perm filename EARTH.NS[W90,JMC]1 blob
sn#883742 filedate 1990-04-16 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ā VALID 00005 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002 a260 1905 30 Mar 90
C00015 00003 a008 2300 01 Apr 90
C00023 00004 a058 0506 03 Apr 90
C00032 00005 a218 1319 03 Apr 90
C00043 ENDMK
Cā;
a260 1905 30 Mar 90
BC-EARTH-Adirondacks, Adv 01,1212
$Adv01
For Release Sunday, April 1, and Thereafter
Adirondack Battle: 'Millions of Acres for Bugs, Little for People'
Eds: This is another in a series of stories planned in advance of
20th anniversary observances for Earth Day in April.
With LaserPhotos
By ELIZABETH EDWARDSEN
Associated Press Writer
NORTH CREEK, N.Y. (AP) - For this time of year, it was a deceptively
warm day. Tall pines and hemlocks reached for a cloudless sky. Big,
thick-coated dogs sprawled along dusty roads. Locals walked to lunch
in shirtsleeves.
But breaking through the still mountain air was the rhythmic thwack
of hammers, the whine of drills, the beep of heavy equipment backing
up and the roar of bulldozers.
In North Creek these days, modern ''townhouse communities'' seem to
sprout from the mountainsides more thickly than wildflowers, and a
developer is reshaping two blocks that make up nearly half of the
business district in this tiny Adirondack village.
This kind of development has environmentalists worried about the
future of the Adirondack Park, a 6 million-acre tract of forest and
mountains bigger than any other state or national park in the lower
48 states.
But it also represents the kind of economic revitalization that some
North Creek natives, like restaurant owner Francis Smith, have been
waiting for. Smith's Restaurant, a pine-paneled coffee shop and
tavern, has been in his family since the early 1920s.
''I'm a businessman, so to me the development is a good thing,''
said Smith, sitting in a worn red vinyl-padded booth. ''On the other
hand, there seems to be just too much construction going on. Maybe
it's going overboard.''
How much is too much is on the minds of many in the Adirondack Park,
a vast patchwork of private and public land, much of the latter
guaranteed by the state constitution to remain ''forever wild.''
The state regulates all new development in the park through a
21-year-old land-use plan. Its provisions have made for plenty of
strife among those wanting to protect the park's undeniable beauty,
those trying to make a living and a home within its boundaries, and
those looking to make money exploiting its riches.
With the 20th anniversary of Earth Day just three weeks away, the
battle over land use in the 98-year-old park has flared in
anticipation of a report, to be presented to Gov. Mario Cuomo on
Sunday, from the Commission on the Adirondacks in the 21st Century.
Cuomo cited increasing property values, development and land
speculation last year when he appointed the commission to help map
the park's future.
In 1969, a similar commission appointed by then-Gov. Nelson
Rockefeller devised what was at the time considered a bold plan to
control development seen as a threat to the Adirondack wilderness.
Of the park's 3.5 million acres of private land, 53 percent was
restricted to having just one house for each 43 acres. Home sites of
7 1/2 acres were mandated for an additional 35 percent. The remaining 12
percent of private land fell into six various use categories.
The plan slowed development immediately but bred contempt among many
local residents, officials and developers. The next several years
were a time of angry words, broken windows, slashed tires and
punches. Mounds of animal waste were delivered to the Adirondack Park
Agency, the state body set up in 1973 to regulate development.
Bad feelings are welling again as many Adirondack people anticipate
the Cuomo commission will recommend even stricter land use controls.
''When these people were picked (for the commission) we knew their
position,'' said Francis Casier, a 71-year-old Saranac Lake builder.
''The state has designated 1.5 million acres as wetlands for grasses
and bugs, but only a few thousand acres for human beings,'' he said.
''The highest and best use for our land should be for homes and
amenities for people and their families.''
Development would bring jobs and money to a region where ''the
quality of life is great, as long as you don't need to spend any
money,'' said Barbara Delczeg, who works for the Gore Mountain Region
Chamber of Commerce.
The per capita income of the 130,000 park residents is just 72
percent of the state average. It's about 94 percent of the average
for the state's rural counties.
''We need this growth so much,'' said Delczeg. ''We need the jobs,
we need the money. We need it to survive.''
North Creek isn't the only place ringing with the sounds of
development and dissent.
In Lake Placid, a developer wants to rebuild the Lake Placid Club, a
rambling, turn-of-the-century hotel that is on the National Register
of Historic Places but has fallen into disrepair. But the development
would include hundreds of luxurious second homes and a golf course.
''We're seeing increased development pressure everywhere,'' said
Eric Siy of the Adirondack Council, a regional environmental group.
''If we don't act now, we may not have a park by the year 2000.''
The Adirondack Council advocates a two-year building moratorium in
much of the park, as well as major additions to the park's wilderness
and wild forest areas. They say developers, fearful about the Cuomo
commission recommendations, are rushing to build while they still
can.
Development and subdivision applications submitted to the Adirondack
Park Agency will rise by 75 percent, from 631 in 1989 to about 1,100
this year, agency Executive Director Robert Glennon predicts.
The commission itself, in an interim newsletter, gave a strong
indication that tighter controls might be in the cards.
''Controls once seen as daring and stringent are now considered weak
and ineffective,'' the newsletter said. ''Environmental policies and
laws once heralded as being on the cutting edge of environmental
protection now seem outdated.''
George Davis, executive director of the Cuomo commission, helped
create the current Adirondack land-use map while working for the
Rockefeller commission. Davis said the original plan failed to
foresee that wealthy city dwellers in the 1990s would be able to
afford ''little mini-wildernesses'' - 50-acre building lots for
second homes that fit the land-use restrictions.
Like Davis, Casier has noted the impact of rich second-home owners.
''People come in from the city and they want their little piece (of
the Adirondacks),'' said the developer. ''The minute they get their
little piece, they don't want anyone else to have a little piece.''
But he regards George Davis as ''an enemy of Adirondack people.''
The lot-size limitations have made it almost impossible to build
affordable housing in the region, Casier said.
To keep things affordable and save jobs, some environmentalists are
concentrating less on halting development and more on persuading
officials to expand the state easement acquisition program. Under
this, the state buys development and recreation rights to a parcel of
land, but the property owner keeps title and can use the land for
timber production.
The easements, cheaper than buying the land outright, also give the
state more for its money, said Neil Woodworth of the Adirondack
Mountain Club. And, he noted, even when loggers are finished with the
land, the state will control the development rights.
''A lot of the land we need to preserve, to protect from
development, is also land critical to the forest products industry
and provides an awful lot of jobs,'' Woodworth said. ''So
(preservationists) can't just buy it all up.''
End Adv for Sunday, April 1
AP-NY-03-30-90 2142EST
***************
a008 2300 01 Apr 90
PM-Earth Day, Bjt,0722
Organizers Using Earth Day to Raise Consciousness About Environment
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A worldwide celebration of the environment will
envelop this battered and polluted planet this month, and by all
accounts Earth Day '90 will dwarf its namesake of two decades ago.
Even corporate America wants to get involved.
Planning for the environmental extravaganza has been in the works
for more than a year. President Bush has proclaimed April 22 Earth
Day, and governors and mayors across the country are issuing similar
proclamations.
That spring Sunday comes exactly 20 year after Earth Day '70 ushered
in the modern environmental movement.
Denis Hayes, a California lawyer who was instrumental in the first
Earth Day activities and is chairman of Earth Day 1990, says he wants
this year's event to be more than a birthday party.
The goal is ''to galvanize a new outpouring of public support for
environmental values'' and grab the attention of ''a new generation
of activists in the environmental struggle'' of the coming decade and
the next century, he says.
Earth Day 1990, the corporate entity that is coordinating Earth Day
activities, has refused sponsorship from most corporations. And the
Environmental Protection Agency, reacting to complaints from
environmentalists, scrapped plans for an industry-financed $1 million
''Earthfest'' on the National Mall to publicize corporate
environmental initiatives.
''There's a legitimate argument going on,'' says Tina Hobson,
executive director of Renew America, a group that has both business
and environmental ties. ''Who has the right to participate in Earth
Day? Only those who are clean environmentally ... or anyone? I take
the side that everyone is entitled to participate.''
Christina Desser, executive director of Earth Day 1990, responds:
''We made a decision early on that Earth Day was a day for people,
not a day for corporate publicity or corporate rehabilitation.'' She
says many companies may promote environmentally sound programs on the
one hand, but at the same time fight to defeat environmental
legislation or continue to be a major polluter.
Jeremy Rifkin, who for years has been among the most militant of
environmentalists, is more critical. ''The corporations are
attempting to steamroll and take over Earth Day to sell products and
to cash in,'' he maintains.
Organizers say there will be events in 130 countries, ranging from
simple nature walks and teach-ins to massive outdoor rallies.
His group, working with a budget of $3 million, has amassed a
130-page calendar of events planned for Earth Day.
Among them:
-Elementary school students in Arizona will plant hundreds of trees.
-Many communities will close streets to motorized traffic and open
them to bicyclists.
-Operators of chemical plants will hold open houses.
-The elephants at the National Zoo in Washington will crush aluminum
cans to promote recycling.
A rival group - called Earth Day '20 - has organized representatives
of the United States, Soviet Union and China for a climb up Mount
Everest to dramatize the need for international cooperation in
dealing with today's global environmental problems.
Gaylord Nelson, a former senator who founded the first Earth Day,
said this year's celebration will likely be ''the largest grassroots
demonstration in history.''
Nelson, a longtime conservationist who now is counselor to the
Wilderness Society, says the goal of Earth Day '90 should be to
create such a stir that it ''shakes the political leadership of the
world out of its lethargy'' and forces it to deal with the globe's
environmental problems.
Ruth Caplan, who as a mother of two young children participated in
the 1970 Earth Day celebration, said the momentum created by the
first Earth Day has slowed.
''We must have activism in the 1990s if we are to prevent disaster
in the next century,'' says Ms. Caplan, now executive director of the
Environmental Action Foundation, a Washington-based environmental
group.
Many Fortune 500 companies are planning events, often in conjunction
with their employees or local community leaders, to mark April 22 as
a day for the environment, and many trade groups have been advising
their members how to play up environmental issues on both the federal
and local level.
The enthusiasm has not grabbed everyone.
''What Earth Day is going to be is an anti-technology,
anti-business, anti-Western civilization orgy by people who have no
serious concern about environmental objectives,'' complains Fred
Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
AP-NY-04-02-90 0146EDT
***************
a058 0506 03 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Keeling's Curve, Adv 04,0868
$Adv04
For Release Wednesday PMs, April 4, and Thereafter
Lone Scientist Provides The One Certainty In Global Warming Debate
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - How fast will global warming raise Earth's
temperatures? How much will temperatures rise? Will coastal cities be
flooded by rising sea levels?
At the center of the stormy debate over the greenhouse effect, one
bright area of calm remains: Charles Keeling's curve.
The curve is a record of the slow, inexorable climb of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere during the past 30 years.
Keeling, a chemist at the University of California at San Diego, has
made it his life's work to develop the most detailed and accurate
measurements possible of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide traps the sun's heat in the atmosphere, and Keeling's
curve charting its rise is at the heart of the debate over how much
the Earth's temperature is likely to rise, and how fast.
''Today this ever-lengthening record, Keeling's Curve, provides a
sort of time-lapse X-ray movie of the workings of the spheres, a
surprising inside view of our planet's metabolism,'' says writer
Jonathan Weiner.
Weiner tells the story of the self-effacing Keeling for the first
time in a lucid and compelling book, ''The Next One Hundred Years.''
Keeling, Weiner says, is measuring ''the breathing of the world.''
Keeling's findings are sobering. The amount of carbon dioxide in the
air has increased by 12 percent just since 1958.
Thanks to Keeling's thoroughness, that figure is ironclad.
Researchers debate the effects of that rise, but they don't argue
with Keeling's numbers.
For his part, Keeling sticks to his work. He hasn't played a large
role in the national debate, which has grown in intensity as the 20th
anniversary of Earth Day approaches April 22 and concern over the
environment increases.
But he does have words of warning for those who wave off the fuss
and argue that the Earth's temperature may not be climbing.
''To suppose it isn't going to go up at all would indicate that
somehow the Earth just naturally gets this warm and then stops
warming,'' Keeling said in a telephone interview.
''There shouldn't be any reason we know of that the Earth wouldn't
continue to warm up,'' he said. ''Furthermore, we know from
geological history that it was warmer once upon a time. So logic
suggests that the greenhouse warming has to take place. But how much
warming? And how soon? What's demanded now by political realities is
some fairly hard numbers, and those are not forthcoming.''
The average temperature of the Earth is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit,
Keeling said. With no carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it would be 0
degrees, and the Earth would be a frozen wasteland unable to support
human life.
The rise in carbon dioxide is due largely to the increasing use of
fossil fuels - coal and oil - during the industrial age, Keeling
said. As carbon dioxide has risen, the production and burning of
fossil fuels also has increased, he said.
''In fact, the shape of the (carbon dioxide) curve looks very much
like the shape of the curve for fossil fuel production,'' Keeling
said.
Research also suggests the Earth's temperature is rising, but
researchers can't be sure. Despite all the concern about global
warming, no one is making an effort to measure temperatures the way
Keeling measured carbon dioxide.
''There is no explicit program to measure air temperatures to look
for these changes,'' he said. Airport temperatures are distorted
because they are taken close to cities.
''The way around that is to establish some very good stations that
are not near cities,'' he said.
A government agricultural weather monitoring network that could be
adapted for that purpose is being cut back to save money, Keeling
said.
''They're compromising the system we already have just at the time
you'd like to know if it's getting warmer,'' he said.
Keeling now is busy trying to determine how variations in the sun's
heat affect carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. As always, he sticks to
the data.
''I don't think I'm in a position to make a strong stand on the
greenhouse warming effect,'' he said.
But he does place himself with those who ''see danger ahead.''
''There are people who say the Earth is robust and there's a
technological fix for almost anything,'' he said. Keeling is not
among them.
''I do subscribe to the position that most of the things we would do
if we were worried about the greenhouse effect are worth doing - for
instance, conserving energy,'' he said.
Beyond that, Keeling won't venture an opinion where he doesn't have
sound, scientific data to back him up.
How much will Earth's temperatures rise, and how fast?
''I have personal feelings on it, but they tend to change as I hear
what other people say,'' he said. ''I can be pushed around like all
the rest of you as new facts come to light.''
End Adv for Wednesday PMs, April 4
AP-NY-04-03-90 0751EDT
***************
a218 1319 03 Apr 90
AM-People,1092
People in the News
LaserPhoto NY44
---
HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) - Scott Carpenter, one of America's first
astronauts, says the United States needs to embark on a new space
mission - to planet Earth.
The astronaut-aquanaut told a Hastings College audience Monday that
if the world doesn't take action soon to preserve the forests, air,
streams and oceans of ''spaceship Earth,'' life as we know it will
not survive.
Carpenter said viewing Earth from the window of his spacecraft in
1962 allowed him to see the grand order of the universe and the
''excruciating beauty but extreme fragility'' of the planet.
---
BOSTON (AP) - People who want to change society violently and those
with a peaceful approach are worlds apart, says philosopher and
author Sissela Bok.
Mrs. Bok was interviewed Monday by public television executive Bill
Moyers at the 41st annual meeting of the Council of Foundations.
More than 1,800 philanthropists from around the world are attending
the three-day meeting of the organization for more than 1,000
American philanthropies and grant-makers, who want to promote
organized philanthropy.
''The greatest difference in the world is not so much the balance
between East and West, or the different religions, but within each
tradition between those who want to take a violent road to social
change and those who want to take a non-violent approach,'' said Mrs.
Bok.
She is author of ''A Strategy for Peace,'' teaches philosophy at
Brandeis University, and is the wife of Harvard University President
Derek Bok.
a095 0948 05 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Offshore Oil, Adv 10,0865
$Adv10
For Release Tues PMs, April 10, and Thereafter
Oil Company Reforms Emerge As Hot Political Issues
Eds: This is another in a series of stories planned in advance of
20th anniversary observances for Earth Day this month.
By MICHAEL FLEEMAN
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Even an environmental debacle like the Huntington
Beach oil spill generates its own kind of gallows humor, including
this joke among residents:
Question: What do you get when you mix oil and water?
Answer: Politicians.
In this case, it seemed as if there were one politician for every
barrel of oil washing up on Surf City U.S.A.
So many politicians took to the blackened sands of Huntington Beach
to condemn the Feb. 7 spill from the ruptured American Trader tanker
that Mayor Tom Mays had to ask them to go through his office first so
they wouldn't interfere with the cleanup.
In this election year, talking tough against the oil companies, with
proposals to ban offshore drilling and to enact strict tanker safety
measures, adds up to smart politics.
For the first time in a decade, environmentalists, politicians and
even some oil industry executives expect this 20th anniversary year
of Earth Day to bring sweeping reform to the oil industry.
The reform movement is being pushed by oil spills in Alaska,
California, New York, New Jersey and Louisiana and a growing feeling
among Americans that more should be done to protect the environment.
Possible changes include requiring double hulls and bottoms on
tankers, shifting shipping lanes farther offshore, better charting of
the ocean bottom, improving procedures for oil spill cleanup, and
putting a fourth year-long moratorium on new offshore drilling.
''The interest in the general public in protecting the coastline is
at an all-time high,'' declared Ann Whitfield, executive director of
the Florida Public Interest Research Group.
The oil industry, meanwhile, worries about an overreaction that
could stifle U.S. oil production and return the country to the days
of oil embargoes and gas lines.
But even many oil officials concede more must be done to avoid
spills and to minimize damage when they occur.
''While it is impossible to guarantee that future accidents will
never happen, we are committed to working to prevent them and to
improving the industry's safety record,'' said James Benton,
executive director of the New Jersey Petroleum Council.
Benton spoke at a recent meeting between oil executives and
officials of New York and New Jersey, where four major spills in the
first 10 weeks of 1990 dumped almost 730,000 gallons of heating oil
and heavy crude into the Arthur Kill and Kill van Kull waterways
between New York City and northern New Jersey.
The first major reform is under consideration in Washington.
Legislation pending in Congress would require double hulls and double
bottoms on tankers. Engineers speculate that a double hull could have
prevented the Huntington Beach spill, apparently the result of the
tanker striking its own anchor, and lessened the effects of the Exxon
Valdez disaster, in which the tanker ripped open on a reef in
Alaska's Prince William Sound.
Eyes are also on President Bush, who pledged in his campaign to be
the ''environmental president,'' to see whether he will try to
reinstate oil and gas drilling in federal waters after the moratorium
expires this year.
The issue is of particular importance in California, where oil
companies have proposed developing millions of acres off the coasts
of central and Northern California. Off Florida, companies want to
drill in tracts north of the Keys.
Many member of Congress say that if Bush decides to resume
additional drilling, they are prepared to seek another moratorium.
''The administration is in a quagmire in the sense that the politics
of California, a very crucial gubernatorial race and the president's
own commitments in the state are in conflict with president's gut
instincts as a former oilman on offshore drilling,'' said Rep. Leon
Panetta, D-Monterey.
Some of the most active work on oil industry reforms is going on at
the state level.
Even before the Huntington Beach spill, the environment was a hot
political issue in California. All three candidates for governor -
U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, state Attorney General John Van de Kamp and
former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein - have tried to one-up
each other in pledging love for Mother Earth.
Wilson, a Republican, is a longtime opponent of offshore drilling,
so much so that his stance strained relations with the White House in
the early months of the administration.
In addition, state Controller Gray Davis and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy
say their re-election is important to maintain their 2-1 lock on the
three-member State Lands Commission - and a virtual ban on additional
drilling.
''I'm a strong environmentalist and I'm committed to remaining a
good steward for California's magnificent coastline,'' Davis said.
''It doesn't take a genius to see that if you change one or two
people on that board you change the direction of California's
coast.''
End Adv for Tues PMs, April 10
AP-NY-04-05-90 1232EDT
***************
a028 0137 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair,0617
Industry Shows Best Environmental Face; Greenpeace Grumbles
'Greenwash'
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - There is an $18 light bulb that lasts seven years
and uses one-fourth less energy. And a solar powered car. And don't
forget Mr. R.E. Cycle, a dummy made of recycled plastic bottles and
bags.
In two large tents stretching more than a block in the Capitol's
shadow, corporate America is showing off its best environmental face
in a five-day technology fair.
Some environmentalists were hardly impressed as the fair opened
Wednesday on the national Mall. Several members of Greenpeace
handcuffed themselves to a support pole near the Du Pont Chemical Co.
exhibit. They were among 19 Greenpeace members who were arrested for
demonstrating without a permit, according to the U.S. Park Police.
''Corporate America has begun a campaign to paint themselves
green,'' said Peter Bahouth, executive director of Greenpeace USA. A
Greenpeace banner proclaimed: ''Don't Be Fooled - Industry
Greenwash.''
Bahouth complained that while some of the exhibits by more than 100
companies and trade associations might be environmentally beneficial,
many of the same companies are guilty of pollution and environmental
neglect in other aspects of their businesses.
But organizers of the fair - dubbed Earth Tech - maintained that
many of the exhibits demonstrate business' interest in making
environmental improvements.
''I don't think that you can make anything these days without using
energy or polluting the environment. The question is how much,'' said
Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., co-chairman of the fair's organizing
committee.
The Earth Tech program was said by organizers to have cost about $1
million, mostly paid by exhibitors.
The participants included Fortune 500 companies such as Du Pont and
AT&T but also some lesser knowns such as Oil Stop Inc., which says it
has invented a new type of boom to capture oil spills - the
''self-energizing oil containment system.''
It's so compact, said company official Richard Lazes, that a
5,000-foot spool could be put on a tanker and unwound within minutes.
That much boom would have surrounded the Exxon Valdez, he said.
While several oil companies ''are excited about it, they've made no
commitment yet,'' he added.
Producers of solar, thermal and wind-generated energy were
prominent, as were companies in the rapidly growing industry of waste
management and disposal - and, of course, recycling.
Some exhibits approached the exotic: a solar-powered car that had
traveled across the country; a model of a ''wind plant'' to show that
wind power already is generating millions of kilowatts of power in
parts of California; and the $18 electric bulb that lasts seven
years, won't break and uses one-fourth less energy than a
conventional bulb.
''That's equivalent to not burning 400 pounds of coal over the life
of the bulb,'' said Steve Waxman of Philips Lighting Co. The ''Earth
Light'' isn't available in hardware stores yet but may soon be, he
said.
At the Du Pont exhibit, displays touted the company's efforts to
push for plastic recycling.
That's where visitors could find Mr. R.E. Cycle - his limbs made of
beverage and detergent bottles, a torso of a recycled plastic bag and
his head a milk bottle, also of recycled plastic. He sat on a
wood-like bench made of plastic waste.
At another booth, the American Wood Preservatives Institute and the
National Timber Piling Council passed out saplings wrapped in paper
and ready for planting. The industry over the years has been
criticized by environmentalists for polluting in its production of
chemically treated lumber products.
But they too had a good environmental story to tell, noting the
longevity of treated lumber. ''Treated Wood Saves Trees,'' read the
white and green buttons next to the rows of saplings.
AP-NY-04-05-90 0424EDT
- - - - - -
a078 0740 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair, 1st Ld, a028,0078
Industry Shows Best Environmental Face; Greenpeace Grumbles
'Greenwash'
Eds: SUB lead to CORRECT that light uses one-fourth of energy of
normal bulb, not one-fourth less
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - There is an $18 light bulb that lasts seven years
and uses only one-fourth of the energy. And a solar powered car. And
don't forget Mr. R.E. Cycle, a dummy made of recycled plastic bottles
and bags.
In two:
AP-NY-04-05-90 1037EDT
- - - - - -
a079 0745 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair, 1st Ld, CORRECTION, a078,28,0089
WASHINGTON SUB 13th graf: Some exhibits xxx bulb to CORRECT that
light uses one-fourth of energy of normal bulb, not one-fourth less
Some exhibits approached the exotic: a solar-powered car that had
traveled across the country; a model of a ''wind plant'' to show that
wind power already is generating millions of kilowatts of power in
parts of California; and the $18 electric bulb that lasts seven
years, won't break and uses one-fourth of the energy than a
conventional bulb.
''That's equivalent: 14th graf
AP-NY-04-05-90 1040EDT
***************
a028 0137 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair,0617
Industry Shows Best Environmental Face; Greenpeace Grumbles
'Greenwash'
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - There is an $18 light bulb that lasts seven years
and uses one-fourth less energy. And a solar powered car. And don't
forget Mr. R.E. Cycle, a dummy made of recycled plastic bottles and
bags.
In two large tents stretching more than a block in the Capitol's
shadow, corporate America is showing off its best environmental face
in a five-day technology fair.
Some environmentalists were hardly impressed as the fair opened
Wednesday on the national Mall. Several members of Greenpeace
handcuffed themselves to a support pole near the Du Pont Chemical Co.
exhibit. They were among 19 Greenpeace members who were arrested for
demonstrating without a permit, according to the U.S. Park Police.
''Corporate America has begun a campaign to paint themselves
green,'' said Peter Bahouth, executive director of Greenpeace USA. A
Greenpeace banner proclaimed: ''Don't Be Fooled - Industry
Greenwash.''
Bahouth complained that while some of the exhibits by more than 100
companies and trade associations might be environmentally beneficial,
many of the same companies are guilty of pollution and environmental
neglect in other aspects of their businesses.
But organizers of the fair - dubbed Earth Tech - maintained that
many of the exhibits demonstrate business' interest in making
environmental improvements.
''I don't think that you can make anything these days without using
energy or polluting the environment. The question is how much,'' said
Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., co-chairman of the fair's organizing
committee.
The Earth Tech program was said by organizers to have cost about $1
million, mostly paid by exhibitors.
The participants included Fortune 500 companies such as Du Pont and
AT&T but also some lesser knowns such as Oil Stop Inc., which says it
has invented a new type of boom to capture oil spills - the
''self-energizing oil containment system.''
It's so compact, said company official Richard Lazes, that a
5,000-foot spool could be put on a tanker and unwound within minutes.
That much boom would have surrounded the Exxon Valdez, he said.
While several oil companies ''are excited about it, they've made no
commitment yet,'' he added.
Producers of solar, thermal and wind-generated energy were
prominent, as were companies in the rapidly growing industry of waste
management and disposal - and, of course, recycling.
Some exhibits approached the exotic: a solar-powered car that had
traveled across the country; a model of a ''wind plant'' to show that
wind power already is generating millions of kilowatts of power in
parts of California; and the $18 electric bulb that lasts seven
years, won't break and uses one-fourth less energy than a
conventional bulb.
''That's equivalent to not burning 400 pounds of coal over the life
of the bulb,'' said Steve Waxman of Philips Lighting Co. The ''Earth
Light'' isn't available in hardware stores yet but may soon be, he
said.
At the Du Pont exhibit, displays touted the company's efforts to
push for plastic recycling.
That's where visitors could find Mr. R.E. Cycle - his limbs made of
beverage and detergent bottles, a torso of a recycled plastic bag and
his head a milk bottle, also of recycled plastic. He sat on a
wood-like bench made of plastic waste.
At another booth, the American Wood Preservatives Institute and the
National Timber Piling Council passed out saplings wrapped in paper
and ready for planting. The industry over the years has been
criticized by environmentalists for polluting in its production of
chemically treated lumber products.
But they too had a good environmental story to tell, noting the
longevity of treated lumber. ''Treated Wood Saves Trees,'' read the
white and green buttons next to the rows of saplings.
AP-NY-04-05-90 0424EDT
- - - - - -
a078 0740 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair, 1st Ld, a028,0078
Industry Shows Best Environmental Face; Greenpeace Grumbles
'Greenwash'
Eds: SUB lead to CORRECT that light uses one-fourth of energy of
normal bulb, not one-fourth less
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - There is an $18 light bulb that lasts seven years
and uses only one-fourth of the energy. And a solar powered car. And
don't forget Mr. R.E. Cycle, a dummy made of recycled plastic bottles
and bags.
In two:
AP-NY-04-05-90 1037EDT
- - - - - -
a079 0745 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair, 1st Ld, CORRECTION, a078,28,0089
WASHINGTON SUB 13th graf: Some exhibits xxx bulb to CORRECT that
light uses one-fourth of energy of normal bulb, not one-fourth less
Some exhibits approached the exotic: a solar-powered car that had
traveled across the country; a model of a ''wind plant'' to show that
wind power already is generating millions of kilowatts of power in
parts of California; and the $18 electric bulb that lasts seven
years, won't break and uses one-fourth of the energy than a
conventional bulb.
''That's equivalent: 14th graf
AP-NY-04-05-90 1040EDT
***************
a028 0137 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair,0617
Industry Shows Best Environmental Face; Greenpeace Grumbles
'Greenwash'
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - There is an $18 light bulb that lasts seven years
and uses one-fourth less energy. And a solar powered car. And don't
forget Mr. R.E. Cycle, a dummy made of recycled plastic bottles and
bags.
In two large tents stretching more than a block in the Capitol's
shadow, corporate America is showing off its best environmental face
in a five-day technology fair.
Some environmentalists were hardly impressed as the fair opened
Wednesday on the national Mall. Several members of Greenpeace
handcuffed themselves to a support pole near the Du Pont Chemical Co.
exhibit. They were among 19 Greenpeace members who were arrested for
demonstrating without a permit, according to the U.S. Park Police.
''Corporate America has begun a campaign to paint themselves
green,'' said Peter Bahouth, executive director of Greenpeace USA. A
Greenpeace banner proclaimed: ''Don't Be Fooled - Industry
Greenwash.''
Bahouth complained that while some of the exhibits by more than 100
companies and trade associations might be environmentally beneficial,
many of the same companies are guilty of pollution and environmental
neglect in other aspects of their businesses.
But organizers of the fair - dubbed Earth Tech - maintained that
many of the exhibits demonstrate business' interest in making
environmental improvements.
''I don't think that you can make anything these days without using
energy or polluting the environment. The question is how much,'' said
Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., co-chairman of the fair's organizing
committee.
The Earth Tech program was said by organizers to have cost about $1
million, mostly paid by exhibitors.
The participants included Fortune 500 companies such as Du Pont and
AT&T but also some lesser knowns such as Oil Stop Inc., which says it
has invented a new type of boom to capture oil spills - the
''self-energizing oil containment system.''
It's so compact, said company official Richard Lazes, that a
5,000-foot spool could be put on a tanker and unwound within minutes.
That much boom would have surrounded the Exxon Valdez, he said.
While several oil companies ''are excited about it, they've made no
commitment yet,'' he added.
Producers of solar, thermal and wind-generated energy were
prominent, as were companies in the rapidly growing industry of waste
management and disposal - and, of course, recycling.
Some exhibits approached the exotic: a solar-powered car that had
traveled across the country; a model of a ''wind plant'' to show that
wind power already is generating millions of kilowatts of power in
parts of California; and the $18 electric bulb that lasts seven
years, won't break and uses one-fourth less energy than a
conventional bulb.
''That's equivalent to not burning 400 pounds of coal over the life
of the bulb,'' said Steve Waxman of Philips Lighting Co. The ''Earth
Light'' isn't available in hardware stores yet but may soon be, he
said.
At the Du Pont exhibit, displays touted the company's efforts to
push for plastic recycling.
That's where visitors could find Mr. R.E. Cycle - his limbs made of
beverage and detergent bottles, a torso of a recycled plastic bag and
his head a milk bottle, also of recycled plastic. He sat on a
wood-like bench made of plastic waste.
At another booth, the American Wood Preservatives Institute and the
National Timber Piling Council passed out saplings wrapped in paper
and ready for planting. The industry over the years has been
criticized by environmentalists for polluting in its production of
chemically treated lumber products.
But they too had a good environmental story to tell, noting the
longevity of treated lumber. ''Treated Wood Saves Trees,'' read the
white and green buttons next to the rows of saplings.
AP-NY-04-05-90 0424EDT
- - - - - -
a078 0740 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair, 1st Ld, a028,0078
Industry Shows Best Environmental Face; Greenpeace Grumbles
'Greenwash'
Eds: SUB lead to CORRECT that light uses one-fourth of energy of
normal bulb, not one-fourth less
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - There is an $18 light bulb that lasts seven years
and uses only one-fourth of the energy. And a solar powered car. And
don't forget Mr. R.E. Cycle, a dummy made of recycled plastic bottles
and bags.
In two:
AP-NY-04-05-90 1037EDT
- - - - - -
a079 0745 05 Apr 90
PM-Environmental Fair, 1st Ld, CORRECTION, a078,28,0089
WASHINGTON SUB 13th graf: Some exhibits xxx bulb to CORRECT that
light uses one-fourth of energy of normal bulb, not one-fourth less
Some exhibits approached the exotic: a solar-powered car that had
traveled across the country; a model of a ''wind plant'' to show that
wind power already is generating millions of kilowatts of power in
parts of California; and the $18 electric bulb that lasts seven
years, won't break and uses one-fourth of the energy than a
conventional bulb.
''That's equivalent: 14th graf
AP-NY-04-05-90 1040EDT
***************
a201 1011 05 Apr 90
AM-News Digest,0738
AMs AP News Digest
For Friday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Dan Murphy (212-621-1602). The LaserPhoto
Desk supervisor is Chuck Zoeller (212-621-1900).
US-SOVIET:
Bush, Gorbachev Set Summit for May 30-June 3 in Washington
WASHINGTON - President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S.
Gorbachev announce they will meet for a five-day summit in the United
States beginning May 30, weeks earlier than originally planned. There
will be ''time for a lot of dialogue and a lot of discussion,'' Bush
says.
Slug AM-US-Soviet. Developing.
By Tom Raum. LaserPhoto WX14, Baker meets with Shevardnadze.
Analysis: Time Short if Summit to Be Productive
WASHINGTON - The United States and the Soviet Union have seven short
weeks to put together a summit package of nuclear weapons cutbacks
and American help for the sluggish Soviet economy. Germany and
Lithuania also loom large on the leaders' agenda.
Slug AM-Summit-Analysis. 600 words. News Analysis.
By Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid.
EAST GERMANY: New Parliament Begins Work on Unification
EAST BERLIN - The nation's first freely chosen Parliament meets in
the hall that was once the domain of the fallen Communist regime and
begins the painful process of leading the drifting nation into
unification with West Germany.
Slug AM-East Germany. Developing.
By Mark Fritz. LaserPhotos BER2, Christian Democrats' Chairman
Lothar de Maiziere arrives at church before parliament meeting; BER4,
de Maiziere signals during parliament session; BER6, new parliament
speaker surrounded by well-wishers.
CHINA: Official Rallies Block Pilgrimages to Tiananmen Square
BEIJING - Authorities stage all-day rallies in Tiananmen Square on
Thursday, China's annual day for mourning the dead, preventing
unofficial pilgrimages to the symbolic center of last year's crushed
democracy movement.
Slug AM-China. Developing.
By Kathy Wilhelm. LaserPhotos NY30, People's Army soldier patrols
Tiananmen Square; BEJ6, soldier blocks television photographer.
SOUTH AFRICA: Mandela Meets de Klerk, Homeland Leaders Abstain
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - In a major setback to peace hopes, leaders
of four black homelands cancel talks with President F.W. de Klerk on
ending unrest and dismantling white-minority rule. De Klerk plans to
meet with Nelson Mandela.
Slug AM-South Africa. Developing.
By Sahm Venter. LaserPhoto CPN1, de Klerk meets with Zulu leader.
Laserphoto staffing Mandela meeting.
ABORTION: If Early and Voluntary, No Threat to Mental Health
WASHINGTON - Legal, voluntary abortion in the first trimester of
pregnancy poses no threat to the mental health of most women,
according to a new study supported by the American Psychological
Association.
Slug AM-Abortion-Psychology. New. 650 words.
By Science Writer Paul Recer. For release at 6 p.m. EDT.
SPECIAL DIET: Gerber Makes a Formula for One
NEW YORK - For a few days this month a quarter of the floor space at
a Gerber Foods plant in Michigan will be given over to a product with
a market of one: Raymond Dunn, a profoundly allergic 15-year-old who
cannot survive without a baby formula Gerber stopped making in 1985.
Slug AM-Gerber Boy. New material, will stand. 650 words.
By Rick Hampson. With LaserPhoto.
SAVING EARTH: Too Many Rich People?
PITTSBURGH - One American does 20 to 100 times more damage to the
planet - and one rich American 1,000 times more damage - than one
person from Bangladesh or Venezuela, a population expert tells a
conference on global environmental problems. ''Actually, the problem
in the world is that there is much too many rich people,'' said Paul
Ehrlich, author of ''The Population Explosion'' and Stanford
University professor of population studies.
Slug AM-Population Boom. New, will stand. 700 words.
By Tara Bradley-Steck.
SPACE TELESCOPE: Hubbles Hobnob on the Cape
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The Hubbles are coming, along with the
Hubbells and maybe even a couple of Hubbels, for a family reunion
toasting next week's launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. They're
relatives of astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble, whose discovery of the
expanding universe gave rise to the Big Bang theory of creation.
Slug AM-Hubble Reunion. New, will stand. 700 words.
By Marcia Dunn. LaserPhoto NY34, filer of Dr. Edwin Hubble.
AP-NY-04-05-90 1258EDT
***************
a227 1409 05 Apr 90
AM-Population Boom, Bjt,0728
Americans' Affect On World Environment Enormous, Expert Says
By TARA BRADLEY-STECK
Associated Press Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) - One American does 20 to 100 times more damage to
the planet than one person in the Third World, and one rich American
causes 1,000 times more destruction, a population expert said
Thursday.
''The most serious population problem in the world is right here in
the United States,'' said Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University professor
of population studies.
''The most common misperception of the population problem is that
it's a problem of poor Indians who don't know how to use condoms,''
he said. ''Actually, the problem in the world is that there are too
many rich people.''
Ehrlich and other environmentalists spoke to about 1,200 students,
teachers, garden-club members and corporate executives at a
conference on solving global environmental problems.
He said the current world population of 5.3 billion is 1.8 billion
more than in 1968 when he first prophesied the problems of
overpopulation in his book ''The Population Bomb.''
He and his wife, Anne Howland Ehrlich, who co-wrote the current
book, ''The Population Explosion,'' say this decade will be the
turning point for global environmental problems.
''If we don't see some real action in this decade, it will probably
be too late to avert some very serious problems'' including
inadequate food production, global warming, species extinction and
deforestation, said Mrs. Ehrlich, associate director for the Center
for Conservation Biology at Stanford.
Ehrlich railed against highly developed nations like the United
States that he claims consume too much of the world's resources.
''The birth of a baby in the United States is something on the order
of 20 to 100 times more disastrous for the life support systems of
the planet as the birth of a baby in poor countries like Bangladesh
or Venezuela,'' he said.
Most developing countries fall within the range, with Bangladesh
among the poorest and Venezuela among the richest Third World
countries, Mrs. Ehrlich said.
She said she and her husband based the figures on 1987 statistics
compiled by the United Nations on per capita commerical energy
consumption, an index used by environmentalists to measure damage to
the Earth.
''If it's a (rich) baby, it could be a thousand times more,'' Erlich
said. ''Actually, the problem in the world is that there is much too
many rich people. ... It's not how many people you have but how those
people behave.''
People who drive gas-guzzling luxury cars, air-condition their homes
and live from what Ehrlich calls
''high-intensity-the-hell-with-tomorrow agriculture'' do far more
environmental damage than subsistence farmers, he said.
But he was not promoting the idea that Americans should adopt a
peasant lifestyle.
In highly affluent Sweden, the average person uses about 60 percent
as much energy as consumed by the average American, Ehrlich said.
''We are super consumers and very unselective, and we're
extraordinarily incompetent and sloppy with our technologies,'' he
said.
Several environmentalists at the conference echoed Ehrlich's
assessments on overpopulation and his claim the world is running out
of time to find solutions.
''You cannot address the problems soon enough,'' said George
Woodwell, president of the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole,
Mass.
''We are driving the Earth into impoverishment. We are living on its
capital,'' he said. ''We're eating up the standing stocks of trees
and nutrients and soil in the process of feeding the current 5.3
billion people on Earth. In doing that, we make the Earth less
capable of supporting people in the future.''
In terms of global warming, the United States, with about 5 percent
of the world's population, produces 25 percent of the world's output
of carbon dioxide, believed to contribute to the greenhouse effect,
said Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and
professor of botany at Washington University in St. Louis.
''Chicago puts out as much carbon dioxide as China,'' he said.
''It's a peculiar world. The people at the top are consuming far, far
more than a vast number of people at the bottom.''
The environmentalists suggested couples have no more than two
children, buy efficient appliances and cars and organize politically.
''The bright side is we know societies can change very rapidly when
the time is right,'' Ehrlich said.
Woodwell said President Bush could lead the nation in that effort.
''We can only hope one Bush will experience a rapid greening this
spring,'' he said.
AP-NY-04-05-90 1655EDT
***************
a057 0602 07 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Pollution Prevention, Adv 09,0804
$Adv09
For Release Monday PMs, April 9, and thereafter
America's Landmark Environmental Laws Have Failed, Book Says
With LaserPhoto
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - The staggering $1 trillion the United States has
spent on pollution control during the past 20 years has done little
to clean up the environment.
Emissions of air pollutants, which were supposed to have been cut 90
percent, are down only 18 percent. Emissions of nitrogen oxides,
potent contributors to acid rain, have actually increased by 4.2
percent.
With a single exception, efforts to control pollution have failed,
and Congress is making the same mistakes again as it struggles to
pass a new clean air bill, says the scientist and activist Barry
Commoner, who helped launch the landmark environmental legislation of
the 1970s.
As the 20th anniversary of Earth Day approaches on April 22,
Commoner is looking back on those early efforts in a new book
entitled ''Making Peace with the Planet.''
''I was very active in bringing all of this about,'' he says. ''And
you have to ask yourself, 'What good have I done?' You come to the
conclusion that all that we've been doing has had a minor effect.''
With the one exception: lead.
''Lead has gone down 94 percent,'' Commoner says. ''What's more, the
levels in children's blood have come down. This is a real
achievement.''
What did we do right with lead that we failed to do with nitrogen
oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide?
The answer is that lead was eliminated from gasoline. There was no
need for controls; lead simply wasn't being injected into the
environment any longer.
In the case of the other pollutants, an attempt was made to control
their release, not eliminate them.
''What it says is controls don't do the job,'' Commoner notes.
''Environmental pollution is an incurable disease that can only be
prevented.'' The same thing happened earlier with DDT. Levels of DDT
in the environment have dropped sharply in developed countries,
because its use was eliminated. If efforts had been made to control
it - rather than eliminate it - those efforts would have failed,
Commoner maintains.
Commoner, 72, directs the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems
at Queens College in New York City. His 1971 book, ''The Closing
Circle,'' was a best-seller that nourished the public's growing
appetite for information on the environmental crisis.
In the 1970s, Commoner focused on the harmful environmental effects
of the energy crisis. In 1980, he ran for president as the candidate
of the Citizens Party, a coalition of reformers he helped put
together.
His activism didn't deter him from research and writing. Most
recently, he has been studying the problem of plastics recycling,
working in cooperation with the environmental group Greenpeace.
Commoner has an acute ability to pierce the web of economics,
science and politics that entangles environmental policy questions.
The result is usually a clear prescription for change.
In the case of current environmental legislation, such as the clean
air bill, Commoner's analysis calls for a switch to pollution
prevention, rather than control.
''Every one of our operational environmental laws goes into effect
only after the pollution has gone into the environment,'' he says.
''You've got to redo the entire legislative base.''
MORE
AP-NY-04-07-90 0851EDT
***************
a027 0146 07 Apr 90
PM-Global Warming,0475
California Smog Agency Acts to Curb 'Greenhouse Effect'
By BRUCE V. BIGELOW
Associated Press Writer
EL MONTE, Calif. (AP) - Southern California officials have adopted
what appears to be the nation's first comprehensive policy to stem
global warming and the loss of ozone in the Earth's atmosphere.
It was approved unanimously Friday by the governing board of the
regional South Coast Air Quality Management District, the agency that
last year adopted a sweeping anti-smog plan for the Los Angeles
basin.
Board member Harriet M. Wieder of Orange County alluded to the
region's notoriety for the nation's worst smog, saying, ''Because of
our situation here in Southern California, we should be a leader on
this issue.''
Although Vermont has adopted a state policy on global warming,
''this is the first government I know of to adopt a regulatory
program,'' said Curtis A. Moore, an environmental consultant based in
McLean, Va.
The measure proposes restrictions on carbon dioxide and certain
industrial gases causing the destruction of the Earth's protective
ozone layer.
A four-page statement approved by the board directs the district's
staff to draw up a series of rules and programs that address global
warming and ozone problems. The major provisions will:
-Require the recycling of chlorofluorocarbon gases, or CFCs, from
air conditionsers and refrigerators that are serviced or discarded.
Studies have linked CFCs, which are widely used as refrigerants, to
the destruction of ozone in the Earth's outer atmosphere.
-Phase out the use of CFCs and halon gases, other ozone-destroying
compounds widely used in fire extinguishers, by Jan. 1, 1997. A
three-year extension would be granted in certain circumstances.
-Develop strategies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The board
asked its scientific advisory panel to study the feasibility of
curbing carbon dioxide emissions 20 percent by 2000 and 40 percent by
2010.
The district also would to support scientific research of chemicals
that could be used as alternatives to CFCs.
Scientists agree that concentrations of carbon dioxide have
increased in the atmosphere over the past 150 years. Many argue the
gas is raising the planet's temperature by trapping heat in the
atmosphere, but data is inconclusive.
Environmentalists urged the 12-member board to strengthen its policy
by moving up compliance deadlines.
''It is vital for the district to adopt effective,
technology-forcing policies to curb global warming and to halt
depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer,'' said Veronica Kun of
the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Industry executives attacked the plan.
''We believe it is premature to implement a policy that so clearly
assumes there is scientific certainty, especially when the cost to
business, the community and society would be so large,'' said Ross
Hopkins, a Lockheed executive who spoke on behalf of the California
Manufacturers Association.
Hopkins said the district was putting Southern California businesses
at a competitive disadvantage since firms elsewhere would operate
without the cost of compliance.
AP-NY-04-07-90 0436EDT
***************
a057 0602 07 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Pollution Prevention, Adv 09,0804
$Adv09
For Release Monday PMs, April 9, and thereafter
America's Landmark Environmental Laws Have Failed, Book Says
With LaserPhoto
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - The staggering $1 trillion the United States has
spent on pollution control during the past 20 years has done little
to clean up the environment.
Emissions of air pollutants, which were supposed to have been cut 90
percent, are down only 18 percent. Emissions of nitrogen oxides,
potent contributors to acid rain, have actually increased by 4.2
percent.
With a single exception, efforts to control pollution have failed,
and Congress is making the same mistakes again as it struggles to
pass a new clean air bill, says the scientist and activist Barry
Commoner, who helped launch the landmark environmental legislation of
the 1970s.
As the 20th anniversary of Earth Day approaches on April 22,
Commoner is looking back on those early efforts in a new book
entitled ''Making Peace with the Planet.''
''I was very active in bringing all of this about,'' he says. ''And
you have to ask yourself, 'What good have I done?' You come to the
conclusion that all that we've been doing has had a minor effect.''
With the one exception: lead.
''Lead has gone down 94 percent,'' Commoner says. ''What's more, the
levels in children's blood have come down. This is a real
achievement.''
What did we do right with lead that we failed to do with nitrogen
oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide?
The answer is that lead was eliminated from gasoline. There was no
need for controls; lead simply wasn't being injected into the
environment any longer.
In the case of the other pollutants, an attempt was made to control
their release, not eliminate them.
''What it says is controls don't do the job,'' Commoner notes.
''Environmental pollution is an incurable disease that can only be
prevented.'' The same thing happened earlier with DDT. Levels of DDT
in the environment have dropped sharply in developed countries,
because its use was eliminated. If efforts had been made to control
it - rather than eliminate it - those efforts would have failed,
Commoner maintains.
Commoner, 72, directs the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems
at Queens College in New York City. His 1971 book, ''The Closing
Circle,'' was a best-seller that nourished the public's growing
appetite for information on the environmental crisis.
In the 1970s, Commoner focused on the harmful environmental effects
of the energy crisis. In 1980, he ran for president as the candidate
of the Citizens Party, a coalition of reformers he helped put
together.
His activism didn't deter him from research and writing. Most
recently, he has been studying the problem of plastics recycling,
working in cooperation with the environmental group Greenpeace.
Commoner has an acute ability to pierce the web of economics,
science and politics that entangles environmental policy questions.
The result is usually a clear prescription for change.
In the case of current environmental legislation, such as the clean
air bill, Commoner's analysis calls for a switch to pollution
prevention, rather than control.
''Every one of our operational environmental laws goes into effect
only after the pollution has gone into the environment,'' he says.
''You've got to redo the entire legislative base.''
MORE
AP-NY-04-07-90 0851EDT
- - - - - -
a059 0616 07 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Pollution Prevention, Adv 09, 1st add, a057,0255
$Adv09
For Release Monday PMs, April 9, and thereafter
NEW YORK: legislative base.''
In agriculture, for example, prevention means switching to
alternative agricultural practices that don't rely as heavily on
pesticides and fertilizers.
In a recent study, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that
such practices make good economic sense, too.
''Alternative agriculture systems and practices do work, they are
environmentally beneficial, and, when efficiently managed, can be
highly profitable,'' said John Pesek, the chairman of the committee
that produced the report.
With regard to reducing automobile emissions, Commoner calls not for
tighter controls but for new engines that generate fewer pollutants.
A 1974 study showed that the so-called stratified-charge engine, then
in operation, would meet the 90 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides
called for by the Clean Air Act.
''But American manufacturers have thus far been reluctant to make
the large-scale production changes needed to take advantage of this
opportunity,'' Commoner writes.
That is where President Bush could make an important difference,
Commoner says. Bush could proclaim, perhaps as part of an Earth Day
message, that the government would restrict its auto fleet to cars
with stratified-charge engines, creating a market overnight.
''This is something Bush could do with no legislation - a stroke of
the pen,'' Commoner says. ''It requires a plan. It requires a policy.
We have no environmental policy. We have no energy policy.
''It's really a question of leadership.''
End Adv for Monday PMs, April 9
AP-NY-04-07-90 0910EDT
***************
a057 0602 07 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Pollution Prevention, Adv 09,0804
$Adv09
For Release Monday PMs, April 9, and thereafter
America's Landmark Environmental Laws Have Failed, Book Says
With LaserPhoto
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - The staggering $1 trillion the United States has
spent on pollution control during the past 20 years has done little
to clean up the environment.
Emissions of air pollutants, which were supposed to have been cut 90
percent, are down only 18 percent. Emissions of nitrogen oxides,
potent contributors to acid rain, have actually increased by 4.2
percent.
With a single exception, efforts to control pollution have failed,
and Congress is making the same mistakes again as it struggles to
pass a new clean air bill, says the scientist and activist Barry
Commoner, who helped launch the landmark environmental legislation of
the 1970s.
As the 20th anniversary of Earth Day approaches on April 22,
Commoner is looking back on those early efforts in a new book
entitled ''Making Peace with the Planet.''
''I was very active in bringing all of this about,'' he says. ''And
you have to ask yourself, 'What good have I done?' You come to the
conclusion that all that we've been doing has had a minor effect.''
With the one exception: lead.
''Lead has gone down 94 percent,'' Commoner says. ''What's more, the
levels in children's blood have come down. This is a real
achievement.''
What did we do right with lead that we failed to do with nitrogen
oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide?
The answer is that lead was eliminated from gasoline. There was no
need for controls; lead simply wasn't being injected into the
environment any longer.
In the case of the other pollutants, an attempt was made to control
their release, not eliminate them.
''What it says is controls don't do the job,'' Commoner notes.
''Environmental pollution is an incurable disease that can only be
prevented.'' The same thing happened earlier with DDT. Levels of DDT
in the environment have dropped sharply in developed countries,
because its use was eliminated. If efforts had been made to control
it - rather than eliminate it - those efforts would have failed,
Commoner maintains.
Commoner, 72, directs the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems
at Queens College in New York City. His 1971 book, ''The Closing
Circle,'' was a best-seller that nourished the public's growing
appetite for information on the environmental crisis.
In the 1970s, Commoner focused on the harmful environmental effects
of the energy crisis. In 1980, he ran for president as the candidate
of the Citizens Party, a coalition of reformers he helped put
together.
His activism didn't deter him from research and writing. Most
recently, he has been studying the problem of plastics recycling,
working in cooperation with the environmental group Greenpeace.
Commoner has an acute ability to pierce the web of economics,
science and politics that entangles environmental policy questions.
The result is usually a clear prescription for change.
In the case of current environmental legislation, such as the clean
air bill, Commoner's analysis calls for a switch to pollution
prevention, rather than control.
''Every one of our operational environmental laws goes into effect
only after the pollution has gone into the environment,'' he says.
''You've got to redo the entire legislative base.''
MORE
AP-NY-04-07-90 0851EDT
- - - - - -
a059 0616 07 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Pollution Prevention, Adv 09, 1st add, a057,0255
$Adv09
For Release Monday PMs, April 9, and thereafter
NEW YORK: legislative base.''
In agriculture, for example, prevention means switching to
alternative agricultural practices that don't rely as heavily on
pesticides and fertilizers.
In a recent study, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that
such practices make good economic sense, too.
''Alternative agriculture systems and practices do work, they are
environmentally beneficial, and, when efficiently managed, can be
highly profitable,'' said John Pesek, the chairman of the committee
that produced the report.
With regard to reducing automobile emissions, Commoner calls not for
tighter controls but for new engines that generate fewer pollutants.
A 1974 study showed that the so-called stratified-charge engine, then
in operation, would meet the 90 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides
called for by the Clean Air Act.
''But American manufacturers have thus far been reluctant to make
the large-scale production changes needed to take advantage of this
opportunity,'' Commoner writes.
That is where President Bush could make an important difference,
Commoner says. Bush could proclaim, perhaps as part of an Earth Day
message, that the government would restrict its auto fleet to cars
with stratified-charge engines, creating a market overnight.
''This is something Bush could do with no legislation - a stroke of
the pen,'' Commoner says. ''It requires a plan. It requires a policy.
We have no environmental policy. We have no energy policy.
''It's really a question of leadership.''
End Adv for Monday PMs, April 9
AP-NY-04-07-90 0910EDT
***************
a044 0401 07 Apr 90
PM-Global Warming, 1st Ld,0129
Eds: SUBS 3rd graf to CORRECT spelling to Harriett sted Harriet
By BRUCE V. BIGELOW
Associated Press Writer
EL MONTE, Calif. (AP) - Southern California officials have adopted
what appears to be the nation's first comprehensive policy to stem
global warming and the loss of ozone in the Earth's atmosphere.
It was approved unanimously Friday by the governing board of the
regional South Coast Air Quality Management District, the agency that
last year adopted a sweeping anti-smog plan for the Los Angeles
basin.
Board member Harriett M. Wieder of Orange County alluded to the
region's notoriety for the nation's worst smog, saying, ''Because of
our situation here in Southern California, we should be a leader on
this issue.''
Although Vermont, 4th graf
AP-NY-04-07-90 0658EDT
***************
a077 0849 07 Apr 90
PM-Saving the Amazon, Adv 13,0827
$Adv13
For Release PMs Friday April 13 and Thereafter
Ecologists Applaud Choice for New Environment Minister
LaserPhoto RIO1 of April 7
By PETER MUELLO
Associated Press Writer
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Defenders of nature say the
appointment of Jose Lutzenberger, a noted ecologist, as Brazil's
environment minister could signal an end to wanton destruction of the
Amazon rain forest.
The choice of Lutzenberger, 63, was seen as a victory for
conservationists, who claim the government has done little to stop
slash-and-burn devastation of the Amazon. He was named by President
Fernando Collor de Mello, who took office March 15.
By 1988, ranchers and farmers had destroyed about 8 percent of the
rain forest in the 2 million square miles of Amazon wilderness, said
U.S. researcher Philip Fearnside of the National Institute of
Research in the Amazon.
Carbon dioxide produced by the burning is believed to add to the
''greenhouse effect'' warming the Earth's surface.
''Lutzenberger is the right man in the right place; nobody else has
his credibility,'' Johan Dalgas Frisch, head of the Wildlife
Preservation Association in Sao Paulo, said in an interview.
Antonio Carlos de Oliveira of the ecology group Oikos said: ''He is
superimportant, a legend. We all have the greatest respect and
admiration for him.''
Lutzenberger seeks radical changes in Brazil's environmental policy.
He favors solar, wind and other natural forms of energy over the huge
hydroelectric complexes of recent decades.
A Rio newspaper made the wry comment that Lutzenberger was so
radical about protecting nature that he even opposed lawn mowers.
The new environment minister told The Associated Press: ''We have to
question the fundamental doctrines of modern industrial society,
which is geared to the needs of the powerful. We're not saying give
up technology, but go a different way.''
In his first week on the job, Lutzenberger spoke out against the
controversial Northern Rim project, which would create army posts to
guard Brazil's vast jungle border.
He also promised to review a decision that allowed gold miners to
settle on land claimed by the primitive Yanomami Indians.
Prospectors have invaded Yanomami land in the remote western Amazon
state of Roraima, devastating the forest and bringing disease and
death to the Indians.
After consulting with Lutzenberger and visiting the area, Collor
ordered the dynamiting of clandestine air strips on tribal land and
said the Northern Rim project would be redirected toward protecting
the environment.
''We must remove the prospectors, but we also must give them decent
living conditions,'' Lutzenberger said. ''They are not there because
they're bad or want to destroy.''
Lutzenberger, a descendant of German immigrants, is an agronomist
with a degree from the University of Louisiana. In the 1970s, he
resigned as a chemical company executive to join the ecology movement
and helped found Brazil's first environmental protection group.
Later, Lutzenberger established an environmental consulting firm.
He pushed for tougher laws on pesticide control and for installation
of anti-pollution filters at a cellulose plant in his native Rio
Grande do Sul state, in southern Brazil.
Lutzenberger was among the first to sound the alarm about the
Amazon.
''This problem concerns all of humanity,'' he told reporters shortly
after becoming environment secretary.
''It concerns the continuation of life on this planet. This requires
not just plans for preservation, protection or parks. It requires
fundamentally rethinking our economic programs.''
He appealed for help from industrialized countries.
''We must establish now an intensive and continuing dialogue between
the governments of the First World and the Third World on how we can
collaborate to save the last jungles,'' Lutzenberger told the
journalists.
One way, he said, is to write off part of Brazil's $114 billion
foreign debt against programs to preserve the Amazon.
Brazil has rejected such ''debt for nature'' swaps on grounds they
violate national sovereignty. Of that, Lutzenberger said:
''The idea is to find ways to reduce the debt in exchange for the
preservation of Amazonia by our government. There is not the
slightest intention to 'internationalize' the Amazon.''
A key test of his strength is likely to be a proposed highway from
the western Amazon through Peru to the Pacific.
Lutzenberger opposes the highway, but Peru and governors of Brazil's
Amazonian states say it is vital to economic development in the
region. Most of the governors supported Collor for president.
''The important thing to watch is how much power he has. Let's see
what happens when he conflicts with the highway lobby,'' Fearnside,
the U.S. researcher, said in a telephone interview from Manaus, in
the Amazon jungle 3,000 miles northwest of Rio.
Some fear Lutzenberger's well-known temper and firm convictions
could work against him.
''If he's very radical, Collor will be pressured to get rid of
him,'' Frisch said.
End Adv PMs Friday April 13
AP-NY-04-07-90 1133EDT
***************
a236 1523 07 Apr 90
AM-Farm Aid,0574
Farm Aid Benefit Concert Returns With Environmental Focus
LaserPhoto staffing
By KEN KUSMER
Associated Press Writer
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Financially strapped Farm Aid returned Saturday
with its first concert in 2 1/2 years, as performers sounded a message
of concern not only for the family farmer but also for the land they
till.
Farm Aid President Willie Nelson topped the list of performers who
said they were forging a coalition with family farmers,
environmentalists and consumers to work toward reducing the amount of
chemicals used in food production.
''Somewhere between a lot of chemicals and no chemicals there's a
happy medium,'' Nelson said at a news conference before performing
the first song of the 12-hour show in the Hoosier Dome.
''As experts, the farmers will have to tell you how much do they
need (and) how much are they forced to use,'' Nelson said. ''I think
that's the difference. If they can get enough money for a bushel of
corn, they don't have to drain that acre for every ounce that's in
it.''
Inside the arena, early arrivals among the sellout crowd of 45,000
settled in with blankets and pillows for the marathon event. Many of
the more popular performers, including Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt and
Don Henley, were not scheduled to perform until the final two hours.
Concertgoers said they were there not only to enjoy the music but
also to support to the family farmer, the cause that inspired the
formation of Farm Aid five years ago. The organization, through its
first three shows in 1985-87, raised $12 million and has distributed
some $9 million to churches and service agencies, hotlines and farm
organizations.
Carolyn Mugar, executive director of Farm Aid, said she did not know
how much the event would generate in revenues and donations. She and
Nelson have left open the possibility of more concerts as the need
for money arises.
Mugar said Farm Aid IV was arranged because the organization has run
out of money. It was staged two weeks before the nation observes the
20th anniversary of Earth Day in part as a way of stressting that the
farm and environmental causes are intertwined.
''When we restore the honor and sanctity of the family farmer, in
conjunction with Earth Day - which is not just lip service and not
just one event - we restore the sanctity and honor of Mother Earth
herself,'' Raitt said.
Environmental activists, including Chris Desser, executive director
of Earth Day 1990, and John O'Connor, executive director of the
National Toxics Campaign, also spoke out against ''brute chemical
farming.''
O'Connor said a third of the nation's farm crop is still lost to
insects and other pests, just as it was before World War II, despite
a tenfold increase in chemical use.
The lineup at the Hoosier Dome also included Dwight Yoakum, K.T.
Oslin, Lou Reed, Guns n' Roses, Richard Marx, Jackson Browne, John
Denver and a Soviet rock band, Gorky Park.
Huge black and white cutouts of farm workers with cows and farm
implements were the stage backdrop. Hanging on the left and right
sides of the stage were huge flags with the Farm Aid logo of a
tractor with an American flag.
Farm Aid's first concert in September 1985 was in Champaign, Ill.
Subsequent concerts were held in 1986 in Austin, Texas, and in 1987
in Lincoln, Neb.
AP-NY-04-07-90 1812EDT
***************
a228 1354 07 Apr 90
AM-Clean Air Sensor, Bjt,0814
Denver Chemist Wins Clean Air Victory
With LaserPhoto
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - It took scarcely a minute amid the hubbub of a
late afternoon House committee meeting to insert the unassuming
amendment into the clean air bill.
It meant the world to a bearded, slightly offbeat chemist at the
University of Denver 1,600 miles away.
But in the days that followed, it would bring chills to some
environmentalists, local air pollution control officials and the
Environmental Protection Agency.
The provision, now part of the massive and complex clean air bill
approved last week by the Energy and Commerce Committee, calls on
states to require as part of pollution control plans in scores of
cities use of a portable automobile pollution detection device
similar to a radar gun that pinpoints speeders.
The requirement is not in a Senate version of the bill, which passed
89-11 last week. It's not known if the amendment will survive future
congressional action.
The mobile pollution sensor is the invention of chemistry professor
Donald Stedman, who has been working on the project for 14 years and
has had a prototype ready since early 1987.
Until now, few people have been seriously interested in the sensor.
''It's been a terrific struggle. We've been going from month to
month ... to keep my group together,'' he said in an interview.
''Anytime I'm not teaching, I'm telling people about this.''
One of those who learned of Stedman's device was Rep. Joe Barton,
R-Texas, who sponsored the amendment requiring the devices as part of
air pollution cleanup programs.
Barton called it a ''common-sense solution'' and a ''cost-effective
way to identify the worst polluting automobiles.''
Known as a friend of oil interests, Barton sees the device as a
better way to combat air pollution - by getting the dirtiest cars off
the road - than in requiring clean fuels, including alternatives to
gasoline, or tougher exhaust controls.
Stedman also has done little to ingratiate himself with Denver area
pollution control officials - as he admits - by arguing his invention
would be a much better way to combat smog than the mandatory testing
and oxygenated fuels program now in use in the area.
Denver is among the most pollution-plagued cities in the nation.
Stedman said as many as several thousand of the devices - costing
about $50,000 apiece - might eventually be in use.
To test vehicles adequately, a city such as Denver would require
five of the mobile sensors, a state such as Illinois about 20 and
''in California you're talking between 50 and 100,'' he says.
None of the sensors has been produced commercially, although Stedman
said several companies have become interested. He and the university,
which holds the patent, would get percentages.
But Barton's amendment has not been received enthusiastically
everywhere.
The day after it was approved, the EPA sent a memo to all its
regional offices saying that while Stedman's invention ''may have
some merit'' and is being evaluated ''much work needs to be done
before remote sensing is a viable tool'' in air pollution control.
Richard Wilson, director of the EPA's Office of Mobile Sources,
expressed concern to Barton that use of the devices was being made
mandatory, arguing such a move was premature considering the
unanswered questions surrounding use of the device.
Among the concerns are that the device - for the time being, anyway
- is capable of detecting only carbon monoxide emissions and not
other chemicals that contribute significantly to smog.
Emission results also could change significantly depending on where
the sensor is located and how a vehicle is being driven, making
enforcement of violations difficult, critics maintain.
''This hasn't been tested and it's premature to make it a mandatory
requirement in the Clean Air Act,'' said Bill Becker, the Washington
representative for state air pollution control officials.
The Coalition for Safer, Cleaner Vehicles, a Washington-based
consumer and environmental group, also raised concerns about making
such devices mandatory, saying it brings up questions of fairness and
due process.
''It seems very unfair to test someone at a random stop where they
may be pressing on the gas pedal hard or their car might be cold and
not quite warmed up,'' said Gary Huggins, the group's executive
director.
Stedman insists those problems can be worked out. During a recent
visit to Washington to demonstrate his device, he was ecstatic about
the lift given his longtime project by the Barton amendment.
The two men had not known each other previously. Barton learned of
Stedman's sensor from a letter the professor had published in the
Wall Street Journal.
After the requirement was put into the clean air legislation,
''interest suddenly jumped,'' Stedman said. ''Two very nice gentlemen
in two very nice suits from a fairly large company came to visit me
(the next day), saying we'd really like to talk to you about this.''
AP-NY-04-07-90 1638EDT
***************
a037 0244 09 Apr 90
PM-Farm Aid,0453
Benefit Urges Fans to Message Congress
By KEN KUSMER
Associated Press Writer
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Farm Aid IV mixed fund raising with political
lobbying in a 14-hour concert on behalf of the American family
farmer.
A sellout crowd of about 45,000 people at the Hoosier Dome heard
more than 60 musicians - including Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson
Browne and the band Crosby, Stills and Nash - perform in the Saturday
night show.
''It would be nice if there wasn't a need for Farm Aid. It would be
nice if our government's policies reflected a concern for families
and for farming. There's all kinds of things in this world that would
be nice. We have to fight to make this government responsive to our
needs,'' Browne said.
Donations for the fourth Farm Aid concert were still being tallied
Sunday, and final figures were not scheduled to be released until
today, said Farm Aid spokeswoman Linda Lewi. As of late Saturday,
$1.3 million had been raised, she said.
The concert came two weeks before the nation observes the 20th
anniversary of Earth Day, and Willie Nelson and other Farm Aid
leaders took the opportunity to announce the forging of a coalition
with farmers, environmentalists and consumers to work toward less use
of pesticides and other chemicals in food production and more support
for organic farming.
Postcards were distributed to concertgoers calling on Congress to
pass a 1990 farm bill that will help family farmers use fewer
chemicals and practice environmentally safe farming methods and to
provide a pricing structure that covers the cost of food production.
Rock star John Mellencamp, who helped organize the event, indicated
in an interview that federal farm policy has sacrificed the welfare
of the independent farmer to promote corporate agriculture concerns.
''I'm not giving up. The face of this nation changes by the men that
we admire, right, and I think that we haven't felt the backlash of
the last eight years yet. I think the '90s will reflect that,'' said
Mellencamp,
Mellencamp, Farm Aid President Nelson and fellow organizer Neil
Young all played during the final, all-star hour of the marathon
concert.
John made an unexpected appearance late in the program and performed
three songs. The British rock singer had been in Indianapolis to
visit AIDS patient Ryan White, who died Sunday.
''This one's for Ryan,'' John said before beginning ''Candle in the
Wind,'' a song he wrote about the tragic life of Marilyn Monroe. The
song drew the biggest ovation of the show.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson called for a moment of silence for White
during the concert. The civil rights activist and Democratic
politician visited White's family on Saturday, as did Nelson and
musician-actor Kris Kristofferson.
AP-NY-04-09-90 0536EDT
***************
a012 2259 09 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Offshore Oil, Bjt,0853
Oil Company Reforms Emerge As Hot Political Issues
Eds: Sent April 5 as a095.
Eds: This is another in a series of stories planned in advance of
20th anniversary observances for Earth Day this month.
By MICHAEL FLEEMAN
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Even an environmental debacle like the Huntington
Beach oil spill generates its own kind of gallows humor, including
this joke among residents:
Question: What do you get when you mix oil and water?
Answer: Politicians.
In this case, it seemed as if there were one politician for every
barrel of oil washing up on Surf City U.S.A.
So many politicians took to the blackened sands of Huntington Beach
to condemn the Feb. 7 spill from the ruptured American Trader tanker
that Mayor Tom Mays had to ask them to go through his office first so
they wouldn't interfere with the cleanup.
In this election year, talking tough against the oil companies, with
proposals to ban offshore drilling and to enact strict tanker safety
measures, adds up to smart politics.
For the first time in a decade, environmentalists, politicians and
even some oil industry executives expect this 20th anniversary year
of Earth Day to bring sweeping reform to the oil industry.
The reform movement is being pushed by oil spills in Alaska,
California, New York, New Jersey and Louisiana and a growing feeling
among Americans that more should be done to protect the environment.
Possible changes include requiring double hulls and bottoms on
tankers, shifting shipping lanes farther offshore, better charting of
the ocean bottom, improving procedures for oil spill cleanup, and
putting a fourth year-long moratorium on new offshore drilling.
''The interest in the general public in protecting the coastline is
at an all-time high,'' declared Ann Whitfield, executive director of
the Florida Public Interest Research Group.
The oil industry, meanwhile, worries about an overreaction that
could stifle U.S. oil production and return the country to the days
of oil embargoes and gas lines.
But even many oil officials concede more must be done to avoid
spills and to minimize damage when they occur.
''While it is impossible to guarantee that future accidents will
never happen, we are committed to working to prevent them and to
improving the industry's safety record,'' said James Benton,
executive director of the New Jersey Petroleum Council.
Benton spoke at a recent meeting between oil executives and
officials of New York and New Jersey, where four major spills in the
first 10 weeks of 1990 dumped almost 730,000 gallons of heating oil
and heavy crude into the Arthur Kill and Kill van Kull waterways
between New York City and northern New Jersey.
The first major reform is under consideration in Washington.
Legislation pending in Congress would require double hulls and double
bottoms on tankers. Engineers speculate that a double hull could have
prevented the Huntington Beach spill, apparently the result of the
tanker striking its own anchor, and lessened the effects of the Exxon
Valdez disaster, in which the tanker ripped open on a reef in
Alaska's Prince William Sound.
Eyes are also on President Bush, who pledged in his campaign to be
the ''environmental president,'' to see whether he will try to
reinstate oil and gas drilling in federal waters after the moratorium
expires this year.
The issue is of particular importance in California, where oil
companies have proposed developing millions of acres off the coasts
of central and Northern California. Off Florida, companies want to
drill in tracts north of the Keys.
Many member of Congress say that if Bush decides to resume
additional drilling, they are prepared to seek another moratorium.
''The administration is in a quagmire in the sense that the politics
of California, a very crucial gubernatorial race and the president's
own commitments in the state are in conflict with president's gut
instincts as a former oilman on offshore drilling,'' said Rep. Leon
Panetta, D-Monterey.
Some of the most active work on oil industry reforms is going on at
the state level.
Even before the Huntington Beach spill, the environment was a hot
political issue in California. All three candidates for governor -
U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, state Attorney General John Van de Kamp and
former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein - have tried to one-up
each other in pledging love for Mother Earth.
Wilson, a Republican, is a longtime opponent of offshore drilling,
so much so that his stance strained relations with the White House in
the early months of the administration.
In addition, state Controller Gray Davis and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy
say their re-election is important to maintain their 2-1 lock on the
three-member State Lands Commission - and a virtual ban on additional
drilling.
''I'm a strong environmentalist and I'm committed to remaining a
good steward for California's magnificent coastline,'' Davis said.
''It doesn't take a genius to see that if you change one or two
people on that board you change the direction of California's
coast.''
AP-NY-04-10-90 0144EDT
***************
a238 1425 10 Apr 90
AM-Green Index,0577
Environmental Study Includes Unusual Factors, Author Says
By MARTHA WAGGONER
Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - An environmental scorecard of the 50 states
that ranks Vermont at the top of the list and Alabama at the bottom
is more than a study of snail darters and whales, the report's author
said Tuesday.
The ''green index'' released by the Durham-based Institute for
Southern Studies also includes workplace safety and infant mortality.
''We're following the lead of citizens' groups who view the
environment as a public-health issue,'' said Bob Hall, research
director for the non-profit, independent institute and author of the
study.
For example, water quality influences cancer rates, so states are
ranked according to the number of cancer cases per 100,000, he said.
Infant mortality is part of the green index because that's ''an
indicator of what kind of commitment the state has toward public
health,'' Hall said. ''There's a correlation between public health
attention and environmental attention.''
The top five states were Vermont, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode
Island and Connecticut. The bottom five were Tennessee, South
Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
The report examined 35 indicators of pollution, public health,
workplace safety and environmental safety. It ranked the 50 states on
a per capita or other basis to minimize differences in population
size. The report was based on studies conducted in the mid- to late
'80s, most of them conducted for the federal government, Hall said.
The study focused on the South, and concluded that the region has
become the nation's biggest waste dump.
Ned Farquhar, acting director of Vermont Natural Resources Council,
said he was surprised Vermont ranked No. 1.
''Our laws aren't that strong and our budget is pitifully low for
environmental protection,'' Farquhar said. ''But the people in our
towns all care a lot about the environment so I really think it all
comes back to individual action.''
State planning director George Hamilton, however, said the ranking
reflected government environmental policies.
''There is a strong environmental ethic in the state,'' Hamilton
said. ''It's a bipartisan ethic that has been around for 20 years.''
Hall said he was surprised Alabama brought up the rear of the
survey.
''There wasn't an area where they stood out,'' he said. ''... It was
a combination of having some significant problems and not having
policies, being slow in implementing good policies.''
Environmental officials in Alabama do not have enough information to
judge the report, said Catherine Lamar, a spokeswoman with the
Alabama Department of Environmental Management.
Pat Byington, executive director of the Alabama Conservancy
environmental organization, said he wasn't surprised by the state's
last-place finish.
''The state of Alabama has a lot of programs they need to institute,
environmental programs,'' Byington said. ''We do not have a worker
right-to-know law, we do not have a land acquisition program or a
toxics reduction program - a pollution prevention program. And we
currently do not have a comprehensive solid waste program, so we're
far behind.''
The Northeast and Great Lake states fared poorly on the institute's
poison index, which includes standard measures such as pollutants,
air quality and per capita number of Superfund sites.
But Hall said many of these states have taken aggressive action to
address their problems. Their high scores for policies, public health
and workplace safety initiative boost their overall rankings.
Most mountain states ''score poorly in all areas related to
government initiative, holding fast to the frontier belief that the
less regulation, the better,'' said the report.
AP-NY-04-10-90 1714EDT
***************
a269 1936 10 Apr 90
BC-EARTH-People Power, Adv 15,1225
$Adv15
For Release Sunday, April 15, and Thereafter
In Dozens of Small Ways, People Can Improve the Environment
Eds: Another in a series marking the 20th anniversary of Earth Day.
With Logo EARTHDAY
By STEVE WILSTEIN
Associated Press Writer
Trusting the Earth's problems to politicians, industry and
scientists is not enough.
Environmentalists say everyone has the power to help protect
resources and clean up the air, water and land by shopping wisely and
disposing of garbage carefully. Doing dozens of little things, they
say, can make a big difference.
Individuals can also keep pressuring government and industry to
reduce pollution, global warming, ozone depletion, the disappearance
of resources and the rapid extinction of wildlife species.
''You have the ability to affect your environment individually, and
you have the ability to do even more working collectively,'' said
Tina Hobson, executive director of Renew America, a Washington, D.C.
foundation that monitors and encourages environmental programs around
the country.
Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, an expert on ecology,
says the most important thing individuals can do is to become
informed and become involved.
''There's a lot you can do as an individual in things like
recycling, but none of that is going to work unless you get involved
in political action that gets at the core problems, gets at the basic
diseases rather than the symptoms,'' he said.
The basic problem is ''the scale of human activities relative to
what can be supported by the natural systems of the planet.''
Ehrlich, the author of 1968's ''The Population Bomb'' and, most
recently, ''The Population Explosion,'' warned that too many people,
too much consumption and too much damage by the technology that
supplies the items consumed are creating a world out of whack and
headed for disaster.
But disaster is not inevitable. People have plenty of ways to make
life safer and healthier. Some even save money.
The main guidelines are to reduce consumption; be energy efficient
at home, work and while traveling; don't waste water, fuel or other
resources; avoid products or actions harmful to the environment, and
recycle anything that can be used again. Disposable is out, reusable
is in.
Save paper. Start with this newspaper. Recycling it can help save a
tree.
''Depending on what newspapers you read, you could be using up one
tree every 10 or 12 weeks,'' according to Marjorie Lamb's book, ''Two
Minutes a Day for a Greener Planet.''
She notes that Canada, which supplies almost all the world's
newsprint, each year cuts down 247,000 more acres of trees than it
replants. The United States loses an acre of forest every 5 seconds.
Nearly half what Americans throw away is paper.
Lamb suggests other ways to save trees, such as reusing envelopes by
sticking labels over old addresses, reusing gift boxes, using rags
instead of paper towels, and using permanent coffee filters instead
of throwaway filters.
People can also ask for recycled paper at stationers and printers,
use cloth napkins instead of paper and cloth diapers instead of
disposables.
It's better, however, to use paper shopping bags than plastic,
better yet to avoid any bag when buying just a few items. Kids can do
their part by wrapping school lunches in paper rather than plastic or
aluminum foil, and using lunch boxes instead of a new bag each day.
Save water.
The United Nations ''Personal Action Guide for the Earth'' urges
people to install faucet aerators and water-efficient shower heads,
which use half to one-fifth as much water. Each 10-minute shower with
such a device can use up to 50 gallons less water.
The U.N. guide also suggests people turn off the water while
shaving, brushing teeth or scrubbing clothes; fix leaky pipes, valves
or faucets promptly; use low-flush toilets; run washing machines and
dishwashers only when full, and cut down on car-washing and
lawn-watering.
Save the air.
Many scientists believe the Earth's protective ozone layer is being
depleted by chlorofluorocarbons from refrigerators, air conditioners,
certain aerosols, plastic foam insulation, solvents and halon fire
extinguishers. Ozone depletion increases the likelihood of skin
cancer, global climate change, decreased crop yields and disruption
of the marine food chain, according to the U.N. Environmental
Program.
Consumers should avoid aerosols and other products containing CFCs,
ask local governments to collect and recycle CFCs from old
refrigerators and air conditioners, and ask auto service stations to
use equipment that captures CFCs during air conditioner repairs.
The U.N. guide also suggests avoiding clothes that require dry
cleaning, which uses toxic chlorinated solvents.
Save fuel.
Earth Day organizers advise people to walk or use public
transportation, carpools or bicycles, and invest in ample insulation,
weatherstripping and caulking.
Turning down thermostats a few degrees in winter and wearing warmer
clothes also can save energy and money. In summer, set the air
conditioner a few degrees higher than usual. Do not heat or cool
unused rooms, and use insulating shades and curtains on cold winter
nights and hot summer days.
Save food.
Animals raised for food in the United States eat enough grain to
feed more than five times the U.S. population. Consider how such food
production affects the environment and eat lower on the food chain -
vegetables, fruits and grains, advises the Utne Reader magazine of
Minneapolis.
If Americans ate 10 percent less meat, the 12 million tons of grain
saved annually could feed all the people in the world who now starve
to death each year, according to the United Nations.
Learn vegetarian recipes and encourage restaurants to serve
vegetarian foods. Organize potluck dinners and be creative with
leftovers. Buy organic food, but don't buy foods out of season. Grow
a garden rather than a lawn and plant fruit and nut trees.
Recycle.
People without local recycling programs should encourage neighbors
and officials to start one, says Renew America's Hobson. The group
provides information on the best programs in the country, which can
be used as models.
Recycling is not limited to paper, cans and glass and plastic
bottles. You can also recycle used oil, tires, scrap metal, scrap
wood, car batteries, mattresses, corrugated cardboard, aluminum and
organic waste.
The United States produces more than 11 billion tons of nonhazardous
solid waste each year, according to the Environmental Protection
Agency. If trucks carried away one ton each, that annual accumulation
of solid waste would fill 14,000 lanes of trucks bumper to bumper
from New York to Los Angeles.
Industry generates the greatest current in the waste stream, an
estimated 7.6 billion tons. Much of that is disposed on-site with
little scrutiny or regulation. Workers and nearby residents can urge
companies to recycle.
More than 100 million pounds of plastic are discarded into oceans
every year, according to the World Society for the Protection of
Animals. Plastic six-pack rings strangle or fatally maim many birds
and animals that become entangled in them.
''As consumers and citizens, we certainly make a lot of choices,
about the things we use, the stores we shop in and the people we vote
for,'' said Denise Fort, executive director of Citizens for a Better
Environment in San Francisco.
''We can make a huge difference. There are some things we have to
look to government to do. We need to demand that government
representatives act responsibly and clean up the environment. But a
lot can be done with individual action.''
End Adv for Sunday, April 15
AP-NY-04-10-90 2213EDT
***************
a270 1953 10 Apr 90
BC-EARTH-Cities and States, Adv 15,0962
$Adv15
For Release Sunday, April 15, and Thereafter
Cities, States and Industry Tackle Environmental Problems
With BC-EARTH-People Power
By STEVE WILSTEIN
Associated Press Writer
Cities, states and companies often complain they don't have the
money to solve environmental problems, but they've learned through
painful experience that the alternative - ignoring them - is even
more expensive.
After several environmental disasters over the last year, and with
the nation's attention turned toward Earth Day on April 22,
scientists, politicians and business leaders are looking at things
local governments can do now to save money in the future.
''We can't afford not to spend the money to clean up the
environment,'' said Dianne Feinstein, former San Francisco mayor and
now a gubernatorial contender. ''If we don't invest in waste water
treatment, solid waste treatment, sewage systems, recycling plants,
mass transit, it'll cost us billions or trillions in the future to
clean up everything.''
That message was driven home in places around the country faced with
the cleanup of hazardous wastes in dumpsites and of pesticides and
other toxic chemicals in groundwater.
Disasters such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and
February's spill off Huntington Beach in Southern California have
brought calls for stricter laws to prevent accidents and clean up
messes quickly when they occur.
The oil industry and others that use toxic chemicals are starting to
get the message.
''Our feeling is $1 of prevention is worth $10 or $100 years
later,'' said Mac Jeffery, environmental spokesman for IBM. ''We're
establishing manufacturing facilities that clean up problems at the
source.''
Local governments learned not to count on the federal government
during the Reagan years and are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward
the Bush administration, which is supporting a new, stronger clean
air bill.
Officials in New York, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin,
Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon and other environmentally
progressive states are passing tough laws as well as seeking closer
cooperation with industry.
''Most of the environmental work is being done at the local and
state levels,'' said Tom Jorling, commissioner of the New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation. ''There's been very little
initiative coming from the federal government.''
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford biologist and one of the nation's best known
ecologists, has surprisingly kind words for industry.
''Industry has already done a lot,'' he said. ''A lot of the
increase in our energy efficiency over the past 20 years has been a
response of industry to the fact that energy is no longer to be
viewed as a free good.
''I have a lot more hope for industry than I have for the federal
government. We've had nine years of going backward there.''
Jorling said New York state officials, rather than relying only on
statutes, are working with IBM, based in Armonk, and Eastman Kodak
Co., in Rochester, to develop agreements on their use of toxic
chemicals.
''And it's not just those two,'' Jorling said. ''I just sat down
with 60 oil firms - they know they've got to perform better and we're
trying to figure out ways for them to do that.
''No longer are companies sitting back waiting for public policy to
develop,'' he said. ''Now they realize they have to be involved. The
big difference between the original Earth Day in 1970 and Earth Day
1990 is that now industry recognizes the environmental issue is not a
passing fad. It's here to stay and must be part of the way of doing
business.''
Getting businesses involved in preventing environmental damage and
shaping legislation doesn't mean states are letting industry dictate
terms.
''States must develop good, high quality environmental programs,''
Jorling said. ''Without that lever and credibility they're going to
be whipsawed by industry. Industry doesn't respect weakness, it
respects strength.''
San Francisco-based Chevron Corp., which promotes an image of
environmental concern but has been cited for toxic spills into the
bay and emissions into the air at its Richmond, Calif., refinery, is
wary of state officials.
''We seem to have more mavericks at the state level than the federal
level,'' said Lyn Arscott, Chevron's general manager of health,
environment and loss prevention. He complained about actions by the
state attorney general and a legal system that allows ''some not very
sensible initiatives to pop up in California.''
Arscott said Chevron recognizes ''the oil industry does not enjoy a
high level of credibility'' because of Valdez and Chevron's refinery
explosion.
''We're trying hard to improve our performance,'' he said. ''We hope
the public will meet us halfway. ... We'd like to encourage (using)
market forces in the regulatory process. Historically, (government)
has wanted to command and control. The law comes on from up high with
big fines. We'd like to set up some general guidelines and then have
a system of incentives.''
Jorling said the biggest ''recalcitrants'' in the corporate world
are in the auto industry.
''They say they can't meet requirements on emission standards, can't
build cars with better gas mileage, but it's crucial that they be
turned around because of their huge effect on the environment -
energy use, global warming, air pollution,'' Jorling said. ''They're
still back somewhere in the heyday of the robber barons.''
Top priorities for the 1990s, Jorling said, are the production of
durable, fuel-efficient cars and the eventual ''weaning from fossil
fuels'' to alternatives such as solar energy.
Ehrlich said the government ought to jack up gasoline taxes ''until
we're paying $3 a gallon, like the Europeans do.''
''You'd have to compensate poor people to make sure they can still
get to work,'' he said. ''But you'd raise a lot of revenue. You'd
help the global warming problem and other air pollution problems, and
save the roads and bridges by using fewer cars and more efficient
late-model cars.''
End Adv for Sunday, April 15
AP-NY-04-10-90 2235EDT
***************
a263 1856 11 Apr 90
AM-EARTH-Fashion, Adv 18,0981
$Adv18
For Release Wed AMs, April 18, and Thereafter
Fashion Industry Jumps Aboard Environmental Bandwagon
Eds: Another in a series of stories marking the 20th anniversary of
Earth Day.
By CATHERINE CROCKER
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - The Earth is in style.
Alarmed by the planet's dwindling resources, or propelled by the
belief that ecology helps sell clothes, fashion designers and
retailers have latched onto environmental issues with a gusto that
recalls the stampede to short skirts.
Tags on sportswear declare ''Don't Bungle the Jungle.'' Whales,
black panthers, tigers and giant pandas adorn T-shirts. Popular
fabric colors include earth tones and the bright hues of the rain
forest. Catalogs are printed on recycled paper. Glossy ads for
fashion designers invite consumers to donate money to environmental
groups.
''So many companies are getting on the environmental bandwagon,
because many polls indicate that the environment is the predominant
social issue of the '90s,'' said Leslie Gottlieb of the Council on
Economic Priorities.
Women's Wear Daily has been swamped with news releases announcing
the introduction of new lines of clothing with an eco-conscience,
said Maryellen Gordon, a WWD sportswear news editor.
''The industry does have a history of being involved in humanitarian
causes,'' she said. ''But I don't believe every one of these
companies is concerned with the environment. ... By printing 'Save
the Whale' on a T-shirt, they think they can bring in a lot of
money.''
''I'm sure part of it is corporations wanting to position themselves
in a positive way with the public,'' said Ron Geatz, a spokesman for
the Nature Conservancy, a private foundation that buys parcels of
threatened land to protect the habitats of rare and endangered plants
and animals.
Geatz added that the corporate heads leading the way seem to be
those most personally involved.
Charles Dayan, president of Bonjour clothing, became a corporate
activist for the environment several summers ago when syringes and
other debris washed up on the beach at his New Jersey vacation home.
''We couldn't go to the water. We couldn't let the kids play
there,'' he said. ''That's when we realized it was getting too close
to us and something had to be done.''
Now each item of Bonjour merchandise - jeans and shirts, sunglasses
and socks - bears a tag with tips on how to save water and reduce
pollutants. The cost to Bonjour, Dayan said, is ''in the millions.''
''I really don't know if it will sell one extra jean or watch,''
Dayan said. ''I doubt it.''
Other companies like Ninety, Esprit, Ellen Tracy and the United
Stars of America division of J.G. Hook are donating profits to
environmental causes.
Patagonia, an outdoor outfitter based in Ventura, Calif., has
donated 10 percent of its annual pretax profits to environmental
groups since 1984. This year, the total will reach about $1 million.
Patagonia's catalogs feature essays on the environment. The company
has reduced waste output at its headquarters by 62 percent by cutting
back on paper products and recycling whatever it can.
Some customers choose Patagonia products ''because of where the
profits go,'' said Kevin Sweeney, a company spokesman. ''Last year,
we gave away twice as much as we spent in advertising.''
But the line often blurs between promoting environmental causes and
promoting a product. The Nature Conservancy struck deals with two
fashion companies, Ellen Tracy and Esprit, after being approached
with ''a couple dozen'' offers, Geatz said.
Ellen Tracy's ads show a model in a sunny orange jacket over olive
pants, standing on a pristine beach. The tagline reads, ''The
clothing ... perfect for spring. The background ... perfect
forever.''
The conservancy's phone number is displayed in small print.
''We've always shot our (spring) ads on the beach. ... We added the
tagline to tie into the Nature Conservancy thing - kind of cute to
bring it all together,'' said Claire Fay, a spokeswoman for Ellen
Tracy.
She said the company's owner, Herbert Gallen, made ''a substantial
donation'' to the Nature Conservancy and paid a $15 membership fee
for each of Ellen Tracy's 200 employees.
Esprit contributes $1 each time it sells a $25 tote bag imprinted
with images of bighorn sheep and Little Kern golden trout. The
company's spring catalog, printed on recycled paper, opens with a
discourse on the environment. The background is a photograph of a
swimsuit-clad model playing in a spray of water.
''Pollution is by and large the result of an economic system gone
out of control,'' the ad says. ''Consumers should evaluate carefully
what they need, and buy accordingly.''
The ad implores people ''to temper their appetites.'' Esprit, it
notes, has already begun to do so - at its San Francisco
headquarters, it has reduced the use of paper in the business
department and the cafeteria. The company plans to hire an
eco-manager to head environmental programs.
''Before telling our customers what to do, we need to do our own
homework,'' said Esprit spokeswoman Celeste Alleyne.
But critics scoff at the notion of the fashion industry being a
friend of the environment.
''The irony is that we're talking about a business based on
premeditated waste,'' said Stuart Ewen, the chairman of the
Communications Department at Hunter College in New York City. ''If
you were to do a study of the history of product obsolescence, the
model would be fashion.''
At factory level, other ecological concerns surface.
''The next step we have to take is to move to our suppliers, to make
sure (the clothes) are made in an environmentally safe way,'' said
Sweeney, the Patagonia spokesman.
Esprit and Ellen Tracy are studying how to make production of their
clothes eco-friendly. Bonjour president Dayan said he wrote to
manufacturers all over the world instructing them to use
biodegradable plastic bags and soaps, as well as recycled cardboard.
However, he acknowledged, ''We can't force them to do it.''
End Adv for Wed AMs, April 18
AP-NY-04-11-90 2138EDT
***************
a026 0112 12 Apr 90
PM-News Interest,0472
Bush's Broccoli Ban Well Known to Public, Survey Finds
By W. DALE NELSON
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush's distaste for broccoli is getting
nearly six times as much public attention as Earth Day, according to
a survey of people's attentiveness to the news.
The Times Mirror Center for The People and The Press said Wednesday
that its interviewers asked 1,212 people age 18 and older what
vegetable it is that Bush recently said he wouldn't eat.
Seventy-six percent said broccoli, the right answer. Four percent
named some other vegetable. The rest refused to answer or said they
didn't know.
By contrast, 13 percent knew that April 22 is being observed as
Earth Day to honor the environment. Fifteen percent gave a wrong
answer and 72 percent said they didn't know when asked what was
special about the date.
On another question, the center reported that 74 percent of those
responding said they approved of Bush's overall performance. Sixteen
percent disapproved.
Sixty-four percent said they were optimistic that the president
would make progress in solving the country's long-term problems.
In response to more specific questions, 39 percent said Bush was
doing a good or excellent job in dealing with long-term economic
problems. The corresponding percentage was 20 percent on health care
problems and 32 percent on education and the environment. On all
issues, the largest group, from 39 percent to 46 percent, said he was
doing only fair.
The survey also found, for the fifth month in a row, that Americans
paid more attention to foreign news than domestic news.
The organization listed 18 news stories and asked people which was
the most important.
Forty percent cited an international story, with 21 percent naming
Lithuanian independence. Also mentioned were other political
developments in the Soviet Union, Germany and elsewhere in Eastern
and Central Europe. Two percent named the release of black leader
Nelson Mandela from a South African prison.
Four percent mentioned domestic stories, including oil spills, the
NCAA basketball playoffs, the death of 87 people in a fire at a
social club in New York and the attempt in Idaho to pass a bill that
would severely restrict abortions.
Ten percent named stories not on the list, 43 percent said they
didn't know and 2 percent refused to answer. This adds up to only 99
percent because the percentages were rounded to the nearest full
number.
The survey results are based on telephone interviews conducted under
the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates from April 5-8,
with the 1,212 respondents interviewed by The Gallup Organization.
The results are subject to a sampling error of plus or minus three
percentage points.
The Times Mirror Center for The People and The Press is an arm of
Times Mirror Corp., which owns the Los Angeles Times and other
publishing and broadcasting enterprises.
AP-NY-04-12-90 0402EDT
a027 0116 12 Apr 90
PM-Gobie Arrested,0202
Rep. Frank Case Figure Arrested
WASHINGTON (AP) - Steve Gobie, the former paid lover of Rep. Barney
Frank, D-Mass., faces arraignment on charges of marijuana possession
and destruction of property, according to a televised report.
Gobie was charged Wednesd***************
a053 0510 13 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Farming, Adv 18,1004
$Adv18
For Release Wed PMs, April 18, and Thereafter
Some Farmers Practice Earth Day Every Day
Eds: This is another in a series of stories planned in advance of
20th anniversary observances for Earth Day.
With LaserPhoto
By JOE BIGHAM
Associated Press Writer
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Farmers, by definition, engage in long-term
love affairs with the land. And American farmers, romanticized for
generations as providers to this nation and millions abroad, have
been hailed as the world's most productive.
But for some, like Wynette Sills and her husband, Ed, rice growers
in the Sacramento Valley, reaping ever greater bounty from their land
has become less important than caring for it. As Mrs. Sills put it,
''The soil is the foundation of all else.''
The Sillses are among many farmers who have adopted conservation
methods in response to recent challenges from environmentalists that
U.S. farmers are too dependent on pesticides, irrigation and
expensive fertilizers.
The Sillses no longer burn rice stubble, which releases clouds of
smoky pollution. Instead, they plow it under and plant a cover crop
to restore to the soil the nitrogen needed to nourish crops.
''Unless the soil is healthy, it is hard for plants to be healthy,''
said Mrs. Sills, a former University of California farm adviser.
Bryce Lundberg also plows rice straw back into the soil to work as a
fertilizer, although many growers in the valley shun the practice
because the straw can harbor pests. It can also be costly in the
short run because it requires leaving up to half the farm's 6,000
acres fallow for a year to give the straw and cover crop time to
break down and regenerate the land.
''You've got to put something back,'' said Lundberg, whose
grandfather started the farm. ''That's what stewardship is all
about.''
Lundberg and the Sillses are among a growing number of farmers
practicing stewardship of the land as implied in Genesis. They
practice Earth Day every day by trying farm management techniques
such as integrated pest management, sustainable agriculture and
organic farming.
''Integrated pest management involves using beneficial insects and
basically keeping a real close eye on your (damaging) insect
populations and trying to get by with as little pesticide use as
possible,'' said orange grower Shawn Stevenson. ''It's advantageous
to the environment and myself because pesticides are very
expensive.''
Peter Goodell, a University of California farm adviser, warns,
however, that not all pests have been matched with beneficial bugs to
control them. The Medfly, for example, would chomp quickly through
California's fruit orchards if an infestation in urban Los Angeles
wasn't being checked with extensive aerial spraying.
Other farmers turn to the university's Sustainable Agriculture
Program to learn ways to improve their land by restoring its
nutrients.
''The cornerstone to a lot of these production systems is some sort
of soil-building program, whether you use a cover crop or add organic
matter such as compost or manure,'' said Jill Auburn, a staff member
in the university program. ''A lot of growers, even if they use
commercial fertilizers, add compost or manure to improve the soil,
improve water infiltration.''
Cover crops offer multiple benefits, she said.
''When a grower puts in a cover crop, he or she may do it to improve
one thing, say hold water or add nutrients,'' Ms. Auburn said. ''But
it also does other things such as providing habitat for beneficial
insects. So one change often changes the whole production system on
the farm.''
Organic farming, growing crops without applying chemicals, is the
best known of the new farming methods.
Most organic growers operate on a small scale, but the concept is
moving onto larger commercial farms. Some growers of table grapes are
switching to organics, pressed by the demands of farm labor leader
Cesar Chavez for a ban on pesticides.
Steve Pavich has long grown table grapes organically. He calls his
1,400 acres of organic grapes ''environmental capitalism,'' defined
as ''taking the good that goes on in the world and making a few
dollars out of it.''
Despite such efforts, environmental critics contend farmers
generally do too little to protect the land and water.
In California, now enduring a fourth straight year of drought, the
pressure is on agriculture, which uses more than 80 percent of all
water consumed in the state, to irrigate more efficiently.
Environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council,
looking at huge federal projects that allow farmers to harness and
tap Sierra Nevada streams, want subsidies eliminated and fisheries
restored.
''Efficient water use involves more than simply using the most
efficient irrigation technology, although that is part of what needs
to happen,'' said Karen Garrison, an NRDC consultant. ''It means
adopting pricing systems that encourage efficient use.''
Water districts that have tried tiered pricing, charging higher
rates for water use above a certain base level, have saved 10 percent
to 15 percent of their supply, Ms. Garrison asserted.
And the land itself can be touchy, as growers on the west side of
the San Joaquin Valley who use large-scale irrigation found out.
Water coursing through irrigation canals leaches salts and toxic
selenium from the subsoil; the poisoned runoff turns drainage ponds
brackish, damaging the land and harming nesting birds. Now,
researchers think eucalyptus trees and salt bushes planted at the
ends of fields may absorb most tainted drainage water.
Most of California's 83,000 farmers still use conventional spraying
methods. But as protests against pesticides increase, more are
adopting such techniques as sustainable agriculture and integrated
pest management - unknown when the first Earth Day was held two
decades ago.
''The whole theme of our program,'' said Ms. Auburn, ''is really
resource conservation: concentrating on practices that are good for
the environment, good for soil, good for the human community - people
working on farms and people who consume what agriculture produces.''
End Adv for Wed PMs, April 18
AP-NY-04-13-90 0751EDT
***************
a033 0144 14 Apr 90
PM-Owl Rally,0506
Pro-Logging Rally Draws Thousands
LaserPhoto PD1
By WILLIAM C. CRUM
Associated Press Writer
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Loggers, mill workers and their families fear
they will be forgotten under an emerging national policy to limit
logging of never-cut timber to protect spotted owls.
On Friday, 8,000 to 10,000 people rallied in Pioneer Square to
protest the policy.
Clad in yellow caps and ribbons, the ralliers heard U.S. Sen. Bob
Packwood, R-Ore., tell them the agenda of environmentalists could be
condensed into two words: ''No jobs.''
Environmentalists argue that old-growth timber in the Northwest must
be protected to save the northern spotted owl from extinction. They
say the forest owl cannot survive outside the complex ecosystem
anchored by centuries-old trees.
But Oregonians at the rally, and some of their elected officials,
echoed Packwood's economic fears.
''We think this potentially could have the largest impact on the
Northwest since the Depression, economically,'' Douglas County
Commissioner Doug Robertson said.
''It's come to the point that if we don't stand up and be counted,
we're going to suffer the consequences, and the consequences are
going to be severe.''
A panel of scientists recommended to Congress on April 4 that
millions of acres of Northwest old-growth forest be set aside as owl
habitat. The exact locations of the habitat are under study. Packwood
wants Congress to reduce the amount of recommended forest that would
be set aside for the owl.
It's up to Congress to decide by this fall how much of the region's
old-growth timber can be cut and how much owl habitat should be
protected.
Organizers of the rally said 350 businesses around the state closed
so their employees could attend. Some schools gave students excused
absences so they could join their parents.
Officials of Douglas County, rated by the U.S. Forest Service as the
most timber-dependent county in Oregon, gave 25 to 30 county workers
the day off with pay so they could attend the rally. In the Linn
County community of Sweet Home, 105 businesses closed and about 500
people made the 85-mile trip to Portland.
Bob and Susan Kasting, owners of the Busy Bee restaurant in Sweet
Home, joined the caravan. Kasting said a shutdown of the timber
industry would devastate his business.
''If they can't work, they can't eat,'' he said.
Police reported several scuffles between environmentalists and
timber industry supporters on the edge of the crowd. The odor of
smoke bombs wafted across the square.
Portland police spokesman Dave Simpson said officers took three
people who appeared to be timber industry supporters into custody.
The three seemed to be intoxicated and were held until they could
sober up, but weren't charged with any crimes, Simpson said.
During the rally, dozens of log trucks circled downtown on the
freeways, occasionally blowing their horns.
Evelyn Badger of the Oregon Lands Coalition, a pro-industry group
that organized the rally, said Congress would be asked to set aside
forest land specifically for timber harvests.
''We are the dirty-hands people who feed, clothe and shelter this
nation,'' she said.
AP-NY-04-14-90 0434EDT
***************
a203 0902 14 Apr 90
BC-News Shows, Advisory,0202
Here is a partial listing of Sunday's TV News shows:
ABC's ''This Week With David Brinkley'' - William K. Reilly,
administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Denis Hayes,
chairman, Earth Day 1990; Michael Oppenheimer, scientist,
Environmental Defense Fund; Patrick Michaels, environmental
scientist, University of Virginia, on Earth Day's 20th anniversary.
CBS's ''Face the Nation With Lesley Stahl'' - Senate Majority Leader
George Mitchell, D-Maine; Robert Reich, Harvard University professor
of political economy; Martin Anderson, senior fellow, Hoover
Institution, on U.S.-Soviet relations.
NBC's ''Meet the Press'' - Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., from Jerusalem, on
U.S. relations in the Middle East.
CNN's ''Newsmaker Sunday'' - Rep. Timothy Penny, D-Minn., Select
Committee on Hunger; David Holdridge, Catholic Relief Services;
Andrew Natsios, Agency for International Development, Girma Amare,
Ethiopian Emassy; Tesfai Ghermazien, Eritrean People's Liberation
Front, on famine in Ethiopia.
---
CBS' ''60 Minutes'' - Reports on East St. Louis, Ill., one of the
nation's poorest cities; on a rabbi who believes in recognizing the
heroic acts of non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the
Nazis, and on Third World children whose parents airlift them from
countries in turmoil to West Germany, where foreign children are
treated as nationals.
The AP
AP-NY-04-14-90 1155EDT
***************
a310 2315 15 Apr 90
PM-Greenhouse Conference, Bjt,0665
Administration to Argue for Further Study on Global Warming
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will ask a 17-nation conference
this week to examine the economic impact of global warming, but the
administration plans to argue it's too early to propose specific
measures to deal with the problem, officials say.
The White House's cautious approach in developing responses to
global warming is expected to unleash renewed criticism from some
European countries that the United States is failing to provide
leadership in dealing with the so-called ''greenhouse'' effect.
The Bush administration has maintained that while there is
widespread agreement that man-made pollutants are causing the earth
to become warmer, there remain too many unanswered questions to
warrant pollution controls that could have widespread economic
implications.
The president is hosting a White House conference on the greenhouse
effect on Tuesday, just days before next Sunday's Earth Day
observance. During his 1988 campaign, Bush said such a conference was
a top priority and would be held in his first year as president.
Senior advisers on economics, science and the environment from 17
nations plan to attend, making it the first gathering on the subject
with government officials representing such a broad spectrum of
interest.
Senior Bush advisers said they hoped the conference would for the
first time give equal weight to economic as well as environmental
issues related to global warming.
''We hope it will raise the level of debate ... on the science and
economics of global change,'' said Michael Boskin, chairman of the
president's Council of Economic Advisers, who will be one of the
three conference co-chairmen.
Administration officials cautioned in briefings with reporters that
the gathering is not intended to produce any blueprint for dealing
with global warming. Instead, the officials said the administration
will emphasize the need for further scientific studies and
incorporating the economic issues involved.
Last week, the president's chief science adviser, Allen Bromley,
criticized those who advocate ''slam-dunk solutions'' to global
warming. He said too many scientific and economic uncertainties
remain to map out specific measures.
''We cannot sail blindly into the future,'' he declared. Bromley
will serve as a conferenceco-chairman along with Boskin and Michael
Deland, chairman of the president's Council on Environmental Quality.
But even before many conference delegates arrived, officials from
several European countries complained about the Bush administration's
emphasis on further research and its refusal to discuss specific
action plans to deal with the greenhouse issue.
''Some delegates will advocate more than just research,'' said an
official from one European country, asking that he not be identified
further. ''We want to stress that research should not be a substitute
for action.''
Some of the Europeans plan ''to push the Americans pretty hard,''
said another European, also speaking anonymously.
A number of European countries, including The Netherlands and West
Germany, have called for the industrial nations to commit themselves
to a stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2000.
Carbon dioxide, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, accounts
for more than half the ''greenhouse'' pollutants. Such curbs would
require significant increases in energy efficiency or cuts in energy
use.
William Reilly, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said
Sunday the president is committed to an international treaty on
global warming, but he too cautioned that more scientific evidence is
needed.
''We have to be cautious, careful and take out something of an
insurance policy,'' he said on ABC's ''This Week With David
Brinkley.''
While most scientists agree that man-made pollutants are enveloping
the earth and causing it to warm, they are unsure about the eventual
severity of the warming.
Some computer models have suggested a 4-degree to 9-degree
Fahrenheit increase in global temperatures, but some scientists said
those projections are uncertain and may not adequately take into
account the effects of clouds or other factors that might have a
counteracting effect.
''What we do not know is the timing, the magnitude or the rate of
the (temperature) increase,'' said Bromley.
AP-NY-04-16-90 0159EDT
***************
a053 0856 16 Apr 90
PM-EARTH-Yellow Creek, Adv 20,1225
$Adv20
For Release Fri PMs, April 20, and Thereafter
Yellow Creek: A Microcosm of America's Grassroots Environmental
Movement
Eds: Another in a series of stories marking the 20th anniversary of
Earth Day.
LaserPhoto PK2 of April 13
By ROB WELLS
Associated Press Writer
MIDDLESBORO, Ky. (AP) - Yellow Creek used to run black for miles,
with a stench that made people retch. Red blisters disfigured fish in
the stream.
People downstream blamed pollution from a tannery and aged sewage
treatment plant in this town of 13,000 for their neighbors' cancer
deaths as well as their foul well water.
In 1983, the city engineer testified that 2.5 million gallons of raw
or partly treated sewage had been dumped into Yellow Creek that year
alone.
Today, Yellow Creek sparkles as it winds quietly through the thickly
forested Appalachian hills. People who live along the creek say water
quality is probably the best they've seen in a decade and credit the
$7.7 million sewage treatment plant built in 1986.
Credit is also due to the Yellow Creek Concerned Citizens, a local
environmental group that has labored since 1980, filing lawsuits,
lobbying Congress, holding candlelight memorials for people they
believe were fatally sickened by pollution, occupying city hall to
demand that the creek be cleaned.
But the black tide, although receded, left behind a legacy of health
questions and lingering legal challenges. Neighbors suspect that
years of tannery pollution deposited a layer of toxic sediment in the
creek bed. And they're worried that a new court agreement will loosen
pollution regulations.
Over the years, word of Yellow Creek and its lessons has stretched
well beyond this mountainous corner of southeastern Kentucky. The
tactics and victories of the Yellow Creek Concerned Citizens are
being studied by environmental groups across America, and in some
cases, around the world.
''Remember, this struggle for the small community of Yellow Creek is
in no way the only one,'' said M.M. Chiputa of the Southern African
Environmental Network of Zaire. ''We have it, you have it and they
have it.''
Yellow Creek has gained such attention largely because of Larry
Wilson, the president of the citizens group. Wilson is environmental
programs director at the Highlander Institute in New Market, Tenn.,
which holds training sessions for social activists who hail from
Bhopal, India, to Dayhoit, Ky.
As a polished insider of the national environmental movement, Wilson
wields influence that last month drew more than 100 activists from
Massachusetts to Arkansas to a meeting on the future of Yellow Creek.
John O'Connor, executive director of the National Toxics Campaign in
Boston, struck a common theme among many of the speakers at the March
31 meeting.
''We kind of feel if they can get away with poisoning people in
Yellow Creek, they can get away with poisoning anyone in the United
States,'' O'Connor said.
Yet Yellow Creek is anything but poisonous today, according to the
Environmental Protection Agency.
EPA environmental engineer Ron Barrow said results of a study of
creek water and surface sediment, to be released later this month,
will ''show significant improvements'' over a 1982 study of creek
pollution.
A standard EPA test using water fleas showed they not only survived
but also reproduced in full-strength effluent from the new sewage
plant.
And Dirk Anderson, manager of the Middlesboro Tannery Co., says it
''has done an excellent job in meeting state and federal guidelines''
and ''installed the most efficient pretreatment system in the tanning
industry today.''
He says the tannery's waste water ''is one of the best discharges in
the United States'' and asks, ''What is the controversy?''
To many residents, the controversy remains vivid.
An advisory warning residents of Bell County since the early 1980s
not to swim in the creek, drink its water or eat its fish is still in
force.
Wilson asserts that he ''feels really comfortable'' in estimating
that 100 deaths in the valley from cancer, leukemia and other illness
can be linked to the pollution.
A 1988 study of Bell County cancer rates, while failing to tie the
illness to creek pollution, did show that residents face an increased
risk of cancer.
''Those cancers that have been linked to occupational exposure to
tannery work tend to be higher in Bell County than the comparison
groups,'' said the report by Lorann Stallones, an epidemiologist with
the University of Kentucky Medical Center.
And a study done in the early 1980s by Vanderbilt University's
Center for Health Services indicated that residents who drank well
water tended to have higher rates of miscarriages, kidney and
digestive ailments.
A $31 million lawsuit filed by residents against the tannery in 1983
requested long-term health monitoring, a proposal supported then by a
leading state health official.
''Toxic chemicals often take many years to produce their effects,
and certainly there have been significant exposures in the past
because of the tannery effluent,'' Dr. Arthur L. Frank of the
University of Kentucky Medical Center said in a statement for the
lawsuit.
No long-term monitoring is underway, and the lawsuit is still
pending in state court.
Many of these concerns deal less with the creek's current water
quality and more with the sediment on its bottom. A University of
Louisville chemist probing the creek bed in 1987 found deep deposits
of chromium, a byproduct of tanning. In research by the National
Cancer Institute, chromium is suspected of causing cancer in humans.
W. Hank Graddy III, attorney for the citizens' group, said the study
indicated chromium was still accumulating ''even after all these
years of litigation and trying (to) ... require them to adopt
controls.''
Barrow, the EPA engineer, and Bill Phillips, an attorney for the
agency, said they were not aware of any complaints about chromium
deposits until a reporter posed questions about the matter earlier
this month.
That reaction, along with other official stances, has made Yellow
Creek residents suspicious of government regulators, especially the
EPA.
Creek residents are worried, for example, about a new court document
signed by the city, the tannery and the EPA that will alter the
amount of chromium, cyanide, mercury, and bacteria allowed in tannery
wastewater sent to the sewage plant.
Graddy, Wilson and others contend the agreement will increase the
permissable amounts and cause Yellow Creek to be polluted again.
Attorneys for the city, tannery and EPA all say it would tighten
pollution regulations, not make the situation worse.
The agreement amends a 1985 consent decree that settled a 1984
lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. That suit alleged numerous
violations of EPA regulations because raw sewage was spilling into
the creek.
The disagreement is so strong because each side is comparing the new
document to a different prior arrangement: the officials assert the
provisions strengthen the 5-year-old consent decree, and the
environmentalists say they are weaker than those in an operative
pollution permit dating from 1985.
The citizens' group also opposes the agreement because it would
reduce the fines levied against the city and tannery. Together, they
have been fined at least $1.62 million for federal pollution
violations, but collections would total only $177,400 under the
pending amendment.
''The burden of proof is on the victims here,'' Wilson said,
''because government agencies and industry already have the money and
lawyers in place to defend their position. ...
''We're overwhelmed,'' he said. ''We're fighting life and death.''
End Adv for Fri PMs, April 20
AP-NY-04-16-90 1134EDT
***************
a054 0907 16 Apr 90
PM-Business Mirror, Adv 17,0631
$adv17
For release PMs Tuesday, April 17
Ecology Comes of Age in Marketing World
By JOHN CUNNIFF
AP Business Analyst
NEW YORK (AP) - In an economy gone ecological, some of the old
marketing concepts that once could be relied upon to sell products
have developed a reputation as bad as noxious chemicals.
In the best of the marketing tradition, however, you'll find few
companies complaining. While their tested concepts have been
degraded, they have embraced the new. What's new sells, and they know
it.
They accept the idea that they just can't use ''disposable'' without
accepting consequences, and that in selling cars and gasoline they
must steer clear of horsepower claims and talk about low mileage and
clean burning.
In cereals, health is tops and taste is now secondary. In a
cholesterol-conscious world the beef industry talks about leanness
rather than juiciness, and fast-food outlets are forced to reconsider
their recipes.
Annual reports of paper companies show clean streams rather than
log-filled ones, and those of heavy manufacturers are more likely to
show the factory's beautiful front lawn than the parts inventory in
the rear.
In marketing today you must be against pollution, for recycling,
against fat and for lean, for peace rather than military might, and
view diets as necessary to good health rather than for making a
person swim-suit slim.
You can do no wrong if you alins, opportunities for minorities, community
mindedness, family life.
While such concerns have forced almost every company in America to
rethink its values and recast its image, the effort has not been
without benefits. Like anything else, these issues can be used to
promote goods and services.
In short, and in a marketing sense, those movements designed to
improve the quality of life have come of age. They are powerful
enough to sell goods and services.
While the observance of Earth Day on April 22 is the proximate
reason for all the attention being given such issues, they have been
developing for a long time, simultaneously with a weakening of
resistance.
Twenty years ago, for example, some of the nation's biggest paper
companies were reluctant to spend the nine-figure sums required to
clean up their operations, which were among the largest polluters of
waterways.
The Council On Economic Priorities, a volunteer group, began rating
them on compliance with environmental standards, and discovered that
paper companies with the best environmental records tended to have
the highest price-earnings ratios on their stocks. It helped sell
environmental issues.
Peace became a practical, dollar and sense issue too. Various groups
developed mutual funds that included shares of companies deemed
peaceful, that is, not connected with military matters in any way.
Some did fairly well.
Health consciousness was being raised at about the same time, and
when President Jimmy Carter denounced the three-martini lunch as a
waste of money it already was on its way out. Liquor consumption
statistics document it.
The consumer movement, which began even before the environmental,
health and women's movements, was then at full strength, denouncing
the very notions that bigger was better, that glitz was chic, that
exclusive was better.
All movements develop their radical fringes and tend to be scorned
at some time by some people, but if they have the goods, so to speak,
they gain acceptance, even if grudgingly.
Acceptance is grudging no more for many of the movements that began
in the 1960s and 1970s. They've come a long way, and you know it when
corporate marketing people use their themes to sell goods and
services.
End Adv PMs Tuesday, April 17.
AP-NY-04-16-90 1156EDT
***************
a218 1131 16 Apr 90
AM-BRF--Life Logo,0128
Life Magazine Changes Logo Color for Earth Day
NEW YORK (AP) - Life magazine's red and white logo is turning green
in May to commemorate Earth Day. It's only the second time in the
magazine's 53-year history that it has changed the colors.
The only other time was when it appeared in black in 1963 after
President Kennedy's assassination.
''The last time Life's logo changed color, it marked a moment of
national mourning,'' said Jim Gaines, managing editor. ''This time
we're hoping to sound an alarm that may prevent worldwide mourning by
future generations.''
The May issue includes several articles about the environment,
including a cover story on trees. Earth Day is April 22.
The magazine's white letters on a red background logo was introduced
Nov. 23, 1936.
AP-NY-04-16-90 1428EDT
***************
a231 1324 16 Apr 90
AM-Greenhouse Conference, Bjt,0746
Administration Criticized for Environmental Inaction
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Delegates from 17 nations gathered for a White
House conference on global warming amid criticism Monday from some
participants and environmentalists that the Bush administration isn't
dealing with the problem.
Senior administration officials said the United States will call for
increased international research on both the science of global
warming and the economic implications of the ''greenhouse'' effect
when the two-day conference begins Tuesday.
But as delegates arrived, environmentalists chastised President Bush
for not calling for specific actions to ease the global warming
problem, including commitments to make specific reductions in
greenhouse pollutants.
The Sierra Club, which announced a TV advertising campaign to
highlight concerns about global warming, called the White House
conference an attempt by the administration to shift the focus of the
issue away from the need for pollution controls to a debate over
economic considerations.
''It's really a smoke screen for the administration's inaction on
global warming,'' said Daniel Becker of the Sierra Club. ''We know
enough now to begin acting on to curb global warming today.''
Some conference participants also expressed concern about the heavy
U.S. focus on more research.
''In spite of remaining uncertainties on some aspects of the issue,
an effective response policy must be established now, without any
further delay,'' said a statement issued on behalf of the 12 nations
attending from the European Community.
Laurnes Jan Brinkhorst, director-general for the environment of the
European Community's Council of Ministers, and Padraig Flynn,
environmental minister of Ireland, said there was an ''urgent need
for an effective response policy'' while additional research is under
way.
Senior administration officials have reiterated in recent days that
Bush will offer no new policy proposals to curb the manmade pollution
that scientists agree is causing the earth to warm.
Bush, in remarks that will open the conference, was expected instead
to focus on the need for additional research to resolve both
scientific uncertainties about global warming and establish clearer
estimates on economic costs.
The conference, which is being held just days before Sunday's
celebration of Earth Day, fulfills a campaign promise Bush made to
hold an international conference on global warming early in his
presidency.
Representatives to the meeting are senior cabinet-level advisers on
economics, science and the environment from 17 nations, including the
European community, Japan and Brazil.
Bush advisers said they hoped the conference would, for the first
time, give equal weight to economic and environmental issues related
to global warming and ''ensure the economics will be injected ...
into all future international forums'' on the subject.
''We hope it will raise the level of debate ... on the science and
economics of global change,'' said Michael Boskin, chairman of the
president's Council of Economic Advisers and one of the conference
co-chairmen.
A number of European countries, including the Netherlands and West
Germany, have advocated that industrial nations commit to a
stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions by 2000 through a variety
of programs reducing energy needs.
Carbon dioxide, which is produced in the burning of fossil fuels, is
responsible for about half the greenhouse pollutants.
Environmentalists have argued that a wide range of actions could be
taken to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse pollutants by
requiring the manufacture of more fuel-efficient cars and promoting
energy savings in other ways in homes and businesses.
The Sierra Club, which has more than 500,000 members, will take that
message to the public with a series of public service ads featuring
actors such as William Shatner, John Ritter and Jane Alexander.
The Bush administration has maintained that while there is
widespread agreement that manmade pollutants are causing the earth to
warm, it's not clear how severe the problem will be to warrant
pollution controls that could have widespread economic impact.
The president's chief science adviser, Allen Bromley, last week
criticized those who advocate ''slam-dunk solutions'' to global
warming.
''We cannot sail blindly into the future,'' said Bromley, another
conference co-chairman.
Some computer models have suggested that manmade pollutants will
cause a 4-degree to 9-degree Fahrenheit increase in global
temperatures in 60 years as the increasing pollution traps heat close
to the Earth.
However, some scientists said those projections are uncertain and
may not adequately take into account clouds or other factors that
might have a counteracting effect.
AP-NY-04-16-90 1610EDT
***************