This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the Earth and the beauty and
mystery of life in all of its forms. I'm Stephen Westcott sitting in as host this week
for Peter Burley will join us a little later in the program.
Coming up, from coast to coast, high speed rail projects are underway, will they reduce
traffic congestion and help the environment? Population experts say the 6 billionth human
will enter the world on or about the second week of October. Two experts talk about
whether the U.S. is doing its part to slow population growth. We put an ear to the ground
to hear about the efforts of the Wildlands project. And Chinook Sam and are swimming upstream
to spawn in Oregon. They've traveled 500 miles from the ocean to mate, but will soon die.
These stories and more coming up on the Environment Show.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Stephen Westcott. Smog is a problem that a lot of
cities have had to contend with over the years. Officials in California and the Los Angeles area in
particular have battled the problem for a long time. Cleaner burning gas, Alina's helped,
and a commuter rail system has been constructed in parts of LA in hopes of further reducing traffic
congestion and the pollution it causes. Now a high speed rail system is being proposed for parts
of the Golden State which could further reduce automobile emissions. Mark Brody reports on that
effort and a similar project in the Northeastern United States.
Officials in California are hoping to make the sound of an ordinary train obsolete.
The California State Legislature formed the state's high speed rail authority to plan for
the construction of a high speed train which would connect the northern and southern parts of the
state, starting and ending cities have yet to be finalized. The plan calls for between 6 and 700
miles of rail lines for trains capable of traveling at approximately 200 miles an hour.
The rail authorities executive director, Mette Morshed, says California is looking at a large
population increase within the next 20 years. People are going to travel. You have to provide them
with the facilities to serve their travel demand. We traditionally depend on automobile primarily for
people's travel and supplemented by airplanes for longer trips, but primarily we depend on
automobile. Is this the way we want to continue to live and if we did how much land, how much
air and how much energy would be using for those kinds of services? Morshed says according to
estimates, California could grow by as many as 18 million people in the next two decades.
And he says if people are going to travel, a high speed rail service is the most environmentally
friendly way to do it. That sentiment is shared by other proponents of high speed trains
and chettles with a high speed ground transportation association and international organization advocating
the use of high speed rail in North America and around the world. She says the level of transportation
congestion in the U.S. is reaching a critical state. We're looking at a definite problem in our
transportation alternatives. At this time we have tremendous gridlock on the roads, winglock,
as it's sometimes referred to in the air. We need to have an alternative and high speed rail
more and more people are realizing is that alternative. For the most part, high speed trains have
more supporters than opponents. John Holtz-Klauch, chair of the Sierra Club's National Transportation
Committee, says his organization is in favor of plans like the one in California, but he says there
are a few environmental concerns that should be addressed. Natural habitat not be disrupted,
either being split in half or allowing other species to get into areas of habitat and invade
those areas. The other concern that we have is that the stations not be surrounded by huge
parking lots and being inducement to sprawl. Both of those concerns have been addressed by the
California high speed rail authority executive director Morshed says more land would be taken if the
state decided to build more freeways. He says the issue of sprawl is a valid concern,
but Morshed says people are going to live where they want, regardless of whether or not there's
train service. California isn't the only high speed rail project on the table. Amtrak is currently
working in the northeast quarter on train service which can travel at speeds up to 150 miles an hour.
Jim Waddington of Amtrak says the Boston to Washington DC route is one of the most heavily
traveled in the country. He says high speed rail can have a substantial environmental benefit.
We're looking at it in reduction in terms of air traffic of about 1.5 million air passengers.
We're looking at a reduction in terms of highway traffic in excess of 2 percent which would
improve regional air quality. And in addition with the electrification from New Haven to Boston,
we're looking at running electric locomotives as opposed to diesel locomotives which we reduce
air pollution. Amtrak's plan for the northeast corridor is seen as a test of whether or not
passengers will use the new systems. But the high speed ground transportation associations and
Chetel says high speed rail service from Washington DC to New York City is more convenient than
traveling by plane. Let's say I were to fly to New York. I would have to take a taxi to the
airport which takes about 45 minutes. Wait in the terminal for at least an hour because it tell you
you have to. Then you have possibly face a delay. Then you take your flight which you know it's
only about an hour flight. But then you have to take another cab drive from New York,
La Guarere, Kennedy which will take you another 45 minutes to an hour. Well think about this way.
Your downtown already because you're probably working. Union station is about a 10 minute
either metro ride or cab ride. You don't have to wait. You take your train which takes about two
hours and you're in downtown New York City. You've eliminated at least three steps from your travel
time. That I think is one of the big sellers of high speed train. In the northeast Amtrak is
planning on having service running between Boston and New York City in October with the rest of
the northeast corridor not far behind. The next step in California is for the high speed rail
authority to try and sell the plan to the governor and state legislature. If that happens by the end
of the year, high speed trains could be running by the year 2020. Reporting for the Environment Show,
I'm Mark Brody.
Sometime in October, world population is projected to reach the 6 billion mark. This means there are more
than three times as many of us on the planet as there were at the beginning of the century.
Conventional wisdom teaches that limiting population growth is critical if we're to achieve a
sustainable planet and a higher standard of living for people in the developing world. Collectively
within the last decade, the nations of the world pledged to support policies to provide family
planning assistance on a global basis at both the UN conference on the environment and development
in Rio and subsequently at the UN conference on population and the environment held in Cairo.
Dramatic reductions in birth rates have taken place in a number of developing countries
like Mexico. The reductions are partly due to increased availability of family planning services.
Despite this, funding for international planning services is strongly opposed by some members of
Congress, so the United States has not fulfilled the commitments it made to the international community.
Peter Burley recently discussed current problems in funding for family planning programs with two
advocates who lobbied the issue on Capitol Hill. I'm speaking with Pat Walk from the National
Audubon Society and Dan Pelagram from Pathfinder International. When it comes to securing the funds
through the American political process for population programs, family planning programs,
foreign aid designed to limit population growth, we have had tremendous difficulties. Pat is a long
time lobbyist and a battle with a Congress. What does the situation look like now and what can be
done by folk who want to see greater U.S. effort expended in these programs? I'd like to start by
saying that one of the things that we need to remember is that when we went to Cairo five years
ago, we with other donors made a commitment to come up with one third of the money that needed to
be available for the Cairo agenda. When you say we, we are talking about the United States.
It's state government. We've just gone through a five-year review process and what that review
process has told us is that when the developing countries themselves agree to put up two-thirds
of their share, they have done so. But we being the donor countries have not met our promise or
our commitment of that one-third and the U.S. certainly has not. Our original commitment was
a level of equal to 0.7 percent of our growth national product. For those of us who've been working
on this for quite some time, we had hoped that by the year 2000, we would be up to $1.2 billion
in U.S. funding for international population and family planning services. Now that's to set the
target. The fact is that we have just, we have a bill now that may come up for a vote shortly
which basically appropriates $385 million plus an additional $25 million for the UN Population Fund.
So you can see that's a house bill. The Senate bill is a little higher than that,
$400 million for population and family planning services separately from the $25 million.
But you can see we're far, far below what we thought where we thought we would be. And the
battle has not changed much. I mean the same kind of rhetoric and arguments that went on say
five years ago over these programs and these services are the same arguments that are going on
today. Dan, do you see any means of shifting that or are we simply stalled in the water
until the card generation of political leadership in the Congress retires?
Well, I hope we're not stalled because we can't afford to be. The opportunity right now is
an incredible one with a billion of the world's six billion people being teenagers and moving
into reproductive years. It's a critical time for us to move the family planning agenda and to
advance the envelope on this issue. So I think we know people who care about this issue need to work
intensely to make sure that we're not stalled. But in fact, we have to acknowledge the truth.
They said it's free, but it's also a pretty bitter pill. The truth is that the US government
support for international family planning is declined by 30 percent in the last three years.
So we're not exactly headed in the, haven't been headed in the right direction. As my colleague
Pat Wachist just indicated, it's a bit better picture in this house and the Senate version would
even improve that slightly. But Pat, the way short of what we need to be. One of the problems we've
seen is that every time this issue comes up, it gets all wrapped up in the abortion question.
And family rights advocates have said, in terms of our international activity, we have no problem
making sure that none of this is applied toward abortions. And yet the matter still stalls.
Is there any way of getting that separation clear in the minds of the political powers so that
one could go forward with family planning? It'd be nice to get separated. I'm afraid our adversaries
like to connect it because they get more political mileage by keeping it connected. I get them
paratives to, I think, to point out that the delivery of family planning services in developing countries does
more to reduce the need for abortion services. And the reliance on abortion we can prove
is declined for contraceptive services are made available. So it's a counterproductive
effort. In Russia, once contraceptives became available in 1990, abortions fell by more than one third.
Pat, do you see any way politically of making this separation in the United States?
Well, I think that there are members of Congress who are representing very specifically certain
lobbies in this country who may have a problem with abortion, but ultimately I think that there's
a bigger problem that goes more deeply in terms of attitudes towards women and with a whole
separate discussion that we could have. But I think that what has to be done is that the American
public needs to understand what Dan just said. And that is that when family planning services are
available, it reduces the incidence of abortion. And that's been my experience in most developing
countries. The cases of abortion I've seen is where women had no other felt that they had no
other recourse. We need to educate people to that and they need to say to their members of
Congress, this is not about abortion. There are only two ways I see we can get a round of it.
There are people in the Congress we cannot convince because there are agendas are much bigger than
just the abortion issues. So we have to put as much pressure as we can on those who can understand
the difference and quite frankly perhaps get some other people to run for Congress.
Okay, I've been speaking with Pat Walk who is senior advisor to the National Audubon Society
on Population Issues and Dan Pellagrum, president of Pathfinder International.
The environment show is a national production. It's made possible by the W. Walton Jones Foundation,
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If you heard something you liked, we'd love to hear about it, or even if you heard something you
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12206, 318 Central Avenue, Albany, New York, 12206.
I'm Leah Fleming and this is Ear to the Ground, which stories about people affecting change
in the environment. This week, the Wildlands Project is an organization dedicated to preserving
ecosystems in the New Millennium. It's a group that provides services to the conservation
community. The Wildlands Project located in Tucson, Arizona, which was started nine years ago,
was created for the purpose of developing an agenda for the next millennium that involves
maintenance and restoration of nature throughout North America. That's according to Wildlands Project
President Harvey Locke. In the Wildlands Project's role is really to be a catalyst for the entire
conservation movement in this direction, and really pleased that we're having that kind of an
impact and that many other organizations are sort of embracing the Wildlands Project principles
and applying them on the ground in their regions, which is the idea from the beginning rather than
competing with other organizations we provide a service to the conservation movement. Locke says the
Wildlands Project was originally started by earth first members, a radical environmental group,
and some conservation biologists who were concerned with how to prevent the heightened extinction
crisis around the world. Currently, 20 members sit on the organization's international board.
They are scientists and environmentalists from other groups that are committed to improving
ecosystems. The way the Wildlands Project works on restoring nature is through what it calls
rewilding or creating reserve designs. Harvey Locke. These are science-based reserve designs that
have the goal of identifying where core protected areas should be for wildlife,
and where the corridor should be to connect those core areas to each other,
so that instead of having isolated patches around the landscape which become the
Lions of Extinction, we have a free-flowing web of life up and down and across the continent.
Reserve designs are done by scientists coming together and looking at what the various species are
saying, well, if we wanted to protect something like a grizzly bear, how much area do we need to do that?
Where are the key areas of habitat that we want to protect? And then how do we need to make sure
that it can move between one patch of habitat and another, or we'll take a bird and take a look at
the needs of that bird species and say, okay, well, that bird be best served by a reserve design
system that ensures that it can continue to survive and meet its needs for feeding and finding
mate. The Wildlands Project scientists have developed a conservation theory and works with about
25 groups from the UK to Central America to assist the groups work out logistics on a project
and funding. Primary issues surrounding Wildland conservation are the loss of wilderness and
the loss of secure wildlife habitat according to Locke. The more roads and the more persecution you
have of animals, the less likely they have of surviving. But this is particularly so for large
carnivores like grizzly bears and wolves and cougars. And although cougars can survive if they're
not persecuted more easily than the others. And so the idea of the Wildlands Project is to say,
well, how do we meet the needs of these animals like large carnivores? Because not only are they
important for themselves, but there's also at least in some systems, natural systems, a clear
connection between large carnivores being present and the health of the entire ecosystem, not just the
large carnivore like the grizzly bear of the wolf, but also all the things and I'll do living
things in the system. In the past some conservation has been done without focusing on all the elements,
and the result has been that we lose other species when we don't maintain a mix of all the species.
For example, from the west coast of North America. Where there are no sea otters, which is a carnivore,
the sea urchin population explode and when the sea urchin population explode, they eat all the
kelp and when all the kelp is gone, all the various fish species that live in kelp disappear.
So the key to maintaining the healthy west coast environment right along the edge of the ocean
there is kelp and the key to maintaining kelp is sea otters. So what we are interested in is
maintaining all the elements in the landscape and where they are not present if we want to rewild or
put them back in. For example, in Yellowstone, the wolf was recently reintroduced after being
gone for a long time. You reintroduce the wolf and that has interesting effects on restoring the
health of the system. It's made the elk more wary. There's some evidence that the willows along
the streams are coming back because the elk were down there eating the willows more than they
probably should. The result of putting the wolves back in is the elk are more wary and the
willows are recovering. The coyotes numbers are going down and the number of
things the coyotes eat are going up and that's increasing the population of birds in the sky
like hawks and so on apparently. So it's pretty exciting how these dynamics work.
Locke says the typical situation is that landscapes are most affected where there are the most people.
So Locke includes that the Gulf of the Wildlands project in the new millennium is to keep the landscape
wild where it is wild and renew landscapes where species have disappeared, whether you're to the
ground. I'm Lea Fleming.
And now it's time for the Earth Calendar. In the northeastern corner of Oregon,
Shunuk's salmon are beginning to swim upstream to spawn. The fish are migrating out of the large
deep pools in the middle fork of the John Day River which is a tributary of the Columbia River.
The salmon spent the summer in the pools conserving energy for the spawning season.
That's according to Christian Torgerson, a fish ecologist and PhD candidate in the department
of fisheries and wildlife at Oregon State University. The salmon move out of their
water habitats and locate areas with coarse gravel where there's usually some subsurface flow
to keep aeration going in the eggs and they dig a red which is the word for a salmon nest
by using their tail and digging out a depression in the bottom of the stream.
And then that's the female who does that first and she waits there for males to come along.
Christian says the females then begin sizing up possible mates.
The female has to be convinced that the male is worthy. So they'll be fairly complex behavioral
interactions between the male and female as the male approaches the red and sees her and she sees
him and if she's convinced that he is the one and sometimes it takes the male can be actually
fighting with other males to convince the female that he's the best, the biggest and the strongest.
And when that happens the female lays her eggs and the male is right there next to her when
she lays the eggs and he releases the milk or sperm to fertilize the eggs.
Scientists call this form of reproduction external fertilization. Typically female
shanook salmon will deposit 3,000 to 14,000 eggs in the gravel. Once the eggs are fertilized,
mama uses her tail to cover them up with rocks. Males and females die after spawning and their
carcasses become food for a variety of species and add nutrients to the aquatic ecosystem.
The yonkshinook salmon develop using nutrients in a yoke sack and eventually emerge in the early
spring. These fry will emerge from the gravel and depending upon the the amount of cover and
the amount of eddy eddies in the system, these fry will move downstream with the current,
but they will live and grow in the headwaters of the middle fork janday until fall when they're
a little bit bigger and ready to leave the smaller tributaries for the bigger rivers.
Torgerson says juvanileshinook salmon called smalts are about 8 inches in length at one year of age.
They're growing and undergoing changes that will allow them to move from fresh water rivers
to the ocean. These shanooks remain at sea until they are 4 to 5 years old. At that age,
they'll begin the 500 mile trip from the ocean to the middle fork of the janday river.
Habitat loss and other forces have contributed to the decline of this population and now only 100
to 150 are returning annually to spawn. Shanook salmon are amazing creatures. Sometimes swimming
20 miles a day they have a tremendous drive to reach the spawning grounds. Also many shanook salmon
return to the site where they were born to spawn. It's a unique characteristic considering
the animals have no compasses or maps to help them. And it's a good thing humans did not acquire
this trait. Imagine how long the lines would be at doctor's offices. You're listening to the
environment show and I'm Stephen Westcott.
You're listening to the environment show and I'm Stephen Westcott still ahead. Can we cut
emissions, improve the environment and promote job growth at the same time? The world wildlife
fund says we can but some industry representatives remain skeptical. Freesing DNA, test tube gorillas
and mating Sumatron rhinos, they're all part of efforts to help species from becoming extinct.
In the first of a two-part series on endangered species breeding programs, we look at what's
happening at the Cincinnati Zoo and the Autobahn Institute in New Orleans. It's a lot more than just
sticking a male and female in a cage with the hope that they like each other. And we listen to the
comment line, stay with us.
We are Tuckin Green and I'm Peter Burley. Today we're going to be asking the question whether we can
cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the threat of climate change and what impact that will
have on the U.S. economy. At the UN conference on climate change almost three years ago in Kyoto,
the United States and countries of Western Europe agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 7%
below 1990 levels and they said they were going to do that by the year 2010. Since then,
our emissions have actually gone up and the Kyoto agreement which was vigorously opposed by
major players in both the U.S. energy and manufacturing sectors has been a subject of continuing
dispute. Those who opposed it argued that to achieve the reductions, jobs would be lost and the
U.S. economy would be put into a tailspin. Recently, the World Wildlife Fund has published a study
which shows that by meeting the Kyoto commitments, the U.S. economy and employment could actually
grow and that we could double the reduction and grow even more. So to discuss this, we have two
experts with us, Jennifer Morgan. She is Climate Campaign Director for the World Wildlife Fund.
It's an environmental organization which published the report and Glenn Kelly. He's executive director
of the Global Climate Coalition. It's made up of trade associations and private companies.
It's a group which has been skeptical about global warming projections and also opposed the
Kyoto agreement in its current form. What I'd like to do is start with you, Jennifer, from World
Wildlife, you say an aggressive global warming policy could produce both savings and jobs. Tell us
a little bit about how you come to that conclusion. Sure. What we asked the Tele-S Institute in Boston
and Economic Sinstitute to do was to look at where we could achieve some reductions in the economy,
where are their gaps, where are their inefficiencies, and what types of policies would we need to put
together to bring our emissions down and what would the economic impact be and how that would
that impact jobs. What we found was that by making our cars and trucks more efficient, our power plants
more efficient, we could actually reduce emissions quite significantly and put money back in people's
pockets. For example, if you don't have to pay as much at the gas pump for your gasoline, for your
sport utility vehicle or for your car, that's more money you can spend somewhere else.
Or if you don't have to spend as much money on your utility bills because the utility is burning
energy more efficiently, that's other money that you can put in your pocket and spend elsewhere
in the economy. So what we found was actually that by going beyond the targets that are
required in the Kyoto Protocol, that there would be as much as a 43 billion per year
gain for the US economy and 870,000 new jobs created, which would add up to about $400 more per household
for every American home. Glenn Kelly from the Global Climate Coalition, you folks see this
totally differently as I understand it. What is wrong with the analysis that you've just heard?
Well, we do appear to see it quite a bit differently. I've read the report and have to say
it's very well written, but unfortunately, as a number of fantastic assumptions in terms of the
types of policies and the kind of progress that we could make in a very limited period of time,
all the credible economic analysis, excuse me, that we've seen to date, indicates, including
from the Clinton administration, very substantial harms to the US economy from Kyoto like targets.
All right, now take me through that specifically. How does the economy get hurt if you do the kinds
of things that Jennifer is talking about? It doesn't get hurt if you do it the right way, and it's
a long-term approach. Our member companies are presently trying to find ways to have more efficient
performing automobiles, more efficient uses of energy that will in the long run save money and
create additional jobs. That's already underway. The problem is if you've got a short-term
target timetable like the Kyoto Protocol, Protocol calls for, 2010, and you mandate those
reductions. That's where you started interfering with the US economy.
Jennifer, the argument about mandates is that when you tell people to do something, they
don't like it, and if they do it by themselves, they get there faster and more efficiently.
What kind of assumptions do you make in your study about that?
Well, we basically went on a sector-by-sector basis and looked at, for example, in the transportation
sector, the fact that cars and the requirements for how efficient, how many miles per gallon,
a car has to get on a gallon of gasoline, that those requirements haven't been updated
since the mid-70s. What we assumed was that there would be a requirement, a policy that would
say that cars had to be made more efficiently. Actually, we're seeing that happening right now
by a couple of Japanese automakers that are putting cars on the market this year and next year
that will get 50, 60 miles per gallon. In our study, we actually only assume that it would go
up to 42 miles per gallon. That's one example of what we thought was a realistic proposal out there
that would close that gap and bring the technology forward with the auto-manufacture,
being able to figure out how to make those changes, but that they would be mandated to do so.
And it seems that some companies are already moving that way in the US. The Ford Motor Company,
it seems, is developing the technology to improve their fuel economy of their trucks by as much
as 15%. So it's there. It's on the shelves, but what we're saying is we need a little bit of extra
UMPIE regulation to get it off the shelf and give consumers the choice to have more efficient cars
and trucks. Glenn, is it your view that this simply shouldn't be happening through government
intervention or that it just can't happen for kinds of savings that would be required to meet the
Kyoto Accords can't be achieved? Well, you've done. Using Jennifer's example there, it's already
happening right now, not with government intervention, but with government partnership. US automakers
are currently producing in partnership with the government new generation vehicles that are going
to get to much higher levels of fuel economy standards over time. Some of the advances are being
made right now and our as Jennifer says on the shelf. Problem is, is they're extraordinarily expensive
to produce the technologies that are going into this or not mark or not just they're just not ready
for the market at this time. Now, they're big, big, big. Sure, Amy, are somewhat skeptical because I
remember when seatbelts were going to be so expensive you couldn't put them in and airbags were
going to be so expensive. I mean, we've heard it all. Why is the auto industry more credible this time
than it was when it said all those things before that turned out to be not so? Well, I've got to let
the auto industry speak for itself. Think back to the price of an Nintendo when it first came out,
it's quite a bit. Home computers were quite high. Over time, these prices come down and consumers
are able to afford them. But if you mandate, you start mandating the consumers have to buy these
mandated automobiles before they're ready for the market, the costs are going to hit the
pocket books pretty hard. Well, but they are ready for the market. I think that's the difference
here. That Toyota is putting the Prius on the market at a reasonable price of $17,000, which is a
car that's going to get probably 55 miles per gallon. That's what it's tested in the US. So the
technology is there and it seems to me that the US auto manufacturers are just going to get in
the situation again that they had in the 70s where they don't meet the challenge and US technology
is left behind. And what our reporter saying is, well, let's get that US leadership out there
and ensure markets for US products across the world so that Honda and Toyota vary solid companies
and I applaud them for their efforts, but that they're not getting all the market share.
I'd like to shift this slightly because we are talking about achieving the Kyoto levels with
either economic growth or economic failure, depending on whose side of this you take. Since about
half of our electricity is generated by coal and I think everybody agrees that coal is one of the
big emitters of greenhouse gas emissions specifically CO2. How did you, Jennifer, look at the
electrical situation as you made projections about meeting Kyoto levels and saving money at the same
time? Well, what we did in an electric sector was put in a cap on the emissions of carbon dioxide,
sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, and then fine particulate emissions so that you get a benefit in
air pollution and global warming pollution at the same time. Now, for people who don't understand
that you just said we will legislate the amount that you can spit out. That there would be a law
passed. Right. And how do you look at that, Glenn, remembering that the older plants or grandfather,
they don't have to meet the standards of new plants. Do you oppose regulatory action that might
achieve some of this? Well, it's important to point out in terms of this whole discussion about
what the Kyoto Protocol calls for and what it does not call for. The utility industry here in the
United States will have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by I think the numbers are close to 170
million tons through efficiency and process improvements by the year 2000. They're taking actions
and voluntary actions. It's important to bear in mind that Kyoto Protocol leaves out developing
countries like China and Mexico and Brazil, where these types of regulations would not apply to
the same types of coal producing power plants there. So I don't know what kind of economic benefit
or environmental benefit we get by taking on those obligations alone. Now, is it your argument
that since other people are not yet on board that we should not go through the exercise of
reducing emissions? Is that what I heard you saying? No, I think, you know, as we've pointed out
for a number of years now, the Kyoto Protocol excludes a lot of developing nations that these
regulations would not apply to and we would witness quite clearly in history would prove the point.
I'm sure complete migration of some of the larger industries in this country to countries
where had less costly regulatory programs and with those industries would go to jobs and the
income since Port America now holds. Jennifer, where do you come out of Manorwood? Well, I think it's
important to look at this on two sides. First of all, economic analysis by the World Resources
Institute shows that the sectors that actually have energy costs, which is what we're talking
about here, as a major part of their expenditures are very small. We're talking about things like cement,
aluminum, very energy intensive sectors that are less likely to pick up and move from the United
States than others. And the second piece of that is that what I said before that I think that there
are tremendous opportunities in markets around the world and if the US does not move ahead and develop
the technologies, they're going to be losing market share and actually having an economic loss
over the next number of years. You know, if you really look at the electricity sector and you
look back to the asset-rained debate and how much it was supposedly going to cost then to bring
down those emissions up to $25 billion according to some estimates. Now, it's $1 billion. It's under a
billion dollars. So I think we're in the midst of this, he said kind of a... Okay, let's do
he said, she said on another issue. In your report, Jennifer, you talk about jobs and you indicate
not only would we be 870,000 jobs ahead if we moved more aggressively to curb gas emissions,
but that there would be again of 94,900 in California, 67,000 in Texas and 49,000 in New York.
Where do those numbers come from? Those numbers are basically taken from the national numbers and then
we took a series of estimates or series of indicators. We looked at the differences in energy
prices in states. We looked at the level of energy consumed for each dollar of economic activity
in the state, so how much do you spend on energy? And then we looked at the number of energy-related
jobs as a percentage of how many jobs there were totally in the state and went down from there.
So it's a rough estimate of the breakdown from that 900,000 number to a state-by-state
assessment. Obviously jobs are the currency of the day and a political season. Glenn, what would
you say to a presidential candidate who says, look at these great job numbers, should I go this
route? I would point out to the again all the the credible economic studies that have been done
to date, including the study by the Clinton Administration Zone Energy Information Administration
work that we've had done through another economic forecasting firm that predicts completely
opposite of what Jennifer reports California job loss at 278,000, Texas 125,000 in New York,
140,000 jobs lost. Again, these are consistent with the administration's own numbers.
Now to get an understanding of where they come from, Jennifer, I gather you're talking about an
increase which you see new technology will create as people are building more stuff than more
efficient machines and that sort of thing. The job loss that you see Glenn comes from what?
It's a complete reduction in the use of energy mandated that leads to much higher consumer cost,
much higher production costs and migration of businesses overseas where those jobs are going
to go because it'd be cheaper to do business and make products to sell back here in the United States.
Just one point here, I mean first of all there's a number of studies that are very consistent with
this tele-study including the National Academy of Sciences, the Office of Technology Assessment,
all of the national labs that have put out that are very consistent with these types of studies
that the tele-s Institute has done. And the other really important point is to look at the assumptions
of these different models. To my knowledge, the studies that Glenn is talking about basically take
a top-down approach where they put a tax, a high energy tax and that's the one tool that they use
to change behavior to try and meet this Kyoto target. And then they don't use the money generated
from that tax for anything else. We've been discussing the economic impact of meeting the Kyoto
standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I want to thank our guests, Jennifer Morgan from the
World Wildlife Fund and Glenn Kelly from the Global Climate Coalition. We know that you have some
thoughts about that, so give us a call. Our telephone number is 1-888-49-Green. Again, we've
been talking green and I'm Peter Burley.
Are you concerned about the health of the planet? We want to hear what you have to say.
Contact us via email. The address is green at wamc.org. That's green at wamc.org. Our website
addresses www.enn.com slash env show. That's www.enn.com slash env SHOW.
Scientists across the globe say the planet is experiencing the largest mass extinction of plant
and animal species since the dinosaur age. Habitat loss is a major cause and now some countries
are trying to preserve ecologically sensitive areas. In addition to conservation efforts,
scientists are looking to another tool as a way to bring species back from the brink of extinction.
They are endangered species breeding programs operated by zoos and other research facilities.
Dr. Terry Roth is director of research at the Cincinnati Zoo and botanical garden. She is also
head of crew, the center for research of endangered wildlife located at the zoo. Roth says researchers
at crew are using a variety of techniques to propagate species that are threatened. Natural
methods are being combined with modern technologies to breed somatron rhinos. If somatron rhinos are
if you introduce a male and a female when the female is not receptive for breeding, we can get some
very fierce aggressive fighting that goes on between the two. In captivity and a smaller enclosure,
that becomes very dangerous to the animals. What we needed to do was learn how to determine when
that female was going to be receptive to a male and would breed with a male and introduce them only
on that particular day or day. We've used all of our research to learn about the reproductive cycle
of the female smog and rhinoceros. And now we time our introductions for breeding and their
timed introductions and it's based on actual research, hormone values and data about what's going
on on the ovaries of that animal. Often times zoos will borrow animals from other zoos in hopes of
introducing males and females that will mate. Some animals like the rhinoceros are bred strictly
for captivity, meaning they'll spend their lives in a zoo. But some animals such as a native of
Wyoming that is declined in numbers are being bred for introduction into the wild by facilities
like the Cincinnati Zoo, according to Dr. Roth. Here at crew we're doing quite a bit of work
with amphibians now. And for example the endangered Wyoming toad is one of the species that we've
worked on quite a bit. And in that case when we produce padpoles or toadlets those animals are already
being reintroduced into Wyoming. Besides natural breeding artificial insemination the process where
sperm is collected and inserted into a female is a method being used by scientists. Another is
in vitro fertilization that's the so-called test tube baby where sperm and eggs are taken mixed
in a test tube and inserted into a surrogate mother. In vitro fertilization appears even more promising
to some as crew and others create their own cryopreservation facilities. These are large freezers or
frozen zoos where sperm, eggs and other DNA material from plants and animals can be stored for future
use. The Cincinnati Zoo currently has about 60 animal and 1000 plant species in its frozen zoo.
Bill Swanson, head of crew's animal research division, has been using this method to help wildlife
officials in South America reproduce a particular cat that is threatened with extinction. Again Dr.
Roth. And we have quite a number of embryos now that we've been able to produce and freeze and
we're about to take that last big step which is to transfer some of those embryos to recipient
offlots to try and produce offspring. So he has been able to produce offlots by artificial insemination
and we're now just trying to get the in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer system to work.
So we're right at that point we've got the embryos in our frozen zoo and we'll probably be
transferring them in the next couple of months actually. The Anobon Institute and New Orleans
Louisiana, not affiliated with the National Autobahn Society, is considered to be one of the world's
leaders in the breeding of endangered species. In 1996 the institute created acres or the
Anobon Center for Research of Endangered Species. The 38,000 square foot facility was constructed
mostly with $15 million from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Dr. Betsy Dresser, a senior vice
president of Research at Acres, the world renowned scientist actually worked at the Cincinnati Zoo
before joining the Acres team. Dresser and her colleagues are credited with producing the first
test tube lowland gorilla baby through in vitro fertilization. The staff was also the first to
transport frozen embryos from one continent to be inserted to wild animals in another. Last year
they took frozen embryos from captive bongo antelopes which are rare over to Africa. They inserted
them into eland antelopes, a species that's numbers are stable. Even though no elans gave birth
to bongo antelopes, Dr. Dresser and her staff will try again in the coming weeks.
We had an interest in trying to do embryo transfer in antelope and what we decided to do was try to do
what we call inter species embryo transfer where you transfer embryos of a very rare or threatened species
into a common species, a serigant mother if you will. They have to be close relatives. We found out.
What we want to do is use the eland as a serigant and we were able to do that in captivity.
And so now what we're doing is we're taking embryos from New Orleans to Kenya and we're taking
bongo embryos in a frozen state and we're transferring them into eland there which will be
eventually released into the wild and hopefully these babies will be born into the wild.
Dresser has had previous success with inter species breeding such as propagating endangered Indian
desert cats by using domestic cats as serigant mothers. She admits that not every program is successful
and says whenever you have a new science you'll encounter failures and setbacks. But the science
gained by dresser and others who are breeding endangered species will undoubtedly expand our
understanding of what humans will be able to do in the future as more plant and animal species are
lost. Dr. Dresser believes cryopreservation will play a key role. And I think it's stewards of
wildlife. I think we need to be greatly concerned that we have got to develop some new methods
of reproducing these species and keeping those species once we reproduce them and I think that's
why this whole if you look at the technology this whole frozen zoo concept is so important because
really what you're doing is you're freezing the DNA of these animals. They're not taking up
space in zoos or who knows with with all the destruction of wildlife habitat what's going to
happen is me and really going to wake up and save it or or we're just going to overpopulate
this planet. I think this whole frozen zoo concept has something to be to be seriously considered and
that is we can revive these species if we know how to freeze them and and uh, fall them.
The idea of freezing embryos and bringing them back to life in the future may be unsettling to
some folks. It brings to mind a scenario depicted in the movie Jurassic Park where frozen DNA
material is used to produce formerly extinct creatures that then begin gobbling up humans.
This is unlikely to happen anytime soon but it leaves one to wonder what could happen as humans
manipulate genetic material is restoring biodiversity on the planet worth any risks involved.
If lower forms of life are dying out will we begin trying to propagate them too? If habitats are
gone does propagating species make sense where should all of this money be directed to preserving
ecologically sensitive areas? In part two of our series on endangered species breeding programs
we'll hear about efforts at the Bronx and San Diego zoos and look at some of the other big issues
involved in saving plants and animals from extinction.
Time now to hear what some of our listeners are saying. Here Susan R. Better.
A listener by the name of Janice called our comment line after hearing a talking green discussion
on whether conservation efforts in the United States contribute to deforestation.
I was much interested in the story about lumber being in the throughout the world
but I was surprised that there was absolutely no mention of recycling of papers.
How significant is that I'm lugging my papers to the recycling center regularly here that I
wonder if it's important to do that. A listener named Steve heard Peter Burley's discussion with Bill
Nye, host of the public television program Bill Nye, the science guy. He had this to say.
We need a lot more Bill Nye's in our public school systems that makes science and learning
fun because he might move a little fast for some of the old people but I'm telling you what,
he can't move fast enough for the problems in America with young people not taking an interest
in the world around them. Bill keep going, Bill. Woo-hoo-hoo! That!
We appreciate all your comments, questions and suggestions. You can reach our comment line by
dialing 1-888-49-Green. That's 1-888-49-Green. For the Environment Show, I'm Susan R. Better.
Thanks for being with us on this week's Environment Show. I'm Stephen Westcott,
high-speed rail, family planning, restoring ecosystems, mating Chinook salmon,
and breeding Bongo antelopes. We covered a lot of material if you didn't digest it all,
get a copy of the show for your notes. By calling 1-800-323-9262, that's 1-800-323-9262,
and ask for show number 508. The Environment Show is a national production which is solely
responsible for its content. Alan Shartock is executive producer, Peter Burley is host and creative
director. The Environment Show is made possible by the W. Walton Jones Foundation, the William Bingham
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Bible of the Collector Car Hobby, www.heming.js.com. Be good to the earth and join us next week for the
Environment Show.
