KCBS in San Francisco gave me their studios and we took a wonderful statement of
President Kennedy where he said when he was speaking to the United Nations, he said,
never have the nations of the world had so much to gain or so much to lose.
Together we can save our planet or together perish in its flames.
Save it we can and save it we must.
And then we had the sounds of a bell and we asked people to join in silent prayer or meditation
and their prayers for peace.
Well this went around the world and I had a telegram from President Johnson and it was
the headlines and the Bay Area papers.
So then I took the idea of meant for peace to the United Nations in 1965 where it was
not like the idea and he provided a broadcast in that world wide.
And he used the beginning of the UNESCO charter where it says peace begins in the minds
of men and he went on to say that everyone should take at least a minute each day for
thoughts of peace and good will.
So how and when did this idea and this activity though lead to what we would then later call
Earth Day?
I was asked to write a proclamation for Earth Day and I'd written the proclamation but
I didn't have the date and I thought of different days that would be symbolic and appropriate
and suddenly I thought of stone hands.
That's ancient it's ancient history and it shows the exact moment of the equinox and
the equinox has been important in history and as far as science is concerned it's a
marvelous symbol of balance and equilibrium and that's when night and day are equal all
over the world and I'll never forget I turned to my wife and I said I've got it we're
going to have Earth Day on the March Equinox and immediately our house starts shaking.
There was an earthquake at that moment that was on October 1st 1969 and so anyway then
we went on and we announced Earth Day at the UNESCO conference that was on November 25th
at the UNESCO conference in San Francisco it was a great conference on the environment and
so we announced Earth Day and we had a great Earth Day in San Francisco and Northern California
on March 21 1970.
One of the things that caused confusion and I hope we can find a way to remedy it present
at the announcement in at the UNESCO conference were people who were planning an environmental
teaching this was their publicity their letterhead and everything and that was on April 22
and this was headed by Senator Gaylord Nelson Dennis Hayes and others and the people who
were connected with them wanted me to change the date to April 22 and I said no there should
be a basis there should be a reason back of Earth Day and we want to make it an important
holiday that will cut through all the barriers of creeds and differences and races and everything
and be something that everyone can participate in and we need a singular date for Earth Day.
So anyway since that time we have celebrated Earth Day on the March Equinox every year at the
United Nations and scattered places around the world.
In the 20 odd years then since that March of 1970 Mr. McConnell what have we done in the
words of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch how we doing?
Well I think one of the greatest things has come out of this is a stronger and stronger
feeling that we are all connected.
I know that in the I was told when I met Gorbachev I met him when he first came over here
that I had a little bit to do with ending the Cold War.
The whole point is that we have one concept which can appeal to people everywhere and that
is the protection and care of our planet and seeking to do it with justice and fair benefits
for everyone.
If we can keep that goal before us and then of course one thing I wish we could do is change
the policy and the attitude of media.
I remember having a lunch with an anchor man who I was criticizing the news the way they
handled it and he said oh John you know how it is the easiest way to keep up our ratings
is to identify with people's hate, fear, greed and lust.
I think there is a better for roll from media than that.
We should know about the problems but we should accent the positive and dramatize solutions.
If we would join now in a great global battle for Earth, a war against pollution and poverty
and ignorance, why there is no question to what we could eliminate the terrible problems
of poverty and hunger and homelessness that trouble everyone.
John McConnell, chairman of the Maritus of Earth Society Foundation in New York, McConnell
founder of the original Earth Day to be celebrated accurately on the spring equinox.
McConnell says the future belongs to the individual not to diminish the role of corporate leadership
nor of the political institutions but says McConnell the real change and real action
will come as change and action in our individual lives.
And to spread the word is the real challenge and the real direction of the future.
This is Bruce Robertson.
The more than one and a half trillion dollar tax and spending plans submitted by the Clinton
administration is calling for certain changes in the scope and the mission of NASA.
While the sum degree a case can be made for limiting the military missions conducted
by NASA in this post-Cold War era, there is some concern that funding cutbacks will adversely
affect our mission to Earth.
This at a time when many experiments and observations are just getting underway.
At a recent rare press conference noted astronomer Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University said
he understands how and why the administration is looking closely at all aspects of NASA's
operations.
The first thing to bear in mind is that all the whole sum of little satellites that study
the Earth are dropping the bucket as far as cost goes.
Weapon all out and you will have essentially zero savings for the NASA budget to say nothing
of the national budget, where the money is in NASA is man spaceflight.
That's where a lot of money is spent and that is also the part of the program that is
most difficult to justify.
What is it exactly we get from say the space station?
We can clearly say what we get from weather satellites.
We can clearly say what we get from communication satellites.
We can clearly say what we get from military reconnaissance and treaty verification satellites.
We can clearly say what we get from satellites designed to monitor the health of the global
environment.
We can even clearly say what we get from spacecraft that look to the depths of space and robotic
vehicles that explore our planets.
Although those are straightforward and comparatively inexpensive and to my mind justified, what is
not so easy to explain is why we have to send human beings up 200 miles in a tin can to
orbit the Earth for a few days, launch a communication satellite that could be launched
with an unmanned spacecraft and then come down and incidentally risk their lives in the
process.
What's that?
Why do we do it?
How is it in the national interest?
I'm not saying it's not in the national interest.
All I'm saying is that a coherent justification, especially now that the Cold War is over,
remains to begin.
Cornell University professor and noted astronomer Dr. Carl Sagan.
President Clinton has ordered the size and the budget of the space station mission to be
cut in half, prompting scientists to scramble for an alternate plan.
One such may come the result of the talks the president held with Russian President Boris
Yeltsin.
There was a suggestion of a joint mission where the Russians would contribute their huge
inner-gaya rocket, the largest on Earth.
The pieces of the station could be lifted into space in fewer trips than would be possible
using the smaller US shuttle booster rockets.
This is Bruce Robertson.
You know the Nimby phrase or slogan, not in my backyard?
Well, usually it describes a situation where an individual or a community is in favor of
a particular proposal, unless, of course, that individual or community would be affected
by terms of the proposal.
Well, then all bets are off.
Well, Lenny Com has run across a peculiar variation of Nimby.
In this case, if the issue is not actually affecting our backyard, then we don't seem to
be concerned.
Com is a photographer from Sonoma Valley, California, and back in 1987 he left his own
backyard for one of the most beautiful and yet threatened backyards left on Earth, the
Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, known as Anwar.
Beneath this strip of frozen tundra, prospectors believe are billions of barrels of oil.
A resource major oil companies would like to extract for domestic consumption.
Apart from the challenge of drilling for oil in a frozen landscape, there are other issues
involved at this particular site.
Also in this region, live hundreds of species of animals and plants, and many small communities
of Native Americans who make their living and thrive by using the plants and animals.
The issue is, the issues as I see them, we have allowed the petroleum industry during
the life of this issue, which is since 1987, to have us arguing about the wrong thing.
They have managed to dictate the argument, and what they have us arguing about is whether
or not that sort of massive development will destroy the wilderness values of the coastal
plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
In my view, that's really an absurd argument.
What we really should be arguing about is whether or not it's worth it to destroy the coastal
plain.
The coastal plain is a 100 mile stretch of land along the Arctic Ocean on the northern
most coast of Alaska.
The plain is a primary calving ground for a herd of porcupine caribou said to number nearly
200,000.
In addition, the plain provides a prime nesting area for migratory, snow geese, and many other
species of waterfowl.
Stretching inland from the plain is the rest of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a
19 million acre tract of land set aside by President Eisenhower in 1960.
Geologist from the United States Department of Interior, along with others from the oil
industry, believe 9 billion barrels of oil may be sheltered beneath the coastal tundra.
The whole of the industry says is critical to replace the rapidly depleting reserves at
Prudobay just to the west.
Com says this is just the point.
If we take the evidence from Prudobay as any indication, we need to redouble our efforts
to protect the coastal plain.
What I use to back up my argument is my experience in seeing what the petroleum industry has done
at Prudobay.
They have basically destroyed for any possible further use other than industrial use 55 million
acres, most of it public land, most of it wildlife habitat, which in turn, if it's wildlife
habitat, then the indigenous people who have always lived around there will be adversely
affected.
So, that's what bothers me about it.
What bothers me about it is it's something foreign and alien and interruption to one of
the last places on earth that is a natural working self-contained ecosystem.
The Arctic Wildlife Refuge is the major portion of the last complete ecosystem left in North
America.
And the coastal plain, the very area where they want to do that development is the biological
heart of that system.
Since the late 1980s, Com has been traveling wildly across the region, photographing the
landscape and the wildlife and living with many new friends and villages in the area.
Com is assembled a photographic record of his journey and his message of environmental
protection.
Periodically, he sets out across the nation to tell his story.
Often, as he is this time, Com is accompanied by friends from the villages.
Darcy Gordon is a member of the Innovaeatune nation from the village of Aklavik.
For Darcy, there is concern for more than just the environment.
I come down as a spokesperson from Aklavik and I try to give them an idea of how important
the care is to our lifestyle and how much we depend on it.
It is important.
There is hardly any jobs of North and we live a traditional life, we live off the land.
How we get by is get by, we are storing our food for the winter like hunting our care
boon, one ball can store it and we ration that and we kind of follow there where they are
going to be the next route like we know where they are going to be so we are going to be
there in the springtime waiting for them.
That is kind of the way we like in the fall, we get them in the fall, then we get them
in the spring so that we just, we go through like a cycle with the care boon.
It is important that we do not lose them.
In order for private oil companies to enter this protected area, even to explore for oil,
the federal government must pass legislation specifically allowing this.
During last year's lengthy debate over the National Energy Bill, a large contingent of
lawmakers pushed to include a measure to allow drilling in the refuge as one way to increase
our domestic oil and gas supply.
After much opposition, however, the proposal was withdrawn.
Com says the legislative battle continues.
Currently there are two bills before Congress, one in the House of Representatives and one
in the Senate, HR39 in the House and S39 in the Senate.
It is the first time in six years that we have and had development bills alongside.
I think that points out the impact of the victory that we had when we got the Arctic Wildlife
Refuge development title struck from the Johnson Wallet Bill, the National Energy Security
Act of 1991.
That I think probably more than anything caused the pro-development people in industry and
the Congress to wait for another day.
We are viewing this particular time, which the bills have been introduced as really a window
of opportunity for us to get the legislation through Congress into the President's desk.
President Clinton has said that he supports wilderness for the coastal plain, so we feel
that if we could get the bills on his desk, he would sign them and it would be protected.
Whether there would prove to be oil enough to drill on the coastal plain, whether the
presence of oil drilling equipment would threaten the wildlife there, there is still another
issue.
The American Petroleum Institute estimates 700,000 jobs would be created nationwide if oil
were discovered beneath the coastal plain.
Some of these jobs would be created right there on the plain and in the native communities.
Siting an example from a previous oil boom, Com says this economic benefit is just what
should be alarming to us.
There is a town called Anuvik, which is, I believe, the largest city in North America
above the Arctic Circle.
It's about 3,000 people.
And that town was basically created by the petroleum industry.
And then when the price of oil went down and it became not economical to extract it anymore,
all the oil companies pulled out.
And over the 25 years they had been there, they attracted native labor from all over the
Western Arctic.
All these people came there, brought their families.
So they didn't teach a lot of the kids the language, they didn't teach a lot of the kids
subsistence skills.
So then the oil prices went down, they just pulled out and left them there high and dry.
Now Anuvik has the distinction of having more social workers per capita than any other
city in the world.
Com says the caribou, if taken care of properly, would be around as a source of food far longer
than the oil would be, a source of jobs.
There is another aspect that concerns Com, Darcy Gordon and those who oppose the drilling
for oil in the refuge.
While it is true we import more than half our daily oil needs.
Com says increasing our domestic supply is not the answer.
The thing that we tend to not want to look at, because it's not sitting there in a barrel,
but there is actually more energy available through conservation than by any other means
exploration or other.
It's interesting, I come across all these interesting statistics, at least interesting to me, but
there is this book that everybody is familiar with called 50 simple things you could do
to save the earth.
And there is one page in there that says if every vehicle in this country had properly
inflated tires, we could save 2 billion gallons of gasoline every year.
So I started to play with the numbers of that and call the American Petroleum Institute
and ask them, how many barrels of oil, if there is as much as you say there is, how many
barrels of oil could you get a day out of the Arctic refuge?
And they said they could get about 250,000 barrels a day for about 30 years, which is the
average life of the field.
But it takes to get each barrel provides 19.2 gallons of gasoline.
And it would take to provide 2 billion gallons of gasoline a year, the same as we could
save by inflating our tires, it would take 105 million barrels and a little bit more to
produce that.
It is absurd that we would destroy the heart of the last complete ecosystem in North America
and native cultures that are thousands of years old because we are too lazy to stop
it of filling station and put the proper amount of air in our tires.
Lenny Combe, traveling photographer and activist who has seen the refuge and has a message.
His slide show is titled The Last Great Wilderness.
He expects some type of new wilderness bill to be up for debate on Capitol Hill, perhaps
sooner, perhaps later, when it appears, depending on the state of the nation's economy and
the situation in the Middle East, the bill will succeed or fail.
One unknown factor in the equation, however, is the presence and role of interior secretary
Bruce Bavitt.
This is Bruce Robertson.
And that's our report on the Environment Show this week for a cassette copy of the program
called 1-800-767-1929, Ask for the Environment Show Program Number 173.
The Environment Show is a presentation of national production solely responsible for its
content.
Dr. Alan Shartock, executive producer, this is Bruce Robertson.
The Environment Show is made possible by the J.M. Kaplan Fund of New York and by Heming's
Motor News, the national Bible of the Old Car Hobby, monthly from Bennington, Vermont.
