This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the Earth and the beauty
and mystery of life in all its forms. I'm Peter Burley.
Coming up, we look at some of the events and issues we covered on the Environment Show
in 1997. El Nino and the Weather. We considered what Wall Street said it would do to the economy.
Russian markets continue to expand. We covered what this means for the Siberian Tiger.
We remember environmentalists and singer John Denver and we sailed down the Hudson River on the
Slope named Clearwater. These stories and more coming up on the Environment Show.
You're listening to the Environment Show. I'm Peter Burley. El Nino, the warming of the
South Pacific that has worldwide effects on the climate. It started last summer. It may be the
earliest and strongest El Nino yet recorded. We went to Wall Street to find out about its economic
impact. We have previously reported that an El Nino is now forming faster and earlier than
perhaps any other El Nino event. An El Nino is a warming of the ocean and the southern Pacific,
which then changes climate from Indonesia across the Pacific to the west coast of Latin America.
It all of it causes the southwest coast of the United States to be wetter and the winter in the
northern portion of our country to be milder. In our continuing series on El Nino, we heard that
sea lion and seal populations in California will probably drop significantly.
Now we consider the economic impact of the El Nino on the NDN countries in South America.
Peter Greenbaum is vice president and Latin American economist for the New York
Investment Banking and Brokage firm Smith Barney. He's telling investors that they need to be
aware of the effects of the coming El Nino. Well we are telling our clients is to be aware of the
implications of the weather anomaly upon the regions specifically the west coast of Latin America
as well as positive effects we can see in Argentina. Greenbaum says it's possible that western
countries Peru, Chile and Ecuador will see a lower rate of economic growth than normal,
but the different countries may be affected in different ways. While the fish crop off of Peru
may fail to appear this year, that could be to the benefit of Chile if we see migration of
fish population from Peru to more temperate waters. Chile would benefit from that, but that's not
always the case. So thinking specifically if someone were to come to you and seek financing for
a fish processing operation in Peru, would you advise that they move to Chile instead?
That's a good question. I might for a period of time, for a period of time the processing industry
in Peru would not be a good investment. While Greenbaum sees El Nino hurting the coastal
and Indian countries because wet places will be drier and dry places will be wetter,
he says it will help the economy in Argentina. The Indian mountains protect Argentina from the
direct impact of El Nino storms flooding and drought while the price it gets for its agricultural
exports will go up. El Nino is not just a South America phenomenon, it's a really a global phenomena.
It can be severe events can be associated with disruptions in supply of agricultural commodities,
specifically wheat and other grains. So given a really no change in demand if you have a drop in
major wheat producing nations to drop an output rather, you should see a higher price as a result
and Argentina will definitely certainly should benefit from that phenomena. Another hand on the
other hand too, the loss of the fish crop in Peru and fish meal then as a result. Fish meal is a
feed stock for the livestock industry. You could see the livestock industry move to other alternative
forms of feed such as soya and Argentina as a producer, large producer soya as well. Greenbaum
also thinks that El Nino could have an impact on oil prices which might help us but would hurt
Latin American countries like Mexico and Venezuela. We believe that the El Nino this year will mean
warmer than usual winter in the US and in Europe and they should have an effect, the pressing effect
upon oil prices. Well very good for the US economy because we're importers. Major oil producing
and exporting countries will be, should be hurt by this. And to a certain extent Mexico is one of those
economies. But oil is not as important as it once was. Manufacturing sector exports are
much more important than oil but they will be hurt. They will be getting fewer dollars because of
the lower oil price. Venezuela is another country which is almost totally dependent upon oil
and they certainly could be hurt if oil prices respond by falling sharply during this warm winter
that we're anticipating. He says the weather plays a role in the strategic investment decisions of
a global financial firm like Smith Barney so they have a full-time meteorologist on staff.
If I'm a major client and I'm planning a fishing trip, will your meteorologist tell me whether
it's a tech reindeer? It depends on how major a client are you. In making his economic forecast,
Greenbell has no doubt that El Nino will have an impact. The only thing that might be able to stop
it right now, or stop it from getting worse is a volcanic eruption on the Pina Tuba.
How about a thousand-point drop in the Dow? Peter Greenbaum is vice president and Latin American
economist for the Smith Barney company.
At the beginning of the century, eight subspecies of tiger were found on the earth. Today,
there are only five as three have become extinct. The most magnificent is the Pantheratigris
Altichum, otherwise known as the Siberian Tiger. The biggest of the world cats,
the male Siberian tiger grows to 800 pounds in weight and 10 feet in length. With the opening
of Russia to world trade and increasing logging in the Russian Far East, the fate of the Siberian
tiger hangs in the balance. It's estimated that approximately two to four hundred of the black
and orange striped beasts still survive. Howard Quigley is president of the Hornica Wildlife Institute
and co-director of the Siberian Tiger project. The project seeks to develop long-range plans to
ensure the survival of a huge cat. Quigley says simply being on land inhabited by the tiger is
an unforgettable experience. I think one thing about working with such an exotic animal in its own
homeland is simply being able to see its own marks on the land. One of the most impressive
situations that I've been in and I've had many experiences around the world with
different wildlife species. One of the most impressive situations I've ever been in is to walk
through the Russian forest or the Russian taigas, they call it in the snow and a fresh snow,
and then to come upon the tracks of Siberian tiger there in the snow or there in front of you
because it really is a almost a mystical experience. Here's this huge track carved out in the snow,
the paths of this mighty beast in the snow you might say and it truly makes a human humble in that
sort of situation. It's truly a very powerful animal but also a very sort of omnipotent presence
in that sort of in that forest. It represents the Russian taiga more than any other animal.
Tiger habitat is not unlike parts of the United States.
Really the Russian Far East is a combination of boreal and temperate environments and it's a lot
like the New England of the United States, the New England area and a lot of broadleaf trees
and higher elevations, spruce for forest, but it's one of the educational you might say
difficulties we've had in telling the world about this place is that many people don't know
anything about it and once they see the pictures of where tigers live they are quite a gas
or even amazed by just how similar it is to parts of the United States or even Northern Europe.
To save the tiger, quickly maintains poaching must be stopped and habitat protected.
A long-term habitat protection plan includes preservation of blocks of forest and
carters so tigers and other wildlife can move between them. What we've tried to put in place right
now is a long-term habitat protection plan and what it does is integrates the prospects for development
whether it's mineral development or road development or forest products development
with the biological needs of not only the tiger but a lot of the other species that live there
and what we've taken now to almost the highest levels of government in Russia is a plan that we
think puts in place a template on the land that will allow for the long-term development,
economic development and the integration. For instance this plan would allow for a corridor
north to south in tiger range that would allow for the movement of animals, not only tigers but
other animals, between protected areas and through those areas that would be more intensively
logged or mined and thus it allows for conservation in the long run and also not just conservation but
economic development of those resources. Howard Quigley is the president of the Hornaker Wildlife Institute.
The Russian Far East is vast and the rush to extract its natural resources is intensifying.
The Siberian Tiger project is producing a plan to save the tiger but the real problem now is to
mobilize the political will to implement it in a Russian economic climate where environmental
considerations have had little influence on no-holds-barred wheeling and dealing between Russians and foreign
traders.
This is the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. The Environment Show is made possible by the
the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund,
the Oliver S. and Jenny R. Donaldson Charitable Trust, and Hemings Motor News, the monthly Bible
of the collector Carhabit, 1-800-CAR-HER.
Have you wrestled or Siberian tiger recently? Give us a call and tell us about it.
Our number is 1-888-49-Green. That's 1-888-49-Green. Our email address is green at wamc.org. That's green at wamc.org.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. For many of us, John Denver is the
environmental organization. His lyrics capture his love for Colorado in the natural world as a whole.
Denver was active in various environmental causes and organizations, but it was the Windstar
Foundation that he was closest to. Since his untimely death, the organization is entering a new phase
and reflects the contributions of one of its co-founders. The Environment Show's Stephen Westcott prepared
this report. When most people think of John Denver, they hear his music and picture a pristine landscape,
probably of a mountain or a forest. Works like country roads, the eagle and the hawk, and Rocky Mountain High Portray
Denver's love of nature. It wasn't in eight cents, present long before it became a famous singer,
but soon after becoming a well-known musical artist, Denver turned his sights to environmental
causes, focusing his attention on nature preservation. He co-founded the Windstar Foundation with
friend Tom Cron. Jeannie Tomlinson is the Foundation's managing director.
In 1976, John bought about a thousand acres of land out here in Old Snowmass. It was a place he
had dreamed about. He and his manager, Hal Faw, at the time, and Tom made up the first sport of directors,
and they were the staff in the very beginning. Then they expanded it and worked out an organization,
designed programs, and in effect in the early years it was a school. John described in his book that
it was heavy stuff to participate in. Workshop and conferences, the focused on the environment,
and would be built around the connections between mind, body, and spirit.
Tomlinson says John's focus was on renewable forms of energy in the early years,
but as times changed, so did his concerns. So we did have wind machines and solar energy,
when Bucky Fuller was part of Windstar, we built a big biadome that was out here
where we could grow fruits and vegetables, dressed about year-round, and a very harsh climate.
That was important. And around that time is when John got real concerned about hunger in the world.
And the biadome project was a way of teaching people to raise food in harsh environment,
in a controlled environment. Tomlinson says Denver became involved with a number of groups,
including National Audubon Society, the Cousteau Society, Planet 2000, Friends of the Earth,
and the National Space Institute.
Tomlinson says Denver's relationship to the natural world really began during childhood.
John grew up on a family farm in his early years, and he really connected with the earth,
and he was more comfortable up in a tree or connecting with nature than in any other place.
I really truly believe it was an innate thing with him, that he had a passion for the environment
of a child, and it was just something that was part of who he was always.
He just felt strongly that if we don't care for the wild living places on earth,
that we would destroy the very thing that sustained us.
Tomlinson says John Denver was a professor each song a form of lecture.
I really think that John left us a legacy of teaching through his music,
which moved us not just in Spirits, but moved us to action to create a better world,
to treat each other more kindly, so that we can add value to our relationship,
to our community, to the planet. He had a passion for children, the environment, and a peaceful world.
And to follow those attributes in our own lives would be a wonderful tribute to John.
Tomlinson says she is certain the Winstar Foundation will change with Denver's passing.
She believes like the natural world, the organization John Denver co-founded will change and evolve
with time. Tomlinson says not to continue the group would be a disservice to the man who tried so
hard to increase awareness and promote appreciation of the natural world. I'm Stephen Westcott for the
Environment Show.
I'm Linda Anderson and this is Ear to the Ground with stories about people affecting change in
the environment. This week, setting sail on the clear water.
I'm here.
You were watered up.
Hey!
Stay on the rope. Everybody here take one step forward and bring the line with you.
Hey!
Take another step forward and bring the line with you.
Okay, bring one more step, bring the line with you.
Okay, drop the line.
Sales up and the clear water heads south out of Albany, New York for a three hour tour on the Hudson River.
There's not much of a wind and the boat 106 foot wooden sailing slope gently rocks on the calm waters.
Designed after Dutch slopes of the 18th and 19th centuries, the clear water is the brainchild of focusing your
Pete Seeger and friends.
Believing that individuals can make a difference, the clear water was created to focus people's attention on the Hudson River.
Since 1969, the slope has served as a movable classroom, laboratory and stage.
Bringing nearly 20,000 children and adults on board each year.
Christopher Bowser is the boat's environmental educator.
We have different kinds of programs, different kinds of groups, whatever people request.
We can sort of, we like to talk to the teachers and see what they want to teach.
We have a great program that we run called the Classroom of the Waves, which is centered on,
leave the dock, do little fishing and sampling to see what's in the water as far as the aquatic life there.
Raise the sails, get the whole group,
whomever has on to help raise the sails up, and then split up into five stations.
They might be plankton or water chemistry or mechanical advantage, the physics of sailing, navigation, fish.
It can be a variety of different things.
The instruction happens all along the Hudson from his far north is Albany to New York Harbor and Long Island Sound.
With help from volunteers and staff members, the clear water, which is more than just the boat,
is an organization which pursues strategies to improve water quality, protect critical habitat,
promote water conservation, and clean up toxic waste, so the Hudson River can be safe for the millions who live along its shore.
Chris Bowser.
I think on a Hudson River, what it really boils down to is that what's good for the Hudson River is good for the people who live along the river,
because they depend on the river for a lot of things.
A lot of people get their drinking water from the river still.
Still an extremely important avenue of transportation.
Unfortunately, the once prevalent fishing industry is now just a fraction of what it was due to the level of PCBs in the water,
which is too bad because in the 1970s this is a $40 million industry.
And now in the 1990s as we approached the 21st century, fishing is all but unallowable.
PCBs remain the river's biggest source of contamination, and the group supports the idea of dredging.
In addition to its education and advocacy roles, the clear water is about celebration.
From its great Hudson River revival in June, a big waterfront festival that includes music, dance, folk arts, and crafts,
to other events like a Shad and Pumpkin Festival, the clear water brings many, the message that the river is a place to enjoy,
which is certainly a sentiment shared by the crew of the ship.
As one member said, we do a lot of neat stuff.
Keeping with the tradition of women captains serving on the clear water is Joy Oblix.
She's been captained for around 20 months and describes the crew.
We have a great program with apprenticeship program, volunteers, interns, and then some paid crew.
We have about three paid crew on board at any time, plus a captain and a cook.
And an educator.
But as far as total, we can sleep about 18 people semi-comfortablely.
So with the volunteers and everyone else we might have as many as 15 on board.
A gentle breeze picks up as the sun sets light from the galley below,
glows through the boat's skylight, and long lines of light reflect on the water that is now turning ink black with the night.
Along the shore commuters rush on the highway, unsuspecting of another world that lies within reach.
Come to the river Chris Bowser says, and check it out.
With ear to the ground, I'm Linda Anderson.
Once again, let's please.
She starts flying the mountain.
Thanks for listening. This is the Environment Show, and I'm Peter Burley.
Work out the consolidated.
You're listening to the Environment Show, and I'm Peter Burley. Still ahead.
A continued look at important stories of 1997.
The environment is cities and neighborhoods as much as it is mountains and forests.
Community land trusts and loan funds make urban revitalization possible.
We talk green about auto emissions. Can and should car companies do more to build cleaner cars?
An author Kent Nurburne presents a blue portrait of winter in Minnesota. Stay with us.
Blighted and abandoned neighborhoods are all too common in American cities.
Each area's downfall surely has a lengthy list of causes, but most share common problems with a tracking investment and absentee landlords.
In response, community loan funds and community land trusts have emerged as a major force in some cities.
They provide loans and maintain properties which otherwise might fall into disrepair.
Their success keeps the environment of cities alive and reduces pressure for development.
The environment shows Thomas Lally, visited a land trust and loan fund in upstate New York and has this report.
The Hamilton Hill section of Sconected in New York has seen better days.
This part of the neighborhood was built when the General Electric Corporation was adding jobs in the 1930s.
Well since then, GE's cut back its workforce and the neighborhoods deteriorated.
And as the area got worse, few banks were willing to risk lending their money.
Meanwhile, many homeowners moved to other neighborhoods with more stable property values.
Then a few years ago, a community land trust was formed and financing became available through a community loan fund.
Bringing capital and energy into the neighborhood.
The key to the community land trust is that it retains the land and keeps it in trust for the community and only sells the house.
But what it does is create a partnership between the homeowner, the organization which is made up of residents who are living in the neighborhood.
The key to the community land trust is that it retains the land and keeps it in trust for the community and only sells the house.
Between the homeowner, the organization which is made up of residents from the neighborhood as well as outside people.
But the neighborhood residents are the ones who have the most control of the organization and determine what happens in situations.
And the partnership that's then created between the homeowner, the organization and the community helps to not just stabilize a particular house, a particular piece of property, but the neighborhood in general.
Beverly Burnett is the executive director of Hill and Vale Affordable Housing.
We stand in front of a property owned by Hill and Vale on a block that's long been in decline.
Burnett says, think of your own neighborhood and how important local ownership is in keeping the community going.
Burnett says when absentee landlords own properties, residents don't often have a sense of stewardship.
You look around and you can see the results of that and you know boarded up vacant houses with broken windows and this neighborhood has because of the absentee landlords,
this neighborhood has become a place where people on social services tend to live because of the rents and the absentee landlords will take section eight.
There are certain codes that they have to meet but if they can get away with not putting any money into the house they will.
I also believe that property values have dropped so much. It ends up being more beneficial for them to collect rent and collect rent until the city comes and condemns the house and boards it up and then the city takes it back in taxes and the person walks away from the house.
Similar situations exist all across the country. In many cases the only time public and private money arrives is when the neighborhood is gentrified and by then the low income residents can no longer afford to remain.
In its connectivity gentrification is not a problem today. In fact a little gentrification might be greatly appreciated but Burnett says land trusts can work in gentrifying neighborhoods as well as those in decline.
The problem we face in redoing houses is they cost more to redo than what you can sell them for what they can appraise for.
We have seen on a particular street that we have targeted now we own five houses on. You can see that the street from two years ago has actually begun to stable out and it is more home owner occupied on that street.
As the community land trust grows in the neighborhood it will again help stabilize the community in terms of getting people who are homeowners into the house.
It is not 100% true but people tend to take better care of their house if they own it than if they are renting it.
The spiral of decline for a neighborhood often includes the loss of interest from mainstream corporations. Banks and insurance companies pull out and businesses lose a base of customers.
The practice of intentionally avoiding a neighborhood by banks and insurance companies is called redlining and it is illegal. But community land trusts and loan funds work on the front lines and can act as magnets to bring diversified investment back into neighborhoods.
Rob Radlet manages the capital district community loan fund in Albany, New York.
The red line that used to prohibit or prevent institutions such as banks from making investments in communities like this, indeed helped establish and facilitate and force groups like community loan funds to evolve and be created.
We draw a red line around a community like this and say that is where we want to invest our money.
More traditional lenders are following groups like this lead and they are coming further and further towards what needs to be done to make loans to lower income people.
Radlet's organization has lent $3 million to about 90 groups and businesses. They have also leveraged about $20 million worth of loans.
Compared to banks, that is not a lot of money but most of their loans are meant to be small and are responsible for getting places like a carry, perishop, a print shop and many nonprofit organizations off the ground.
And once they are up and running, it is easier to attract loans, insurance policies and business.
Each success for the community loan fund means new life for troubled neighborhoods and that keeps businesses and families in the city increasing the quality of life and reducing the need for more development in the suburbs.
I think a goal of Hill and Vale affordable housing is to make the urban core more attractive so that more people will want to come and live here and use the existing infrastructure and therefore have less impact on the surrounding areas.
So I certainly think that is a primary goal of many inner city community development organizations.
Community loan funds and land trusts have increased dramatically in recent years. They and other organizations with different objectives but similar philosophies are now present in nearly every city in the US.
You can get involved by either investing in them or donating your time. For the Environment Show, I'm Thomas Lally.
We're talking green and I'm your host Peter Burley. Today we're talking about what comes out of a tailpipe of your automobile.
Recently, the chiefs of the big three US automakers told President Clinton that mandatory emissions reductions would spell disaster for their industry.
My guest today are Dan Becker. He's the director of the Global Warming and Energy Program with the Sierra Club and he was appointed by President Clinton to a commission on auto exhaust emissions. He joins us from Washington, D.C.
Also with us is Dr. Richard Klimich. He's Vice President of Engineering Affairs with the American Automobile Manufactures Association and he's an expert on alternative fuels and was one of the pioneers of the catalytic converter. He joins us from Detroit, Michigan.
So, D.C. Klimich, let's start with you. A lot of people say the American Auto Industry lives with its head in a sand. They say that technological improvement is not possible and yet the next thing you know the Japanese are selling cars in the United States which seem to do what the manufacturers have been resisting.
And just this week I note that Toyota has announced that it will be selling a hybrid car in Japan for about $17,000 who will get 56 miles per gallon. Why doesn't Detroit get behind efforts to dramatically reduce auto exhaust?
Well, we are. In fact, we have a program that's part of the Clean Air Act. It's technology forcing that runs clear out past 2004. And in fact, we have the big tree. I've introduced a whole series of cars. Now, the electric vehicle activities of General Motors are second to none. The Toyota announcement on hybrid is very impressive. We all have hybrid vehicles.
The question is a couple questions. The cost issue, whether the consumers will buy the vehicles, but we believe we're behind this. I think that the US Auto Industry dominates industrial research and development. We have very large programs in fact.
Okay. Well, Dan Becker from Sierra, do you agree that the US Auto Industry dominates these programs and is on top of the power curve?
I think it would be shocking to people in other countries if they looked at the big three US Auto producers and saw how they run from technology. On the shelves in Detroit are scads of different technologies that would make our cars cleaner and more efficient.
And if we don't produce those vehicles and create jobs in this country, making vehicles that go further on a gallon of gas, surely we will end up importing them from Japan and Europe. And it really is our responsibility.
More carbon dioxide pollution, the major pollutants that causes global warming comes spewing out of the tailpipe so the America's cars and light trucks that out of all sources of global warming pollution in the entire country of India.
So we have a responsibility to make reductions and we have the technology that the industry refuses to put on its vehicles. In 1975, Congress passed a law called the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Law, the Mile per gallon law.
And at that time Ford Motor Company testified that the law would never work. It would require a Ford product line consisting of all sub-pinto-sized-sized vehicles, where some mix of vehicles ranging from a sub-subcompact to perhaps a maverick.
Close quote. They've always said it can't be done and we need to require that they do it for our children's future.
Let's look at that issue because I think the magic word there was required. And Dick, that I assume is a word which puts the manufacturers in orbit. They don't want to be required to do this.
Yeah, well, why not?
Well, the fundamental problem is that we have a free market and we can make, certainly we can make cars that better fuel economy, but the question is will the customers buy it?
And that gets down to the price of gasoline. The price of gasoline is $5 a gallon. I think it's like $6 in Italy and you can put, for example, technology like very lightweight materials that are very expensive, but at a bucket gallon it doesn't pay for the customers.
And if you notice the importers in the US are producing the similar kind of cars, the Japanese small cars like the Cords started as a small car and now they're mid-side.
Well, let's just look at that issue for a minute. If, and people may not agree with this, but if one of the national objectives should be to reduce air pollution, what is the best way to get there, at least from the perspective of the auto manufacturers, in the most rapid and fast-forwarding?
Well, the program we've got is working very well. As I said, the 90 amendments to the Clean Air Act haven't really run their course. We're making an incredible progress.
But when those amendments were passed, isn't Dan Becker right that the auto industry just resisted those from beginning to end?
Yeah, so again, the following beckers are you? Well, maybe it ought to be done again.
I guess we've tried to change that. The question, as you mentioned, is cost effectiveness. How fast you can do it and whether you can make a vehicle that anyone will buy. The electric vehicle mandate in California is an example. They had to give up on that because the vehicles aren't selling.
Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute, Dick. They gave up on that because of pressure from the auto and oil industry on the governor and he caved.
No, no, no, no, no, no. It's technology. It's not there. You hadn't introduced the cars yet. Look, right now we have the technology to make cars go further on a gallon of gas and meet the other requirements that people want for a car.
It doesn't have to change the size or the performance of the car in order to make it go further on a gallon of gas.
People will save money at the gas pump. We can thumb our nose that's on him who's saying in his oil, but the auto industry won't get off its hell pipe and begin to make these changes.
And the reason we got 50 mile per gallon cars out there, they're not selling. They're in the marketplace already.
Well, Dick, let me ask you something. You say you've got 50 mile cars and they're not selling because they don't have the performance perhaps than others.
What about producing a vehicle that does have the performance? Is that technologically impossible?
Sure it is. No, it's possible, but then you get into the trade off as cost.
And so you have to balance these things. It's a competitive market. If we abandon the market, somebody else is going to take it over.
I mean, as I say, it's a free market.
Dick, that's the first thing you said I agree with you on. Honda has introduced a vehicle that is a Honda Civic that for $700 more than another Honda Civic, you get a 55% improvement in fuel economy.
And what we need to do is we need to educate the American people that those choices may exist. But the big three should be producing those vehicles. We shouldn't have to import them all from Japan.
We are producing those vehicles. There's a number of big three vehicles that are over 50 miles per gallon. But the sales of that segment of the market is pretty small.
And I believe it's primarily because of the price of fuel in this country.
We talked about the EV1 and how people aren't buying it. You didn't mention the General Motors rejecting three quarters of the people who applied it by that vehicle.
So General Motors isn't doing what it should be doing if it really wanted to make that vehicle a success. And what the American people need to do is we need to have rules that require the auto industry to move forward.
It's since 1989 when the cafe standard stopped. Why do we have rules on what kind of cars people can buy? I mean, it is still a free country.
Let me ask you both. Let me ask you both something. Hold on just a second. If one were to put in generic kind of rules that were specific about emissions and perhaps miles per gallon,
is it your position that the industry simply could not produce a marketable product in accordance with those rules?
No, we already have the system. We've got both the fuel economy and emission laws by EPA and by NETSA are based on technological feasibility.
We have lots of argument about what's technological feasible. But ultimately when that's decided, we deliver and we're meeting the laws.
And we get where technological feasibility is today.
You guys have lobby congress to freeze the mile per gallon standard so that you don't have to put the technology that exists on those vehicles to let them go further on a gallon of gas.
Since 1989 when the cafe standards ran their course, you guys have been going backward on fuel economy not forward.
And this year, the average fuel economy, the average miles per gallon of the fleet of domestic vehicles, is at the 1980 level.
Yeah, inefficient as we were in back in 1980.
That's not true.
Well, what's happened? The cars, in fact, the cafe law primarily was for cars and those went up to 27 and a half miles per gallon.
The customer said, I need bigger, I need to tow. I want to tow my boat up north. So I'm going to buy a truck and people are buying trucks.
What Dan's referring to is combining the cars. Sure. People are buying more and more trucks.
What a station wagon as well.
Isn't the next question whether if there were rules that applied to the trucks and the suburban and the utility vehicles,
those wouldn't improve performance because the law would apply to them too?
Well, sure, Valvel. You could make laws and improve the fuel economy. One of the reasons people buy trucks is perceptions about safety and utility and towing capacity, all those things.
As I say, it's still a free market.
I really think Congress wouldn't pass the law because these kinds of vehicles are important to people.
We talk often about the problems of vehicles, pollution and accidents, but there are a lot of benefits people get out of vehicles.
I think you keep forgetting about those. The privacy, the independence, the freedom of mobility, the envy of the world.
But the problem is that these emissions that spew out of these vehicles are jeopardizing the future for our children.
They're making the climate warm. They're polluting and filling our cities with smog.
And in order for our kids to live in a safer and healthier environment, we need to begin to clamp down on these emissions.
And if Detroit won't do it by itself, then obviously the government needs to have a role here.
Otherwise, our kids are going to grow up in a greenhouse. I don't think you want that either, Dick.
Let me ask the technical question here. I think a lot of us have such faith in American technology or technology in general, but we assume we can do anything.
Are you saying, Dick, that if one had strict requirements with respect to fuel economy and so on, one could not produce with today's technology,
the sport utility vehicles and the pickups that would meet the consumer demand because from an engineering point of view, it just can't be done.
Well, if you put in cost and performance, any individual company that tried that, let's say to reduce performance or increase cost, is going to lose in the marketplace.
And I gather that's a position, Dan, that you don't necessarily agree with.
No, this is the industry that said we can't make cars with seat belts, we can't make cars with airbags, we can't make cars with catalytic converters for smog.
And now they say we can't make cars or light trucks that get over 27.5 miles per gallon.
We are America. We've got technology. The auto industry won't use it, but we can solve these problems.
If the auto industry will help and stop looking at their short term, short-sighted bottom line for this year and think about the future.
At some point, it is likely that oil prices are going to rise, Dick. And at that point, you guys are going to get caught behind the eight ball when the Japanese come in and say, we're ready, we'll sell you efficient cars and trucks.
And the American big three say, gee, give us five years.
Well, you know, Dan, I got to say something about the air pollution. We think we made incredible progress on air pollution and that will continue.
In terms of global warming, that's a big threat to this country and your story about greenhouse, I don't believe is shared by science.
That's a very controversial issue in spite of some claims to the controversy.
Well, the back of industry still says that smoking doesn't work. That's fine, but this is bigger.
I mean, the Senate passed a resolution 95 to nothing. I mean, that's a pretty big statement in terms of their view of the approach we're taking to global warming.
Let me ask both of you in our short time remaining, what needs to be done to improve technology the most rapidly. Dick, just 20 seconds.
Well, the answer to these problems is clearly technology, but part of it may be public policy as well, but we need some technological breakthroughs.
What I'm really worried about is the global warming problem. And that gets to countries like China and India. If they're not going to use fossil fuels, we've got to find some way to help them.
And it's an incredible technological challenge, but what we can't do is in poverty in America in the bargain as an example.
Okay. Dan, would you like to hear your view on that?
The right that technology is the answer. Technology already exists to make cars go further on a gallon of gas. And we have both the moral obligation to our kids and the responsibility and an opportunity to sell these technologies to China.
Okay. I'm afraid our time is up. And I want to thank you all for joining us. My guests have been Dan Becker from the Sierra Club and Dick Klimich from the American Automobile Manufactures Association.
We've been talking green about auto emissions and I'm your host, Peter Burley.
We're going to be discussing wolves and their reintroduction. If you'd like to join us on air, let us know. Our email address is green at wamc.org.
You can reach us over the net where you can hear the environment show anytime. It's www.enn.com slash envshoww.
It's the environment show and I'm Peter Burley. We all have places which are special to us. For some there on city streets, for others they're deep in the wilderness. Author Kent Nurburne takes us for a walk in the snow in northern Minnesota.
He reads from his book, A Haunting Reference, Meditations on a Northern Land. It's published by New World Library.
Blue. I walked today, knee deep in snow that had a sparkle on its surface. Each footstep lifted clouds of winter diamonds as you're blue in crystalline like fire sparks of ice.
It is a day of blue this winter morning. The blue-hued snow betrays its water source within. Tree trunk-seco blue in sympathetic harmony.
Even the wind blows blue, cool, edgy, soothing and serene. And above it all a cobalt sky of all seems remountable and cloudless brilliance, casting shadows long and lavender across the land.
It is the pallet of a genius painter this winter day, a Chinese watercolor but with edges sharp and cutting as a knife.
If you would live in winter you must give yourself to blue, not as a color or as a wind some sadness but as a distance, receding from the surface, the turns at every point to meditation.
It is like the echo in a vast architecture, a footfall and a great cathedral. I step, the snow crusts beneath me. Its surface breaks like the shattering of glass.
Above me a J. perches then swoops, his actions leaving no track or trace, his flight of fugue against the sky.
Not so with me, the tracks I leave do not return to stillness but shape a landscape of intent.
Into the blue soliloquy I send a march, a cadence with a purpose.
On days like this I do not love our mortal grounding, I am revealed too much for who I am.
I can push forward into endless purity, but if I turn as honesty demands, I see my history revealed and my single path betrays the choice of the future.
The path betrays the gentle whisper of the land. We may as words were says come trailing clouds of glory, but once that glory touches down we leave our mark.
I would rather seek the margins of the woods than cut a razor path across the land.
If I must live, encounter point, let it be a gentle sound.
Grant Nurburn from his book A Haunting Reference, Meditations on a Northern Land, published by New World Library.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show. I'm Peter Burley.
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