John Hockenberry got to sit down with Iranian-American filmmaker Ramin Bahrani earlier this week to discuss Bahrani's new 18-minute short, "Plastic Bag," how he managed to get Werner Herzog to voice the title character, and what he'll be working on next.
The federal government announced its first ever mandatory limits for particular greenhouse gas emissions, as the EPA and the Department of Transportation announced new emissions rules for automobiles and light trucks yesterday.
Move over, Thanksgiving. Easter weekend is shaping up to be a big one for televised sports. The Final Four square off in Indianapolis Saturday, and Major League Baseball opens (in a major way) at Fenway on Sunday. Takeaway sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul Matin joins us to talk about what the weekend holds for the NCAA, and for the Yankees and the Red Sox.
When it comes to environmentally responsible eating, we’re often told what not to eat: Don’t eat tuna because it’s overfished. Don’t eat Chilean sea bass because it’s bottom-trawled. Don’t eat beef because of carbon dioxide emissions from cows.
But what we’re not often told is that putting jellyfish on the menu will help save the world.
President Obama announced Tuesday that he approved a loan guarantee to underwrite construction of two new nuclear reactors in Georgia. These would be the first new reactors built in the United States since the 1970s. Will this be the start of a new wave of nuclear energy in this country?
The Great Lakes are threatened by Carp and the only way to keep the fish from taking over might be to cut the connection between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin. President Obama has agreed to conduct a study, but waiting too long for a solution may be detrimental to the health of the lake and destroy the fishing industry.
The Environmental Protection Agency may begin an investigation into a series of facial birth defects among migrant farm workers in Kettleman City, California. If the EPA takes on the case, it will mark a sharp turn in the agency's attitude towards issues of environmental justice.
This weekend WNYC hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday celebration at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Our own Celeste Headlee co-hosted the event, which included prominent educators, politicians and activists.
Climate talks in Copenhagen wrap up today, but will an appearance by President Obama inspire nations to strike a last-minute deal? We talk with Kathleen McGinty, former chair of the White House Council of Environmental Quality, and Peter Thomson, the environment editor for PRI's The World, about what to look for as countries try to reach an agreement in the final hours.
The climate talks in Copenhagen will finish later today, with last minute appeals from major world leaders, including President Barack Obama. Obama has singled out one American town for praise regarding the work they have done in becoming more energy efficient and self sufficient. Bob Dixon is the mayor of that small Kansas town, Greensburg, which was ravaged by a tornado in 2007 and rebuilt itself as a green town. Matt Dellinger is a journalist who specializes in urban planning and believes that focusing overmuch on Greensburg as a model could be a mistake.
The UN's historic climate change conference in Copenhagen wraps up tomorrow. There are persistent fears that the end could come without a major, binding climate change agreement between the 193 countries. “The next 24 hours are absolutely crucial,” warned UN climate change official Yvo de Boer. (...continue reading)
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in Copenhagen this week to take part in the Climate Summit for Mayors. Last week, the Mayor passed his Greener, Greater, Buildings Plan, and this week he hopes to inspire leaders from other cities to follow suit. With cities around the world producing more than 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, changes in urban systems can have green effects globally. We speak with Bloomberg from Copenhagen. (click through for the full interview transcript)
Protestors, experts and delegations from 192 countries have descended on Copenhagen to try to come up with a strategies for combating climate change resolution. Developing countries are claiming that emission regulations will create an unfair burden on their development, prompting protests in the streets. And some experts think that the best outcome from Copenhagen would be if nothing gets passed at all. We speak with Tom Burke, founding director of E3G, a non profit consulting firm working on sustainable devlelopment; and Bjørn Lomborg, author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
The problem that I have with this deal is that it's essentially following the same failed strategies of the last 18 years. It's essentially a lot of promises...coming together in Copenhagen and simply making even grander promises is not going to actually do anything for climate. It's just simply spinning the wheels in the road to nowhere.
-- Bjørn Lomborg on the possible futility of finding agreement among 192 countries about climate change
It's not been the failure Bjørn says it's been. There have been significant reductions around the world from what would've otherwise happened. And they've happened precisely because there's been an international agreement in place. So it's a bit cavalier to dismiss all of that out of hand and all the things that lots of people in lots of countries have done to reduce emissions.
-- Tom Burke
Some businesses go green by having bicycle-operated blenders. Others do it by redefining what "acceptable packaging" is for an entire category of retail products. We talk with Sean Meenan, owner of New York's first solar-powered restaurant, Habana Outpost, along with Candace Taylor, director of sustainability for the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart. They share with us the unique challenges and opportunities they each face – as a small business and an enormous one – in staying green, staying afloat, and setting an example for businesses and consumers.
With luminaries flying in from all over the world, the carbon footprint of the Copenhagen summit had worried the Danish government ...but they've come up with a surprising way of making the summit carbon-neutral. The Danes are contributing about $1 million into a project to replace 20 traditional brick kilns with energy efficient ones, thousands of miles away in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Denmark says the scheme will cut 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year, offsetting the fuel spent by the 15,000 delegates' flights to Copenhagen. We talk with the BBC’s Mark Dummett from Dhaka to find out more about the program.
While nations around the world are readying themselves for climate talks in Copenhagen, the state of California is already negotiating their own international climate agreements. We talk with Tony Brunello, California’s deputy Secretary for Energy and Climate Change and Ingrid Lobet, West Coast Bureau Chief of PRI's Living on Earth about what the state is facing and how they’re staying ahead of the curve.
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The show is a co-production of WNYC Radio and Public Radio International, in collaboration with The BBC World Service, New York Times Radio and WGBH Boston.
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