The Environment Show #409, 1997 November 1

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, what is free trade doing to the environment?
U.S. EPA Administrator Carol Browner says the NAFTA Environmental Sight Agreement helps
Canada, the U.S., and Mexico work out their differences.
Heat, reaching the Earth from the Sun, changes in cycles.
Top Solar Scientists explain how that affects us.
Singer-songwriter John Denver is dead, but his music and the environmental organization
he founded are very much alive.
And in the Earth calendar, we plunge into the Atlantic, among schools of migrating fish
and blue sharks.
These stories are more coming up on the Environment Show.
Last week, the top environmental masters of the United States, Canada, and Mexico met in Montreal.
They're part of the Commission on Environmental Cooperation, which deals with environmental problems
of North America.
The Commission itself was established by the Environmental Sight Agreement to the North
American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA.
As such, the Commission is the world's first and only regional environmental organization
with roots in a trade agreement.
The work of the Commission is drawing attention because the Clinton administration wants
to expand at NAFTA and enter new free trade agreements.
Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, who represents the United
States on the Commission, says the President is committed to incorporating trade and the
environment in future agreements.
He has said that any agreement he negotiates any new trade relationship, he negotiates
he intends to include both labor and environmental components.
That is extremely important.
The Clinton administration has said as one of its objectives to further liberalize trade,
what do you see that we have learned through the NAFTA Environmental Sight Agreement process
that might inform future negotiations with other countries?
The probably the most important thing we've learned through NAFTA is the opportunity for
cooperation and the opportunity to work towards upward harmonization of our environmental
standards.
If you look at some of the community agreements we've achieved, for example, El Paso and
Juarez, they share the air working together now to address environmental problems, I think
the most important thing we can take out of this process at this point in time is the
positive link between trade and the environment and the need for greater cooperation and dialogue.
Some environmentalists charge if the commission is not doing enough.
Some governmental officials are unhappy about the commission because under its rules for the
first time in history, citizens can challenge either their own government or the government
of another member country for failing to enforce environmental law.
This kind of challenge is often unwelcome since bureaucrats don't like to have an international
body ask whether they are doing their jobs properly.
Greg Block is director of the commission for environmental cooperation.
There was a concern that parties not lower standards or do anything to try to attract or retain
business in their particular territory.
That is the idea that blackster standards might create a pollution haven.
One of the mechanisms to deal with that particular concern is Article 14 of the agreement.
Many citizens in North America can allege that a party to the NAFTA agreement is failing
to effectively enforce its environmental law.
There is a procedure where the secretary processes and reviews the submission against criteria
that is provided in the agreement and ultimately the parties can direct the secretary to prepare
a factual record to really clarify all of the allegations made by submitters, by petitioners
and by the responses of governments.
More than a dozen complaints have been filed under Article 14 so far.
Block also describes progress that has been made to take certain persistent organic chemicals
out of the North American environment.
These toxic substances are being transported in the atmosphere.
The greatest contributor of DDT currently into the Great Lakes is coming from Mexico and
South of Mexico.
We have a regional action plan.
Each country has committed to eliminating DDT.
Now of course this is something that the United States has done quite a long time ago.
But Mexico has agreed to eliminate their use of DDT which is used as malaria control.
Within about five years there are a number of other chemicals that are next up on the
list including heavy metal mercury and other pesticide chloridane and others.
Block says other things the Commission has been able to accomplish include the development
of community-based programs in all three nations to protect habitat for migratory species
such as songbirds and monarch butterflies.
The critters can only survive if places along their entire migration routes are protected.
As the globalization of trade continues the impact of trade may well be one of the
most significant issues on the environmental agenda during the next couple of decades.
The Commission on Environmental Cooperation set up under NAFTA, represents a step in
attempting to deal with the trade environment linkage.
Many scientists are predicting the rise in carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere will
increase the overall global temperature by three or four degrees over the next 100 years.
The increase in greenhouse gases many say is directly attributable to the burning of
fossil fuels.
And while some scientists say carbon emissions may not be the only factor causing warmer
temperatures.
Researchers are studying solar activity and are noticing that the sun may be playing
a more significant role in global climate change than previously believed.
The Environment Show's Rachel Phillips reports.
Satellite measurements of solar brightness analyzed by a Columbia University researcher
are showing the Earth is absorbing an increased amount of energy from the sun which contributes
to global warming.
Richard Wilson is senior research scientist with the Center for Climate Systems Research.
He's monitoring the total amount of energy the Earth receives from the sun.
This is the energy that drives our climate system.
The solar energy, the total solar irradiance as we call it which is the power that gets
to the Earth from the sun.
It goes up the climate temperature will increase and if it goes down the climate temperature
will decrease.
Our interest is looking in the long term to see whether we can identify long term total
solar irradiance changes that could have implications for the climate.
Wilson says researchers have discovered the sun has a 22 year magnetic cycle with the
sunspot cycle occurring for half of that time.
It is this increase in activity from one sunspot cycle to the next that's providing the
Earth with more heat.
Wilson says every 11 years the sunspot undergo significant changes in which these magnetic
fields on the sun switch polarity.
He says when the 22 year cycle is complete the sunspot returns to the original polarity.
And we have found that in fact the total solar irradiance is proportional to the level of
solar magnetic activity.
And since it can change and we've observed change about a tenth of a percent over a
sunspot cycle we're concerned and interested in finding out whether the total solar irradiance
can change by subtle amounts gradually over many decades or even centuries and impact
the climate.
Wilson says solar forcing the sun's effect on long term climate might account for between
0.7 and 1.4 degrees of warming over the next 100 years.
This increased solar activity could actually worsen the effects caused by greenhouse gases.
But Wilson admits carbon emissions are the major contributors to global warming and
says further research needs to be conducted into the long term effects the sun has on
climate.
Dr. Sally Balliunis astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center at Harvard University
has been conducting solar research that complements the work of Wilson.
Balliunis has been trying to determine the climatological impact the sun has over centuries.
For that we have studied other sunlight stars and we've measured their surface magnetism
and their brightness as well and from that we infer a history of changes in the sun's
brightness that go along with its recorded changes in magnetism.
Then we put them in a climate model we ask what is the response of the climate of the
earth to these kinds of changes and we can explain most of the climate changes of the
last several centuries by having the sun change by up to a few tenths of a percent,
by up to half a percent or so.
Balliunis says technology has enabled researchers to learn more than ever before about the
workings of the sun.
But she admits scientists have a lot more to learn.
Right now we have terrible problems.
The sun varies in terms of its total energy, it varies in its radiation and most of the
measurements and most of the modeling results have been in terms of its radiation that
is just its brightness.
But the sun also varies in the high energy particles and there are scientists who predict
that the high energy particles are interacting with the upper atmosphere of the earth and
then changing the properties of clouds and then cloud coverage.
So they would have a leveraging effect.
Dr. Balliunis says it's difficult to determine the exact impact the sun has on the earth's
climate because the output of radiation varies.
She believes the models of global warming that predict a 3-4 degree increase in temperature
are too aggressive.
Besides the role of the sun, Balliunis says the physics of water in the atmosphere should
be better understood before more accurate assessments can be made.
Dr. Albert Arking, atmospheric physicist at Johns Hopkins University, agrees that some
scientists might be overestimating the temperature increases.
He says it's too early to tell exactly what will happen because scientists simply don't
have enough information.
Dr. Arking believes multiple factors are causing climate change.
And other people can show that if you take a model and do no change, that if you take
a model, don't change its sun's radiation, don't change the greenhouse gases and just
let it run, you'll find it's sort of a chaotic effect that temperatures, global temperatures
will change over periods of decades, higher, lower in a way that represents an unpredictable
effect of chaos.
Dr. Arking also praises Dr. Balliunis, saying her studies are helping scientists better
to understand the sun's role in climate temperature.
He says he's happy that people from diverse disciplines are getting involved in sharing
information.
Arking says the sharing of data sets will enable researchers better to understand the
sun's role in the global warming equation.
For the Environment Show, I'm Rachel Phillips.
This is the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burling.
The Environment Show is made possible by 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, Bob and Marilyn Schumann and Heming's Motor News, the monthly Bible of the Collector
Carhabit, 1-800-C-A-R-H-E-R-E.
Do you have questions or comments about the sun?
It touches all of us.
Give us a call at 1-888-49-Green.
That's 1-888-49-Green.
Our email address is green at wamc.org.
For many of us, John Denver is the Environmental Viennization.
His lyrics capture his love for Colorado in the natural world as a whole.
Oliver was active in various environmental causes and organizations, but it was the
W.S. 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.
In 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 was an innate sense, 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 Winstorre Foundation with friend Tom Crom.
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.
And he and his manager, Half-Op, at the time, and Tom made up the first sport of directors
and they were the staff in the very beginning.
And then they expanded it and worked out an organization designed programs.
And in effect in the early years, it was a school.
And John described in his book that it was heady stuff to participate in.
Workshops and conferences 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.
And when Buckley Fuller was part of Winstorre, we built a big biodome 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 biodome 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 sustains 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 moves
us, not just in spirit, but moves 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 the peaceful world.
And to follow those attributes in our own life, there would be a wonderful tribute to John.
Tomlinson says she is certainly, when star 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.
And now it's time for the Earth Calendar.
While we see birds on the move as winter approaches, dozens of species of fish are also migrating.
Biologist Carl Saphina, director of the Living Oceans program of the National Autobahn
Society, was out in his boat last week in the Atlantic Ocean.
He found himself south of Montauk Point, which is off the end of Long Island, in New York.
Well, we went out to look for tuna, which are migrating at this time of year.
And we ran into what I sometimes call the serengeti of the Northeast,
just really impressive migrations of sizable kinds of fish.
We saw lots of schools of a small tuna called the Little Tunny, another one called the Skipjack
Tuna, and another fish called the Common Benito, which is related to tuna,
as well as fair amounts of juvenile bluefin tuna up to about a hundred pounds.
And also very impressive numbers of rather large blue sharks.
Now, in the summertime, in this area, frequently don't find much of anything
because everything has already gone to the north of us, to the summering grounds.
If you try shark fishing all day long, you stand a fairly good chance of catching only one or two, or maybe none.
At this time of year, though, all those fish are coming back across the ocean,
and almost everywhere we looked, we could see schools of fish near the surface,
and there were so many blue sharks that we actually had to move the boat several times
to stay away from them while we were trying to fish for other things.
Saphina says the migration starts in September, peaks in October, and then falls off quickly as the water chills.
Most of the fish passed through an area about 15 miles square in the Atlantic near Long Island, where he was.
They're all essentially draining out of New England in the maritime areas.
It's quite spectacular. I think we're very fortunate that there's still a place, maybe not on North America,
just off the North American continent where there's a really spectacular display of large migrating animals.
I think it would be really wonderful if one could go up in an airplane and sort of strip the water away
and watch these things move, but that's not possible.
The day, like we had last week, it was quite remarkable just about everywhere you looked.
You could see fins breaking the surface, fish chasing prey, and these blue sharks waging along.
Those blue sharks, which Saphina was seeing, are described by the Polygic Shark Foundation
as the archetypal Polygic Shark and the principal high seas predator.
They eat squid and fish and are known to attack dead and injured marine mammals.
In the Atlantic, they get to be 13 feet long and give live birth to young and litters ranging from 50 to 100 individuals.
They got their name because of their dorsal fin, which is cobalt blue.
Hoylers didn't like them because they would arrive in large numbers at whale kills and take whatever meat they could get.
While not considered to be man-eaters, they are suspected of being responsible for many of the attacks on sailors and pilots
who found themselves drifting in the sea after wartime battles.
Despite their visibility, the exact nature of their migration, which includes a trip across the Atlantic for some of them, is not clear.
Again, Carl Saphina.
Migrations of fish in the sea is one of the least-understood aspects of vertebrate biology in the world anymore.
Saphina says new satellite technology will help us learn a lot about the migration of sharks and other fish in coming years.
But biologists in Long Island may not have to follow the blue sharks to learn about the behavior of large predators.
A significant number of Wall Street money managers have in recent years build expensive weekend homes along the shore for Saphina works.
It may be that research on animals with highly developed predatory instincts can be done without satellites and without even looking at the sharks.
That assumes, of course, that the rollercoaster stock market has not caused the Wall Streeters to throw themselves into the sea in hopes of catching a ride south with a migrating blues.
Thanks for listening. This is the Environment Show, and I'm Peter Burley.
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Let's Dance now!
This is the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burling.
Still ahead, Wolves once roamed the Adorondack Mountains in upstate New York.
Defenders of wildlife wants to see them reintroduced and hopes that kids can
convince their parents that it's a good idea. We talk green about growth. Is growth
forever such a great idea? We talk with some activists who think that growth
should be limited or perhaps stopped altogether. And author Allison Hawthorne
Deming takes us to Chaco Canyon in Navajo Country where Cliff Swallows adorn the
cliffs with their smoothly sculpted mud homes.
The relationship between humans and dogs dates back thousands, perhaps tens of
thousands of years. Remember man's best friend? But the relationship between
humans and wolves has not always been so cozy, especially in the US. At one time,
wolves were found in almost every part of the country. Today, there are only about
3,000 that exist in the wild according to some sources. Defenders of wildlife and
mission wolf are currently touring New England and New York as part of National
Wolf Awareness Week which was the last week in October. The groups are trying to
educate the public about an often misunderstood animal. More importantly, tour
organizers are using the opportunity to drum up public support for the reintroduction
of wolves in New York's Adurondack Mountains. The environment shows Stephen Westcott
has more. In the 1992 Eastern Timber Wolf Recovery Plan, the US Fish and Wildlife
Service identified three areas in the Northeast for possible wolf recovery.
Defenders of wildlife and mission wolf officials point to successful reintroduction
efforts such as the one in Yellowstone Park for proof that similar plans can't work.
They say returning wolves to the Adurondacks would simply be restoring wolves to an area
where they became extinct 100 years ago. The ultimate decision as to whether wolves are
reintroduced to the Adurondacks lies in the hands of New York's Department of Environmental
Conservation. The DEC has two requirements that must be met in order for reintroduction
to occur. Something Defenders of Wildlife is studying. Defender spokeswoman Nina
Fashion says the first requirement is reintroduction must be socially acceptable.
Defenders has been working with a citizens group in the Adurondack Park comprised of about
21 representatives of stakeholder groups, including hunting, trapping, farming, timber,
recreation, and so on. And these folks have come up with a very long list of concerns
that Adurondack Park residents have that they want to see addressed in the study. Defenders
has now put out a request for proposals for scientists to submit a proposal to do the
study. We expect to get them by mid-November. And this citizens' committee is actually going
to look over the proposals and make a decision on who they think would be a very credible
scientist to conduct these studies.
Fashion says the second requirement that must be met for wolf reintroduction is that it
is biologically feasible. Defenders feel that there are several reasons for returning
wolves to the Adurondack. Clearly there would be biological benefits. Wolves are the
top predator in their ecosystem and they work to keep prey populations strong and healthy.
We feel that there are also really strong economic benefits of wolf recovery in all the
other areas where wolves have been returned, yellowstone national park, North Carolina,
up in Ely, Minnesota, and in Algonquin Park in Canada, all of those regions have seen
huge increases in tourist dollars as a result of wolf recovery. And a lot of people,
all much as defenders, a lot of New Yorkers feel that there is really strong moral imperative
and ethical reason for returning wolves and therefore returning the ecosystem to more
complete and natural state.
In addition, Fashion says one of the main concerns of Adurondack citizens is whether
deer populations would be able to sustain both the wolves and the hunting industry. She
also says because the area is heavily wooded, it is not primed deer habitat. But addressing
many of these complex issues is not the goal of the tour. The focus is educating the public
and encouraging supportive reintroduction plans.
When the tour arrived in Albany, New York, hundreds of area residents showed up for the
educational gathering, two people that already had their minds made up about the wolves
were nine-year-old Chris and his younger sister Alex, who just think wolves are neat.
They eat things like tarot all up and stuff and they um, you can train them and stuff,
you can teach them so they won't harm other people.
So what about bringing wolves to the Adurondacks? If you lived in the Adurondacks, would you
want wolves living near you? Well, kind of.
Wolves like that aren't real vicious and stuff.
How about Alex, would you be scared? No.
But there are likely to be Adurondack residents who don't share the thoughts of Chris and Alex
and it's this fear that may keep wolves out of the Adurondack Park. Defenders of wildlife
and mission wolf officials hope the tour will help to dispel many of these fears. I'm
Steve and Wescott for the Environment Show.
We're talking green and I'm your host Peter Burley. Today we're talking about growth,
economists and political leaders often talk about growth as though it was some kind of
a holy grail. They preach that our lives and our societies and ourselves must be totally
dedicated to stimulating growth and maintaining it.
My guess you're a couple of activists who argue that growth per se may not be such a hot
idea and what we really need to do is to limit or stop growth. What do you think? Should
there be limits to growth and if so, what? Give us a call. Our number is 1-888-49-Green.
That's 1-888-49-Green. My guess, Durandie Kerr. He's the former Executive Director of
the Oregon Natural Resources Council. He says that's the organization that invented the
Spotted Owl and Andy Kerr joins us from Joseph, Oregon. Also with us is Pat Walk. She is
the Director of the Population and Habitat Campaign of the National Audubon Society. She joins
us from Boulder. Welcome to you both. Glad you're on the Environment Show.
Thank you. Thank you.
Andy, let's start with you. You keynote today recent national conference by calling on its
participants to just say no to growth. What did you mean by that?
Well, let me first set a thing. I'm in favor of growth. I think intellectual, emotional,
and spiritual growth, even quality economic growth is a good idea. But the basic economy
that says the only way the economy can grow and prosper is because more people are being
born and therefore consuming and more people are moving to a particular geographic area
is the only way to have economic growth. I just have to disagree with.
Now, when you talk about a society that's focused on more people consuming and arguing
that maybe that's not such a hot idea, that sounds like the sort of thing that some folks
say are middle and upper middle income, quite environmentalists basically saying they have
their section on the pie so they're not worried about everybody else. Pat Walk, how do
you respond to those folks?
Well, I think that the pressures that growth stimulate in a community, in a community
that's trying to live sustainably, don't have any racial boundaries or ethnic boundaries.
I think we're all suffering from it to some extent and we're certainly seeing it.
I mean, in a city that I live has very little diversity now because basically, you know,
there've been control of ungrowth, which there need to be done. But the control of ungrowth
that we're putting in place kind of pushed people out of the benefit of the city itself.
And so I think that we all have to be concerned about growth and its broad, in the broad
parlance because it's going to affect every single person who lives in any community around
the world.
But when you talk about controls on growth, what are you talking about? And do you think
they're a good idea or a bad idea?
Well, the kind of things that we've been talking about, let's talk about here in this country
specifically without talking about international, which is another sort of paradigm that you
could talk about. But in this country, we're talking about making communities livable and
sustainable over the long term. And so it's basically the community deciding what kind
of communities they want, what kind of housing they want, do they want open space, do they
want place for other species, do they want less pollution and clean water? I mean, it's
all the kinds of things that we have so for so long taken for granted.
But that sounds as I hear you, like better planning. And Andy, looking at your speech to
this recent convention, one of the things that you said, and I'm quoting now, is that
better plan growth as it relates to Argonne is simply going to produce a better plan
California and Portland will be a Los Angeles with light rail. You see some real limitations
to this whole planning notion. Well, planning, I mean, I think it's critical that we plan,
that we rationally like Tatset, let's kind of a community we do we want and let's
have been consciously strived towards that. But what we're finding in Oregon, that even
with good planning, efficient transportation systems and all kinds of, rather than just
unlimited sprawl, we still find that population growth, both Oregonians having too many kids
as well as too many out of state people moving here, is causing a pressure on the system
that we just can't have. And so, you know, developers will raise the spectra, but what
about the poor, which is really somewhat disingenuous in my view, they will say, we need
to be building all these houses and expand so there can be affordable housing. And yet,
they're building some pretty expensive houses, which are very expensive houses.
You know, there's more money in luxury homes than there is in affordable housing. And so,
where the developers go, they obviously go over the money. They say, we need to have a growth
related economy that will have all these houses and therefore the poor will rise with everybody
else. But yet, the developers in Oregon just shot down a proposal to require that any
new development have an affordable housing component with it.
So the developers aren't going to get us there, but one of the things I hear you saying is
that as long as population keeps growing, we have environmental and other difficulties
that we just aren't going to be able to get around. So, how do you deal with that issue?
You can take any size of a unit you want to talk about, whether it's your own home or
a watershed or a state or a nation or a planet. There's only so many people you can pack
into it before your quality of life starts to degrade. So we need to address population
head-on that humans are, there's too many of us and we're going to continue to increase
unless we do some things. We also need to address the pressures of growth. And what we find
in Oregon is that the taxpayers are paying about $25,000 in subsidies, infrastructure,
roads and schools, things like that to every new house that's coming in. So effectively
Oregonians are paying $25,000 for every new family that moves here.
So if you cut off that kind of a subsidy, and this I'm sure applies to places all over
the United States, do you get less sprawl and the kind of growth that you object to or
do you simply get housing all over the place without the infrastructure which I think
needs to be doing planning under any circumstances and try to limit sprawl. But the developmental
pressure that we're feeling, the growth is adding to traffic jam and congestion and air
pollution and things like that or more people coming in. So I think government should
be growth neutral. And if government, you know a lot of what we think economic development
is is stimulating growth. More people to move here and bring their money with them or
you subsidize corporations to bring jobs. When you pencil out it doesn't help the taxpayers
costing the taxpayers. So we need to, you know this is a vibrant economy that we have
in the United States and with productivity increases in new technology that's where we
need to be focusing our real growth not just on numbers of consumers moving into an area.
You know and we can do it. The economy changed dramatically after the end of World War
two is changing dramatically after the end of the Cold War. It's a we're a rich country.
We have choices in how we grow our economy. In Oregon we want to grow better or not bigger.
Let's look at the population issue once again. Pat, you and I were at the Cairo conference
which was the UN conference focused on population and development worldwide. And one of the
things that came out of that conference was the understanding that activists like you have
been talking about for many years is that to limit population growth when needs to improve
the status of women. Economic status, educational opportunities and the like. Now the United
States, while we're not as far as we could be, has provided at least a better shake for
women than an awful lot of economies and yet our population is still growing. So how do
you reconcile those circumstances? Well I'd like to make actually two points in that. One of
that one of those is that yes I think the plan of action that came out of Cairo was an
unique document. Anyone who has participated in any international conference is still
referred somewhat with awe, you know, the final document that was approved by 180 countries.
You actually had a lot of people at one place that came to an agreement on something.
Right exactly. So now the question is having done that again looking at the US because this
is something that I think most of us understand best. Is it proving to be accurate? Is in fact
the kinds of strides that we have made with respect to health care and opportunities for women
resulted in lower population growth? Well what I was going to say first of all was that
that blueprint does what didn't just apply to developing countries. Obviously everything
that was in that program of action can be applied to the United States and yes we have
better health care in this country but there are still vast areas in this country that
are under third and in some ways when you look at, you know, the various levels of population
growth and we're now looking at some projections that could say even if our birth rate in the
United States went up to 2.6 and we allowed sort of a maximum number of immigrants into the
country each year that we could double or more than double our population in the US right
now. So I think that- No and you say we could double it which would mean that that simply
would be the track that we are on or- That would be the track that we could be on right now
there's a lot of debate that's going on in two areas. One is are we meeting the fertility needs
of women in this country and I think the answer is no and recent cuts in Congress of Title 10 which is
you know family planning money for women in this country has probably undermined that even more.
We are going through a mini baby boom again the birth rate is- or the growth rate up to about 2.2
percent which is a little above what we call replacement level birth equaling death but we do
know that there are huge populations of women in this country right now who still don't get
service family planning services and therefore don't have the opportunity to really exercise and
decide how many children they have and I think that one other compelling piece that most of the
audiences around the country who listen to this will have some experience with one way or the
other is that we are in the midst of a teenage pregnancy epidemic and looking at the statistics
across the country it's very very frightening actually that's part of the growth rate so yes if
we get women educated if we provide women with contraceptive- the ability to plan their families
if we tell teenage girls that you know having sex and getting pregnant is you know is not the end
all of their lives that there are other opportunities out there on that one way we address the sort
of the fertility growth that's going on in this country. Okay I we have a little bit of time left
Andy I want to switch gears a little bit let's suppose that you became president of the United
States tomorrow given your thoughts about growth and where we should be going what would be your
short term agenda what would you do upon walking into the oval office?
Well there's clearly two components of growth who we're talking about is population and consumption
and we need to you know as Pat said we need to people that want to have kids ought to be able to
have kids but those who don't shouldn't be forced into it and we do that in this country and elsewhere
we also need I think to look at the role of government in economic development I think government
should be investing in people directly in terms of education and health care and important
things like that that allow these to be good citizens that can compete in a very rapid
they're changing economy well we've seen you've gotten into this government has the role of
sort of subsidizing corporations with tax breaks and incentives and then these corporations are
supposed to provide these jobs is a very indirect connection we got to be worried about people more
than corporation bottom line corporations either you know see any change in the attitude about
growth what you folks have been saying are things that members of the environmental community have
said for a while but haven't been able to sell to the public at large do you see that
situation changing in the near term well I personally do I mean I spend a lot of time going
across the country and now on this campaign we have you know field operations in a number of
dates and I think that that it is the one area in population where people really can graph
if they see their community changing in front of them and it's frightening to them and they want
to do something about it unfortunately I think that what we've gotten ourselves into a motive is
accommodating the growth rather than stopping it absolutely the debate in Oregon has been simply
where to put the growth not whether to occur and basically we're running out of choices there are
limits to our water supplies our air supply of the amount of land and things like that so if you
want to keep Oregon Oregon and anywhere near what it is now you can't just continue to grow
quantitatively more people more houses larger lots all of those kind of things have an effect on
water quality and quantity and wildlife habitat on the quality of life okay well I think our time is
up disputes about growth and questions about it I think are going to go on for a long time we've
been talking green and my guests have been Andy Kerr former executive director of the Oregon
Natural Resources Council and Pat Walk for the National Audubon Society give us a call and let
us know what you think about limiting growth our number is 1-888-49 green and I'm Peter Burley.
I'm Peter Burley and the Environment Show wants to hear from you give us your views by telephone
1-888-49 green by email green at wamc.org or reach us through our website where you can hear
the Environment Show anytime in your personal computer www.enn.com slash ENVSHOW.
you
we all have places that are special to us for summit to city street for others it's deep in the
wilderness. Allison Hawthorne Deming presents a portrait of her special place which is in the
high desert of the southwest near the San Juan River. Her recent book is entitled temporary
homelands essays on nature spirit and place it's published by Piccadour USA. After 26 miles of
insufferable dirt washboard through the high desert of the Navajo Nation I sneak through the
bolder lined pass down into Chaco Canyon a ragged gouge cut by the wash that spills south
when it runs from the San Juan River. Five p.m. the visitor center locked a gray haired ranger
pulling down the flag for the night oh sure he tells me go on ahead there are plenty of campsites
and for once it's true a modest campground no drinking water no snack bar no phone just two or
three small loops for trailers and one for walk-in campers the whole cluster tucked along the base
of a weather-worn limestone cliff I pitched my tent in the back end of a box canyon the site
fairly private offering a sandy tent pad picnic table a fire pit ringed with a hunk of corrugated
culvert campsite number 12 above graceful lacework worn in the limestone a network of melonsized
concavities where water has slowly switched away the rock cliffs while I was work the evening air
bringing insects back to the mud nests plastered under the overhangs the swallow's colony of
cliff dwellings looks exactly as the Peterson's Guide describes gourd-like jugs of mud each time a
bird swoops up with a delivery the excited peeping of chicks echoes out of the clay drums the rounded
forms of the nests seem to echo the rounded hollows washed into the rock maybe seeing those
hollows gave the birds the idea of building such structures how did the swallows figure out their
masonry technique by accident I suppose after centuries of picking up straw sticks and seed fluff
for nesting materials some geeky forebear of these evening flyers grabbed a few hunk of muddy grass
and its nest began to harden into something more secure than a pile of weeds still the distance
seems great the learning minutely incremental from that small act to this pollo of smoothly sculpted
mud nests as darkness begins to close around the camp black space starts opening the stars
winking forth one at a time no matter where or when people on earth have lived under palms
bayababs sugar maples or arctic sky they've known the same moon the same sheen of blackness
flecked with white the same shooting whispers of light that even as they disappear make us draw in our
breath and exclaim no matter the differences in what we believe we are seeing the experience of
scale and wonder must be at heart the same the questions of the night the same who are we how did
we come to be this wondering inward animal in a universe of stony silences why are we here where are we going
allyson hothorn deming is author of temporary homelands essays on nature spirit and place
published by picador us a
you
thanks for being with us on this week's environment show i'm peter burlin you can't
howl with wolves without a cassette copy of this program called one eight eight eight forty nine
green and ask for show number four zero nine the environment show is a national production which
is solely responsible for its content Alan shark talk is the executive producer producers are
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be good to the earth and join us next week for the environment show
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