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, $650 million allocated by Congress for toxic waste cleanup is no longer available
because the deadline for reform of the Superfund law was missed. The Clinton administration
and House Republicans are deadlocked. Chippewa Indians in Minnesota will farm fish because
natural stocks in the red light have been depleted. Exotic creatures in your neighborhood pet
store raise huge environmental and ethical questions. And on the Earth calendar squash
are being picked in South Carolina. It's part of the great American harvest. These
stories and more coming up on the Environment Show.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley. $650 million appropriated
by Congress for cleanup of toxic waste sites around the country is no longer available.
A condition on the appropriation was that the Superfund law which governs cleanup should
have been reformed by May 15. The Congress and the administration could not agree on new
legislation so the money lapsed. Vice President Gore says without the money, clean up that 51
sites will be delayed and work at 120 more sites will not begin.
Just when Sherwood Bullard, a moderate Republican from upstate New York, has been a major player
in the House on the Superfund issue and is introduced to Superfund reform bill. He says
without Superfund reform, the extra 650 million will not be available and the tax on chemicals
and petroleum which goes to these Superfund will not be reenacted. The tax ran out in 1995.
The Superfund program is going forward. I want to make clear that we're spending a billion
and a half dollars this year on cleanup but the 650 million dollars additional was contingent
upon passing Superfund reform because the appropriators on the committee said in essence,
why should we continue to appropriate funding to continue a program that has so many flaws
in it? If you reform the program will provide the extra funding. I've worked valiantly for the past
year to try to reform the program but thus far we haven't succeeded.
Bullard, who is proud of his environmental credentials as a Sierra Club award winner, says that
partisanship on the part of the Clinton administration has prevented progress.
Well, I'm really disappointed. I'm disappointed in the failure of a number of people to come
together and work for the common good of the most people. The administration, quite frankly,
I think has been dragging its feet. I have proposed a Superfund reform bill, HR 2727,
that has a broad base of national support. People who want to get on with cleaning up our
Superfund sites and would like to see an end to this mindless and endless litigation.
Quite honestly, I think that partisanship is sort of rearing its ugly head. I say that
advisedly. Essentially, I think the political gurus within the administration have essentially said,
don't do anything that would smack of Superfund reform because if you do so,
the Republicans will be able to claim at least partial credit for an environmental victory.
Carol Browner, administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which runs
the Superfund program, is incensed at the charge. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This administration has invested more time over the last five and a half years in seeing the
Superfund law rewritten the program changed than any other environmental issue. I personally have
worked with Congressman Bullard and others for countless, countless hours, days upon days upon days
defined, common ground. Yet, rather than continue in productive discussions, they chose to put forward
a bill that did not have the support of the administration. They knew that when they made the
choice. All I can take away from that is they're not interested in continuing a productive dialogue.
That might result in a good bill. They've made too many promises to too many of the largest
polluters. Bullard says he is prepared to work out Superfund legislation with the administration,
but he thinks his bill, with broad bipartisan support, should be enacted. Browner also says
she'll negotiate, but that the 650 million, which was included in the balanced budget agreement,
should be released rather than held hostage to force acceptance of bad legislation.
We are ready, willing, able, whenever they want to have discussions. I think we could wrap them
up in a matter of weeks. We could have bipartisan support. We could see a bill passed, but it does
take people sitting down at the table rather than the introduction and the effort to garner votes
for a bill that we can't agree with on the face of it, and that we've been very, very clear about
that on the face of it a bill which weakens public health protections, weakens ground water
protections, requires to pay back polluters that have already entered into agreements to clean up
the pollution that they caused. We can agree to those kind of provisions. It's not a long list of
issues we disagree with, but it is a fundamental set of issues. At the moment, it appears that the
administration and the Republicans in the House are at loggerheads. Clean-up under the existing
Superfund legislation continues, but work at the 171 sites targeted under the additional 650 million
is not going forward. The arrival of Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer season.
For many of us, summer is fishing, but in Minnesota, a band of Chippewa Indians is making plans
for a new kind of fishing, one that will help restore their lake and help these struggling
Native Americans in the process. The Environment Show Stephen Westcott report. The Chippewa
Indians have lived in northern Minnesota for centuries and continued to rely on red lake for
survival. For many years, the Chippewas have also commercially fished red lake for perch and walleye,
so much so that the red lake fisheries association recently shut down commercial operations
because of rapid declines in fish populations. Bobby Whitefeather is tribal chairman of the red
lake band of Chippewa Indians. The aspect of the lake as being something other than an economic
tool is something that is revered by the traditionalist of our reservation, and by that I mean the
lake is part of our spirit. Given that there is a evolution of not very many traditional practitioners,
it was kind of a losing battle to try to convince those individuals that had to find a way to
make a living that they have got to take the time to analyze how much they are taken out,
and then also how much they are putting back in. Unfortunately, the situation
found itself over a period of years that the model is being taken out and put back in.
The tribe is now losing $2 million annually from the fishery closure. It's quite a blow to a
community where unemployment is already high. In an effort to restore the fishing industry as a
source of income to the Chippewas, the tribe turned to the University of Wisconsin Aquaculture
Institute for help. The University and tribe are now in the early stages of a project that will
allow the Chippewas to farm race perch and possibly other species. The Bureau of Indian Affairs,
Wisconsin Sea Grant, and the tribe are funding the operation. Fred Binkowski, Senior Scientist and
Fisheries Biology and Director of the Aquaculture Institute has helped other Native Americans
establish similar farms. He says the Chippewas will be using a recirculating Aquaculture System or
RAS, which is relatively simple in design. Probably the best way to describe a recirculating
aquaculture system is to say if you ever have owned a home aquarium and you used a sub-grabble
filter in there or even one of these little filters in the corner of your aquarium and it had
charcoal and angel hair in it. That's basically the very low-scale down version of a recirculating
aquaculture system. The fish will be kept in tanks that can vary from 1000 to more than 20,000
gallons and placed away from red lake. The Chippewas will one day be able to raise all the fish they
need to sell, which should allow perch, wildlife, and black cropy populations an opportunity to
restore themselves and help restore the red lake ecosystem. Critics of fish farms say keeping fish
in large stationary caged pens adversely affects aquatic systems because large amounts of waste are
deposited beneath the pens. But Pat Brown, Fisheries Biologist for the Red Lake Chippewas says RAS is
environmentally safe. If the biofilter works correctly, I believe you won't have any waste. Basically,
you don't drain any water out of the tank. All you're doing is adding water to the tank. So whatever
water is leaving the tank is actually from evaporation. And the biofilter works just like in nature.
The bacteria on that biofilter will break down everything and that's what cleans your water.
You're basically trying to break down your ammonia, your nitrogen, and then your phosphorus also.
Pat Brown will oversee what's happening at the Chippewas reservation while Fred Benkowski oversees
the lab work as well as educating the Chippewas and others interested in this form of aquaculture.
What normally takes 3 to 4 years for perch to reach a marketable size of 8 inches will take 10 to 12
months because of controlled water temperatures. Meanwhile, Pat Brown believes this aquaculture project
is a win-win situation. The biggest reason why this project is important is because right now,
we've got a fishery collapse up here. If we can get the perch aquaculture to work, that would take
a lot of pressure off the lake. It would supply a lot of jobs for people on the reservation.
Our unemployment rate, I believe, is right around 65% now with the fishery closure.
Commercial fishing has been a way of life up here since the year 2019. If we can get the aquaculture
to work, then also during the winter, usually when the lake's frozen up, we'd be able to pull perch
through one of these systems every 3 months or whatever and then process them here at our facility.
So it would be steady employment, so the seasonal employment.
Those involved with the project aren't sure exactly how many fish the Chippewas will be raising
once the fish farm is fully operational. The Bobby Whitefither expects it should replace
the $2 million that is currently being lost. Officials expect the first batch of perch to be ready
for harvest in the fall of 1999. For the Environment Show, I'm Stephen Westcott.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley.
The Environment Show is a national production, it's made possible by the W. Walton Jones Foundation.
The Turner Foundation, the JM Kaplan Fund, the Oliver S. and Jenny R. Donaldson Charitable Trust,
the William Bingham Foundation, and Hemings Motor News, the monthly Bible of the collector Carhabi,
1-800-CAR-HRE.
Going fishing? Tell us where they're biting and how clean the water is. Our comment line 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.
The
Millions of Americans own domesticated pets such as dogs and cats and even rabbits,
but in the last 50 years there's been a large shift in the pet industry.
More and more people are purchasing unique or exotic pets such as reptiles, exotic birds,
snakes, and even monkeys. This rapidly growing industry raises moral and ethical questions about
whether the animal should be pets at all. The Environment Show's Eric Butler reports on this
expanding trade and what experts in the field are saying about it.
As I walk into Albany reptiles and exotics located in Albany, New York,
an overwhelming aroma fills my nasal passages and the first thing I see is man-made habitats,
cages are everywhere. Most of them about 24 inches cubed. Looking around, I see rare birds,
turtles, lizards, ferrets, kapuchin monkeys, and marsupials known as sugar gliders.
It is a far cry from cuddly kittens or loyal Labrador retriever.
But for some reason, more and more people are buying these animals for pets.
Store owner Ann Louise explains why.
Because it's exotic, something different. Everyone wants to be different. At least the normal
people want to be different. So having an exotic animal is different. So having a sugar glider
that no one's seeing, you're walking around with it. Everyone is like, oh my god, what is it?
It's so cute. That's the reaction of most people. And when something is,
that reaction comes to you, you feel good about it. So yeah, you want something
exotic, something that isn't common. So everybody is like, wow, you know, to you.
Experts in the exotic pet industry say that rare parrots, pythons,
bow constrictors, and iguanas are examples of what exotic pet owners are looking for.
It is a growing business and one that is very difficult to regulate.
Cites, or the convention on trade in endangered species, a treaty between 140 countries,
helps to monitor the international trade. Here in the United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service is in charge of following which animals are being brought into the country. Susan
Lieberman is the chief of the Office of Scientific Authority for the Wildlife Service. She says
that officials simply don't know how big the exotic pet industry really is, but they do know
that a lot of animals are coming into the country. We don't have good statistics on the exact
size and exact how much it's growing because we don't keep track of what's, you know,
bread here in the U.S. and sold right here in the U.S., but we know we're talking millions of animals.
Probably last year, maybe 10 million animals came in for pets,
fides and non-sides. I don't want to give the impression those are all protected
or endangered species at all. We're talking millions of animals, both particularly reptiles
and birds, though also it gets even more than that when you talk about fish for the aquarium
trade. It is the job of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to look for animals being brought into
the country illegally. There are approximately 200 border patrol officers nationwide
monitoring exotic imports with 65 of these officers at the country's main 11 ports.
Organized crime has even been linked to the industry, but with so few officers stopping the
illegal trade is a monumental task. Animals are often taken out of their natural habitats and
ship to stores around the world. There are horror stories of animals being smuggled in small tubes,
boxes, suitcases and even underneath cars. Many of these animals die during the trips.
Within the last 10 years, though, new laws and regulations have been passed to help protect these
animals, especially those that are threatened or endangered. This has led to captive breeding,
a relatively new industry where exotic animals are raised here in the U.S.
Susan Lieberman says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't address the moral debate
on whether it is right or wrong to keep these animals in captivity. It is simply their job to
monitor and regulate the pet trade. However, the concept of keeping exotic animals as pets
does raise many ethical and moral issues. And the weeds owner of Albany Reptiles and
Exotics believes that captivity extends an animal's life and enhances the overall quality of a pet's
existence. At the Bronx Zoo, they're used to handling exotic animals. General Curator of the Zoo,
Jim Doherty says that they should never be kept as pets because it is not good for the animal
and because people do not know how to care for them correctly. The dietary needs are usually make
them a lot more expensive to feed than a dog or a cat or a guinea pig. And then when you have a
health problem, you can't take that animal to the local veterinarian. If you could, local veterinarians
usually don't deal with exotic animals and see the added problem of how do you deal with health
problems. But even zoos are criticized by animal rights advocates who say that it is inhumane
to keep wild animals in captivity and that the environments that the zoos create are still not
completely natural. Just recently, Disney came under fire after two dozen animals died in the
six-month period on their way to the new animal kingdom attraction. Regardless of whether zoos
are good or not, the bottom line is that most home-style exotic pet owners will never be able to
provide natural surroundings for their pets. But for those intent on bringing in an exotic animal
into their homes, there are some important things to keep in mind, according to Doreen Bowles,
director of the policy program for the Wildlife Conservation Society. The cost is not so
in how much it's going to be to buy the animal. It's probably the most important thing that a
potential buyer can do as well is try and bug the retail store or try themselves to
locate captive bred animals. There are a lot of captive breeders out there also for lots of
reptiles. There are just more and more people investing in it. Many exotic pet stores will even have
certificates proving that an animal was captive bred, knowing how long an animal lives as well as
what its lifestyle and habitat are like are key elements in making an animal's life as comfortable
as possible. Bowles says that all too often exotic pet owners show up at the zoos with animals they
can't care for and there's just no room for the zoos to take them in. For the Environment Show,
I'm Eric Butler.
And now it's time for the Earth calendar. As we speak, squash is being picked in South Carolina.
It's part of the Great American Harvest. Parker Farms cultivates about a hundred acres of vegetables
on Wadmallow Island. The island is about 30 miles square, located just south of Charleston.
Rod Parker, whose family is farmed as long as they've been in the United States,
says workers begin preparing the soil for spring planting in January.
Then we will along around the last of February or actually by the middle of February,
we'll start to lay down plastic mulch and drip irrigation systems. And what we'll do is fertilize
the soil. We'll draw it up into these big beds and then we have a machine that runs over smooths
the beds down, shapes the beds and then we come along behind with what we call an applicator which
puts the drip tube, irrigation tube and the plastic down in one pass. And then the beds are prepared
and we can do that as much as a month ahead of time and when you look out across the field it'll look
like these rows that are about 6 to 10 inches high, three feet wide and they're covered with black
plastic stretched real tight on it. And then there's a dirt alleyway about three feet wide in between each
one. So that's what the field looks like when we're ready to start. Parker says special planters
burn a hole in the plastic and mechanically insert the seeds into the ground. The plastic mulch
warms the soil creating an environment that makes it feel like a month later in the season.
So the squash grow faster. Drip tubes allow rod Parker to easily irrigate and fertilize the crop
and a tissue analysis is conducted once a month to make sure the squash are getting the proper
nutrients. By April or early May workers begin harvesting the crop by hand. The crop is picked
nearly every day, the same field we pick it and then we'll go back and pick the next day and
pick the next day because it's a fairly rapid growing crop and in order to get the squash
at the acceptable market size which isn't saying roughly seven inches and it varies. That's the
best thing to do. If you let it go two days the chances are I can get out into a larger size and
a larger size has less value. And at the end of the third day it's too big for anybody to use
and you have to throw it off entirely. So you need to pick the crop every day. Sometimes if it's
cool, if the daytime temperatures are in the 70s and the nighttime temperatures are in the 50s,
then we can skip it day entirely. The squash or cut put into boxes and shipped to a refrigerated
packing shed. They're quickly sold because they perish. Rod Parker says both last fall's crop
and planting for the spring were adversely affected because of El Nino.
It was by far the most time we've ever had all over the East Coast, Charleston being particularly
bad. We had twice the annual rainfall in five months, roughly from October the first
until March, which is when we started planting. We had about double what the annual rainfall is.
Well not quite. But we had somewhere close to 70 inches in rain. And that just wreaked havoc with
diseases in the crops. The harvest was a nightmare just because you couldn't get through the fields.
We had two tractors pulling one harvest truck. And then in preparing the land for the spring,
we were just behind the eight ball all the time. Parker says he expects the harvest to be slightly
smaller than normal. He says consumers should be looking for firmness when buying squash and adds
that the skin should be glossy and yellow and color to ensure freshness. It seems that El Nino
is tough on everybody, even the squash. The poor vegetable. It never sees the soil that nourishes it,
only black plastic. It's fed through a tube. It's picked before it reaches full size. It's put in a
refrigerated storehouse and then a soup pot. But we need to appreciate the squash. Without it, black
plastic alone makes a lousy soup. You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burleigh.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burleigh. Still ahead.
We join our thruhyper on the Appalachian Trail for a wet slog in Tennessee.
We talk green about asthma. It's cockroaches and all those other things in the environment
that bring on an ailment that affects millions of Americans. And our listeners have strong
views about the discussion we had about population growth, family size, and economic incentives.
Stay with us.
Now, we're coming new to look at the Williams Bells in advert sets
at dues.
is boldly continuing his journey on foot along the entire length of the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine.
He checks with Linda Anderson from time to time as he makes his way north,
calling to tell his stories whenever he steps off the trail for supplies.
John recently called with this to say.
This last section was 60 miles from hot springs to the Noli Chucky River
and near Irwin, Tennessee was an interesting section of trail.
It was very emotional for me and especially in one section I was hiking on a high ridge and came upon these two graves,
the Shelton Graves, which were a reward department place these heads in in a clearing in 1915 to honor the Shelton brothers
who were actually union soldiers from Tennessee and they were ambushed there by a Confederate when they returned to visit their family
and was a very eerie place to be and after passing this site I was kind of spooked for a long time
because just thinking about walking in these woods back then and coming home to my family and having this ambush occur.
So those woods were beautiful and spooky at the same time.
On a brighter note, spring is definitely coming to the trail and the gnats are coming out and they are starting to bite
and that is a short sign of spring.
Coming down towards the Irwin, Tennessee, yet some amazing views of the Noli Chucky River, very beautiful river down in this magnificent valley.
Now the Noli Chucky River flows from the slopes of Mount Mitchell, which is 6,684 feet.
It is the highest mountain east of the Mississippi and it would be a beautiful thing to see.
I am sure but when I was up on big bogs which was coming down as impressive open, summited mountain, I had about 10 feet of visibility.
So I lost my opportunity to get this tremendous view which is a sad thing when you are hiking and you are working hard to get up high on top of a mountain.
Well I am off now. My next stop is going to be up in Dennis Cove which is another 50 or 60 miles from here.
I am heading for Damascus, Virginia.
I am looking forward to crossing a state line and moving further north on this great adventure of the Appalachian Trail.
Finding off from the Appalachian Trail, John Carlson or Trail Name and Same.
Further along the trail, John Carlson called in again, this time from a hostel near Hampton, Tennessee, sounding a bit subdued.
The operative word of the last section of trail, about 70 miles from the Noli Chucky River to Dennis Cove Road here near Hampton, Tennessee, was reigned.
Wet boots and socks, wet packs and yes, at times even dampened spirits.
At one point I was crossing Carver's Gap and Tizawa National Forest.
Far stranger looked at me and my brain soaked body, shook his head and said, I don't know how you guys do it.
And at some times, some days, even as myself had seen questions, logging through the mud and slipping and sliding and falling.
With a heavy pack, with a quite scary experience, trying to keep your body in one piece and not getting hurt as you traverse the trail.
The highlights of this section were climbing knock-of-mountain, which at its summit had a large stand of red spruce, beautiful, beautiful place, even in the mist and spring.
This red spruce forest is unusual for this part of the country, it's more like what I'll be seeing further north.
There was a slight break in the weather one morning and it was enough for me and my new hiking sweaty,
who's trail-ling this peacemaker to traverse the ruined mountain, highland boughs, round ball and in Hampton Mountain.
We got some views as the under clouds rolled in and it did remind me a lot of the Scotland Highland and was a real inspiration.
And at Dolph Labs, this past that I left North Carolina for good leads heading for the Virginia border, which I should cross in about a week.
I'm praying for the sun to shine again on this trip up north to Melcotodon, John, Arifin, and Seas, signing off from the Appalachian Trail.
We're talking green and I'm Peter Burley.
Today we're going to discuss a problem that afflicts about 15 million Americans, including an increasing number of children, and that is asthma.
A recent report from the US Center for Disease Control says asthma cases increased 75% between 1980 and 1994, and some of this is related to the environment.
Specifically pollutants that trigger asthma attacks are found in both indoor and outdoor air.
So if you have thoughts about asthma and the environment we'd like to hear from you on our comment line, give us a call.
The number is 1-888-49-green.
I have two very knowledgeable guests with me today.
One is Dr. Douglas Dockery and he is with the Harvard University School of Public Health, and also Dr. David Manino, and he is with the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Before we get into too many of the details of this, I think we ought to start with some understanding of what asthma is.
I think all of us know about it, but perhaps Dr. Manino, you could just give us just a thumbnail sketch of what we're talking about.
What is asthma?
Thank you, Peter.
Asthma is a disease that is characterized by people having what we call constriction of their airways, that basically sometimes for no reason at all, they find themselves unable to catch their breath, and then they have symptoms such as weezing and callthing associated with that.
And Dr. Dockery, what triggers this? What causes either the attack or the disease itself?
Well, there's clearly very important genetic factors associated with that. If you have a family history of asthma, then you're at much higher risk.
And then there are the other factors, the environmental factors, range from indoor air pollution exposures, exposures to dust mites and other allergic agents in your home and outside, certain chemicals.
There are a whole range of different stimuli that we're aware of that can stimulate asthma.
And it's one of the problems in setting asthma is there are so many things that can trigger asthma that it's hard to put your finger on one specific agent as the causative agent.
Now, Dr. Benino, my understanding though, is that there has been a substantial increase over recent years. Why do we think that's happening?
That is a great question, Peter, and I wish I had a simple answer that there are many different factors going on. As Dr. Dockery mentioned, asthma is an incredibly complex puzzle.
And there are numerous different factors going on in asthma. For instance, if you look at the percentage of the population that reports weezing with respiratory infections, it's actually a fairly substantial part of the population, perhaps size is 30 or 40%.
Yet, about somewhere between 5% and 7% of the population reports that they have asthma. So one of the things that we have found and that we're currently looking at is that it doesn't take too much of a shift for physicians thinking to start calling more diseases asthma.
To actually perhaps account for a large increase in the number of cases of asthma that we're seeing.
And so, in your judgment, is some of this simply a redefinition of the condition that somebody has or are we actually seeing more people afflicted with the disease?
That is the $64,000 question. I think that there are some evidence that physicians are more likely to call conditions asthma now than what they were perhaps 15 years ago.
But there's also very compelling evidence that there is in fact more asthma around now. So there's evidence in both directions.
Well, whether there's more or whether we're recognizing it more efficiently. Dr. Dockery, what is the environmental peg here?
What extent is this caused or maybe caused by things in the environment?
Well, it's clear that the environment plays a major role that what people are exposed to, what they are experiencing in their homes and outdoors are major triggers for asthma.
For people with asthma, they clearly are responding to air pollution, they're responding to pollen, they're responding to other things that are in the air in their environment.
And it's ubiquitous here. I don't think there's any question that the environment is the major trigger for people developing attacks of asthma.
Are there certain pollutants? And again, I'm groping for reasons why we may be seeing an increase because I think the evidence is fairly clear that we've done a somewhat effective job in cleaning some of the pollutants out of the years.
Are there certain pollutants that seem to be triggering asthma to a greater degree or are we again just better at recognizing what's happening?
This is Dr. Manino. I think that, again, there's evidence in both directions. Although air quality in general has improved the United States, it's not been uniform.
And actually, one of the pollutants that we have the most problems with is ozone. And ozone has not uniformly decreased in all areas of the country.
And there's some evidence that ozone levels may be associated with things such as asthma hospitalizations. And we're seeing some similar findings with some of the, we're called fine or particular, different kinds of pollution.
And certainly one of the biggest predictors of what's happening with asthma, it was what happens in the indoor environment. One of the hypotheses for why we're seeing an increase in asthma in recent years is that in general, buildings have gotten tighter.
And this, when you go back to the energy crises of the mid 70s, when in order to conserve energy, we started making our buildings much tighter.
That, and virtually none of us now works in an office building where we can open the windows.
This indeed is the sick building syndrome, isn't it? The thing is so tight that everything in there just gets recycled over and over again.
Yeah, and that's, and that's part of that whole, you know, the way we've seen our society change over the past few years. And that may well be a piece of this very elaborate puzzle.
And yet in preparing for the program, I read one article that suggested that people who are subject to asthma attacks should try to stay indoors more frequently.
Is that counterproductive if the indoor environment is one of the problems?
That's another great question. And certainly if there are problems outdoors, such as a very high pollution day or high ozone day, that makes absolute sense.
On the other hand, I think there's ample evidence that many people have asthma or react into things in their indoor environment, such as environmental tobacco smoke, various allergens, such as cockroaches or dust mites or other Asians,
that they may be encountering an indoor environment. So I think probably the better advice is to really make every attempt to clean up their indoor environment.
Sometimes that may involve doing things differently with pets. A lot of people have asthma, react to cats and dogs and birds and other pets that may be in their indoor environment.
Tell me a little bit more about cockroaches, having spent a lot of my professional life in New York City, cockroaches were always part of the environment, perhaps more prevalent than household pets.
How did they affect the asthmatic?
And I've heard in New York City that cockroaches are sometimes considered pets.
There's plenty of them.
Based on the size.
Now, I think there is evidence that asthma in certain urban environments is very much related to the presence of cockroaches and antigen, which is actually particles that come off of living or dead cockroaches.
This is an immense problem in certain parts of the country, but there are other parts of the country where there's lots of asthma, there are virtually no cockroaches.
So it's something that varies from one part of the country to another.
I think we both have been emphasizing the role of the indoor environment here.
We talked a little bit about air pollution, but it's pretty clear that the rise in asthma is not related to an increase in air pollution outdoors.
We have not seen, as you indicated, Peter, an increase in the past two decades of air pollution. In fact, they're going down those concentrations and yet the asthma rates are going up.
And in fact, when you look internationally, the places with the highest asthma rates are places that tend to be have very low air pollution levels.
And places with very, very high air pollution have very low asthma rates.
So there are two issues here.
What fraction of the population, what fraction of the people have asthma, and separately how air pollution affects people who have preexisting asthma?
What I think I hear you saying, man, is that air pollution is not your major area of concern. Has it relates to asthma? Am I right about that?
We're concerned because air pollution will make the condition a lot worse for asthmatics, and they will respond to asthmatic to those stimuli rather with an attack.
But it doesn't appear that the cause of this increasing background of asthma that we see is related to the air pollution levels.
And I think we're thinking that it's more related to indoor exposures, for example, and time people are spending indoors being exposed to cockroaches, for example, or dust mites or pets or environmental tobacco smoke.
And of course, the environment is indoors for many of us, and indeed it's taken the environmental community itself a while to recognize this nice to talk about mountains and trees and air and water, but for most people the environment is inside the four walls where they live and work.
Given that circumstance, what do each of you say to the public at large and the person who may have a history of asthma, even either on their own case or members of their family?
What do you say to them about what cautionary things they should do about their own indoor environment?
What can the individual do, either at home or in the workplace, to minimize the chances of an asthmatic attack?
And certainly something, some advice that we give to our patients is to really focus on certain parts of their indoor environment.
I counsel all my patients that I'm not to allow anyone to ever smoke anywhere in their house.
And then we sort of build from there, and not that that advice is always followed, but I think that there are other things that can be done.
For instance, if you have a child with asthma, you can change their bedroom environment such that there's less exposure to dust and allergens that can exacerbate asthma.
A simple thing such as dust-might covers that you put on pillowcases and mattresses to keep dust mites from coming up.
You may have to sometimes remove carpets or stuffed animals from the room.
You may have to keep pets out of the room or sometimes take the pet to a relp of the house and let them stay there.
We can certainly do things to decrease the humidity levels in the homes, and humidity is associated with things such as dust mites and cockroaches and molds.
We have not mentioned mold yet. Molds are very important in the source of the allergen that we see in asthma.
My molds you're talking about, the green stuff that grows on my shoes and the closet on rip periods.
And every one of us has it in our homes, and some people do react to these, and typically with allergic type reactions.
And just briefly because our time is running out, what advice do you have for people in the workplace as to what they should be telling their employers or themselves if they're the boss about what they should do about the environment so that people work in?
I would say similar things that you can't control things such as humidity levels in certain workplaces.
It's well known that certain things in the workplace are associated with asthma.
I won't give you examples, but certainly there are ample opportunities for substituting chemicals that are less likely to cause asthma or perhaps getting good industrial hydrogen in there to change the working environment such that people aren't exposed.
And so I think I hear you both saying that there are things that we all can do to diminish our chances of an asthma attack that the environment is a piece of it, but it's a much more complex issue than simply taking one particular pollutant out of the atmosphere of the environment.
I'm afraid our time is up. We've been discussing asthma and the environment. My guests have been Dr. David Benino from the Center for Disease Control, CDC, and Dr. Dockery from the Harvard School of Public Health.
We're interested in your comments. You can call us at 1-888-49-Green. We've been talking green, and I'm Peter Burley.
If there's a subject you'd like to hear discussed on talking green, or if you'd like to participate, let us know. Call us or drop us online.
The Environment Show 3-18 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 1-2-2-06. That's 3-18 Central Avenue, Albany, New York 1-2-2-06.
This is Green Tips. Tips on how you can save the Earth in your everyday life. It's the time of year when lawn mower
is a major weekend occupation. But the EPA estimates that a gasoline-powered lawn mower used for one hour emits as much pollution as a car driven 50 miles.
Experts say electric or battery power mowers are better, but they're not perfect. Batteries need to be replaced and disposal causes problems.
Electrical mowers contribute to secondary pollution because they receive their energy from power plants.
The old-fashioned real-type mower is probably the best environmental way to trim your grass. If produced is more usable grass clippings, which enrich the soil most effectively, that's because the real-type mower snips the grass and disperses it in a spray, enabling the clippings to decay faster, while gas mowers leave clumps.
Of course, you could always leave your lawn alone. The natural grasses provide better habitat for insects that serve as food for birds. That's Green Tips for this week.
We've received a lot of comment from listeners to the Environment Show recently on Stephen Westcott takes a look at what you've been saying.
Thanks, Peter. A discussion on Maine's lobster industry inspired Jim Blackburn of Alaska to email us. Regarding the discussion Jim states, quote, natural populations fluctuate on their own without human intervention or with it they fluctuate.
You seem to assume that the only influence on lobster populations was the level of fishing. This undermined the points your guests were trying to make, unquote.
Jim also says he enjoys our fairness at airing both sides of the issue, but Pamela McCarran of Massachusetts didn't see it that way. She believes we should have included an animal rights advocate in that discussion.
The majority of the calls we received recently were in response to a debate on the growth of population and whether there should be economic incentives for smaller families.
Some like Art Decalbe of New York State disliked how he did the discussion became. He went on to say that while some in the business world believe people are the important resource, it doesn't address the rape of the land.
It seems that every ecosystem that you think of from lobsters to the Antarctic ice shelf, to the North Pole, to every place in the United States for drinking water.
Every ecosystem is being inundated by the effect of people and the destruction that people cause in the environment.
So I would be very much against things that increase our population.
In the opening of the conversation, he says he is concerned with fertility drugs and multiple births and doesn't understand why some people feel they have to have children.
If you can't have children naturally, maybe what God or the Creator or whatever you want to think is telling you is to adopt some of the children that are already out there that need children.
We got plenty of children in the world, what we need are more people to take responsibility for them.
Fred Reid and I have no sympathy at all for people that feel like taking the root of inducing these incredibly, you know, these incredible multiple births with drugs.
Let's take the cards we're dealt and do the best most conscientious thing that we can with them.
In this case, I think it means adoption.
Fred Reid and also heard the discussion on population and believes both participants are right.
It is not simply population as the problem and is not simply resource use as the problem.
It's a combination of the two.
My belief has always been that any notion of sustainability has to include how many people at what level and for how long.
And if you don't answer all those three and incorporate those in your discussion on sustainability, you're not addressing them.
And usually for some unspoken political agenda, whether that's that you want to be able to go up resources and live at a really high style of life,
or whether that's because you want to have lots of babies and believe that population is not the issue.
We welcome all your comments, suggestions and story ideas.
Give us a call. Our number is 1-888-49-Green. That's 1-888-49-Green. For the Environment Show, I'm Stephen Westcott.
I'm the greater I want you to be mine. Please deposit all you love and put me on the line.
I'm the stutter lonely.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show. I'm Peter Burling.
When you buy your next pet rock, play a copy of the exotic pet story on this show to the salesperson.
Call 1-888-49-Green and order show number 4-38.
The Environment Show is a national production. Alan Shartuck is executive producer, Stephen Westcott is producer, and Ray Graff is audio engineer.
The Environment Show is made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Oliver S. and Jenny R. Donaldson Charitable Trust,
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