Air Date: April 22, 1994

SEGMENTS

Farming Fish for the Future / Pippin Ross

With fish stocks plummeting in oceans around the world, some entrepreneurs say "aqua-culture" can help fill the gap. Reporter Pippin Ross of WFCR visits an organic fish farm in western Massachusetts, which tries to mimic natural ecological cycles in their facility. They use fish excrement to fertilize basil plants, which in turn filter the water from the fish's tanks. (05:48)

An Environmental Justice Pioneer

Host Steve Curwood talks with Richard Moore of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, one of the founding leaders of the environmental justice movement. Moore reflects on the evolution of the environmental justice movement and looks ahead towards future challenges. (06:29)

Kids in the Woods / Ruth Page

Commentator Ruth Page reflects on the many benefits of youth conservation programs. Putting young people to work for the environment benefits the land, society, and most of all the kids themselves. (02:28)

Terra Talk / Underground Railway Theater

In an environmental send-up of Car Talk, the Gaia Sisters tackle the ecological dilemmas of their listeners with gusto and glee on their “talk show”. Produced by Underground Railway Theater and written by Kathy Civoli and Living on Earth's Chris Page. (05:35)

Show Credits and Funders

Show Transcript

Copyright (c) 1994 by World Media Foundation. No portion of this transcript may be copied, sold, or transmitted without the written authority of World Media Foundation.

HOST: Steve Curwood
NEWSCASTER: Jan Nunley
REPORTERS: Matt Binder, Joseph Cooper, Betsy Bayha, Pippin Ross
GUEST: Richard Moore
COMMENTATOR: Ruth Page

(Theme music intro)

CURWOOD: From National Public Radio, this is Living on Earth.

(Music up and under)

CURWOOD: I'm Steve Curwood.

On this special Earth Day edition of our program, we visit with people who are making a difference for the environment. We'll meet fish farmer John Reed, who's raising fish and plants symbiotically, without the pollution common to many fish farms.

REED: Fish make the food for the plants, and the plants clean the water for the fish.

CURWOOD: Also, Richard Moore from Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of the architects of the environmental justice movement. He's a Chicano who leads the Southwest Organizing Network of over 70 community groups in 6 states and Mexico.

MOORE: We're living under life and death situations. It's not rhetoric, it's not language that we're trying to use. It's whatever it's - people are dying, unfortunately, both in the workplace and in many of our communities.

CURWOOD: Those stories and more on this special Earth Day edition of Living on Earth.

Environmental News

NUNLEY: I'm Jan Nunley with this week's environmental news. A new EPA report on water quality says 97% of the water along the shores of the Great Lakes is unsuitable for at least one primary use, such as swimming, fishing, or drinking. The report found 40% of all US surface waters unfit for at least some uses. The Agency blames airborne deposits of pollutants from other regions for problems in the Great Lakes. Farm runoff accounted for most problems elsewhere. By contrast, the EPA rated most groundwater supplies as good to excellent.

A new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute casts doubt on previous findings of a link between breast cancer and exposure to certain chemicals. Matt Binder reports from Oakland, California.

BINDER: Using blood samples frozen for 25 years, the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute here in Oakland found no statistically significant link between high levels of DDT and PCBs in the blood and an increased incidence of breast cancer. This result contradicts last year's highly publicized study by New York's Mount Sinai Hospital that showed a four times higher risk for breast cancer among women with high levels of DDT. The author of the new study, Dr. Nancy Krieger, says she was surprised by the negative finding, and is not yet ready to dismiss the possibility of a link between pesticides and breast cancer. She says many more such studies are needed to reach a definitive conclusion. For Living on Earth, I'm Matt Binder in Oakland.

NUNLEY: Five major utility groups have agreed to work with the Clinton Administration to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Together with the Energy Department, the group will develop new energy-efficient technologies, assist with better forest management plans, and promote the use of electric vehicles. Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups says the government's overall climate change plan will fail to cut US emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. They say falling oil prices and slow gains in auto fuel efficiency will hamper the plan's progress.

Part of the Everglades Protection Plan may be back on track after last-minute action by the Florida legislature, where the dispute over agricultural runoff into the Everglades is far from settled. Joseph Cooper of member station WLRN in Miami reports.

COOPER: The compromise bill is meant to break a deadlock that began when cleanup negotiations faltered last fall. It would have taxpayers fund the largest part of a massive 15-year project to reduce the levels of phosphorous flowing into the Everglades from nearby farms. Supporters of the bill, including the sugar industry, say it's the best solution yet proposed, but environmental groups say the legislative plan keeps phosphorous levels too high for too long - and they want the farm industry in central Florida to pay for the bulk of the cleanup through a one-cent-per-pound levy on sugar production. There are 56 species on the endangered list in the Everglades, and phosphorous from farm runoff is blamed for injuring native vegetation and habitats. For Living on Earth, this is Joseph Cooper.

NUNLEY: This is Living on Earth. A river that flows into Yellowstone National Park may be threatened with massive pollution from a proposed gold mine. Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone River tops the 1994 list of the country's most endangered waterways, prepared by the group American Rivers. The organization predicts tons of sulfuric acid from the mine will leak into Clark's Fork and flow downstream into the park. Other rivers on the list include the Rio Grande, the Mississippi, and the Anacostia in Washington, DC.

A woman who works with garbage collectors in Cairo has won one of this year's Goldman Environmental Prizes. The $60,000 prizes are given each year to activists on the 6 inhabited continents. Betsy Bayha of member station KQED in San Francisco reports.

BAYHA: Many of this year's winners were chosen for their work linking social justice and the environment. One of them is 46-year-old Egyptian Lila Kamel, who works with Cairo's garbage collectors, a community of refugees who eke out their living among the city's mountains of trash. Kamel has set up a school to educate the community's children. She started a rug weaving center for girls who earn money by turning discarded fabric into colorful rugs. And she set up a composting program using organic waste from the garbage collector households. This year's other prizewinners include indigenous rights activists from Canada and Ecuador, a youth educator from the Caribbean, a woman working with Burmese and Laotian refugees in Thailand, and a scientist who publicized Germany's role in tropical deforestation. For Living on Earth, I'm Betsy Bayha in San Francisco.

NUNLEY: Meanwhile, a giant consumer goods company and a small yogurt maker have won this year's award for corporate environmental achievement. The Council on Economic Priorities, a 25-year-old think tank, honored SC Johnson & Son, better known as Johnson Wax, for sharp cuts in chemical, water, and solid waste. The small company award went to Stonyfield Farm for promoting regional agriculture and company-wide recycling.

That's this week's environmental news. I'm Jan Nunley.

Back to top

(Theme music up and under)

Farming Fish for the Future

CURWOOD: This is Living on Earth. I'm Steve Curwood. As the world's population has swollen, people have turned more and more to the oceans for protein. But that increased pressure has dangerously depleted all the world's major fisheries. So increasingly, markets are turning to fish farmers for a reliable supply. There are now some 250 square miles of fish farms in the United States alone, producing almost a half a billion pounds of fish each year. But like other large-scale livestock operations, fish farming can foul water with manure. In Amherst, Massachusetts, though, one small businessman thinks he's found a solution to this problem by raising fish and plants together. Reporter Pippin Ross of member station WFCR has our story.

(Sounds of traffic)

ROSS: Alongside this busy highway in Amherst, Massachusetts, a quiet revolution in food production is taking place. It's happening here, under the plastic covering of a 150-foot greenhouse.

(Flowing water)

ROSS: Inside the greenhouse is a series of water tanks filled with pink fish called talapia. Suspended over the fish tanks are rows of basil plants. The plants and fish are components of a self-contained ecosystem. It was developed by John Reed, who calls his greenhouse a bioshelter. As Reed shovels grain into a tankful of talapia, the fish erupt into a feeding frenzy.

REED: So this is a mixture of whole grains, vitamins, and a little bit of vegetable oils. That's the feed that we feed them, and I'll toss the feed in and you can - (tosses feed in; tumultuous water in the tank).

ROSS: Reed makes his living selling the fish and basil. The bioshelter is designed so that the fish and plants are mutually dependent. As dirty water from the fish tanks is filtered, the water passes over the basil plants. The plants thrive off of the fish feces. They help clean the water by trapping microscopic wastes in their root systems. Again, John Reed.

REED: The fish make the food for the plants, and the plants clean the water for the fish. And it cycles from fish tank to filter to plants and back to fish tank again.

ROSS: This recycling of wastes is what differentiates Reed's bioshelter from most fish farming operations. For each pound of fish produced, there is also a pound of manure. But in the bioshelter, most of the manure is channeled back into the system as plant food. Any surplus manure is used to grow vegetables outside of the greenhouse in the summer. Every inch of the bioshelter simulates nature's balance, including a sunken garden Reed calls his biological island.

REED: We grow flower and tropical plants. And those plants produce the pollen that the beneficial insects need to live on when the pest insects are not around.

ROSS: Growing fish for harvest dates back to ancient China. But Reed is the only person in the country who is currently using a non-polluting, closed environment to raise his fish without relying on chemicals. But this attempt to mimic nature has its limits. Like nature, when the bioshelter is stressed by overproduction, diseases move in, and eventually the whole system shuts down. That means for now, Reed's got a natural cap on production.

(Fish falling out of bins, flopping)

ROSS: As 70 pounds of talapia are weighed and loaded onto ice to be shipped to a local supermarket, Reed says this limitation presents a problem. Talapia is a meaty white fish appealing to the American palate. The bioshelter's 600-pound-per-week production doesn't meet the demands of his consumers.

REED: I have someone, a phone call at least once a week, someone looking for 3- to 4,000 pounds of fish a week, or someone calling for 20 cases of basil or something else, that I just politely take their name and try and say in 6 months, when our new building is finished, we'll give you a call.

ROSS: Reed is using a million dollar emerging technologies grant from the State of Massachusetts to build a new, much larger bioshelter. While it will step up production, it poses a whole new set of environmental challenges. Reed acknowledges the larger bioshelter will generate excess manure. If not properly managed, too much manure leaches into and pollutes groundwater: a serious problem for many of the country's bigger fish and livestock farms. Reed admits that building this larger bioshelter is an experiment. Investigating the potential and limitations of his bioshelter, says Reed, is the most compelling part of his job.

REED: It will be generations before we truly understand ecosystem dynamics. The bacterial species alone that live in this system, we've been just doing analysis of that now and there's about 120 different species that we've logged so far that are going on here, sixty of which are predominantly doing something we want them to have done. And there's probably a few hundred others that are hanging out, waiting for their niche to roll around before they will start to activate themselves in some way.

ROSS: Reed's current goal is to increase his talapia production by one thousand percent. He also plans to grow higher-priced specialty produce, such as cilantro, tomatoes, and exotic salad greens. Reed says he's finally paid off the loans that went toward 8 years of research and development. And now he's ready to find out of it's possible to make a living by mass-producing food with a minimum of pollution. For Living on Earth, I'm Pippin Ross in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Back to top

(Music up and under)

An Environmental Justice Pioneer

CURWOOD: Almost 30 years ago, Chicago community organizer Richard Moore began helping his neighbors fight a smelly sewage plant located smack in the middle of a predominantly Mexican neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Over the years, as he helped build a community organization, Moore began connecting with other social justice organizers in identifying new links between race, poverty, and the environment. Today, Moore's Southwest Organizing Network for Environmental and Economic Justice is one of the leading environmental justice groups in North America, linking more than 70 community groups in 6 southwestern states and Mexico. And Moore was among the organizers of the landmark first People of Color Environmental Summit in Washington, DC, in 1991. I recently discussed his work and the environmental justice movement with Richard Moore. He told me that it grew out of a recognition that environmental threats to communities of color were not just happenstance.

MOORE: It had become very clear to us that these were community issues, that these were poverty issues, and that there was intentional things that were happening. It wasn't just this community in Albuquerque, it was a pattern within this country. So we began to move that forward, then, and in a much more detailed way, map out plans for environmental and economic justice.

CURWOOD: What are some of your victories over the last few years?

MOORE: We've seen a tank farm, the tanks that store gasoline and so on, that was located in an African American-Latino community in Austin, Texas. People had tremendous headaches from smelling gasoline all the time and so on. This incredible impact on the children. In a one-year, year-and-a-half campaign, that community, from the support of the Southwest Network, has been able to win that. Now there's a phase-out within all those tanks. We've had situations in Albuquerque, where for the first time one of our affiliate organizations has signed a contract between a military installation and a community-based organization for full participation in the investigation there in regards to the contamination that we think has been caused by a military facility. And it could go on and on; I mean, from one end of San Diego, California, to the other end of Brownsville, Texas, with the kind of successes that the community's had. I think that's really, then, helped us to kind of formulate our plans and where we go from here.

CURWOOD: And where do you go from here?

MOORE: For one example, we're specifically looking at the impact of high tech industry. Wherever you find a high tech, the building looks beautiful on the outside, the grass is green, adobe brown, the whole thing. But on the inside, it's safe for the chip but it's not necessarily safe - women are having miscarriages at incredible numbers and so on. Now we've begun to do a campaign in the southwest, particularly targeting high tech facilities. We're looking at border justice. We've integrated, now, Mexican NGOs, non-governmental organizations, into the process of the network, and we're developing a joint cross-border campaign to work together up and down the border. We have a youth campaign, we have very large numbers of youth coming together now to develop their own agenda. We also have another campaign that's come out of all this sovereignty, dumping on native lands as we call it. It was a call by our indigenous brothers and sisters in the network to assist in educating people in terms of what sovereignty means. Because without really understanding the question of sovereignty, then it's hard to understand why native nations are being targeted for everything that everybody else don't want in their communities right now.

CURWOOD: Could you look back at a moment or a couple of moments in your work as an environmental justice activist and tell me something that you did or participated in that you feel especially proud of or good about?

MOORE: Well, it's actually I think difficult to name the one, the one thing. And there's many of them. But I think one of them is the first People of Color Summit. I think that when we came to Washington, that many people, and they stated that "you won't last three weeks," that from egos to ethnic differences to all the kind of things that we were attempting to try to bring together, that it wasn't even supposed to have a long-lasting period of two or three weeks. It's been three years now.

CURWOOD: As you look down the road, what do you see ahead that gives you the most concern? And what gives you the most hope?

MOORE: Well, I think the concern is that people understand that we're real serious, that the US Government and government agencies understand. That we're living under life and death situations. It's not rhetoric, it's not language that we're trying to use, it's whatever it's - people are dying, unfortunately, both in the workplace and in many of our communities. I think that the concern, that we're specifically interested in developing partnerships but they have to be true and equal partnerships. And that's why we say over and over again, and use the examples about working with instead of working for. What this movement is standing on, in terms of environmental democracy. And I'm not sure whether this government's going to get it or not, if this Administration's going to get it or not. And honestly, we have not seen that at this particular moment, within this Administration; still today we haven't seen it. So the concern is that. Actually, I think one of the things that we'll see that's a challenge for the environmental justice movement is to continue to build our movement, and at the same time, honestly, it's to keep all of ourselves accountable. And I say that because things are going to get more difficult for us now. Now we see the government getting ready to drop millions of dollars in our communities, in research, in health-related fields, in cleanup to some extent. Many, many kind of things. And the temptations and the divisions that we've seen that money many times can bring about, that we start fighting over five cents and nickel or dime and this kind of thing. I think the challenge for us is, as environmental justice activists, is to continue to look at the principles of environmental justice and to use this as a measuring stick. And to begin to take those challenges on. And lastly, for the moment, I think that it's the inclusion of women in this process. It's not just again rhetoric; I mean we need to make sure that organizations and the leadership of organizations, that women are involved in all levels of those leadership roles. It's women that actually are in the forefront of this movement, and it's women that should be in the forefront of the leadership of this movement. So we have many challenges ahead for us.

CURWOOD: And the hope?

MOORE: Hope is that we'll be here in another 2 or 3 years to do the same thing we did today.

CURWOOD: Richard Moore is a leader of the Southwest Organizing Network in Albuquerque.

Back to top

(Music up and under)

Kids in the Woods

CURWOOD: There's a bit of good news about kids this Earth Day, and commentator Ruth Page is more than happy to tell us about it.

PAGE: What the nation's Youth Service Corps need is better PR. Most often in the news are ghastly young people who do horrid things. But many states have programs in which youth age 16 to early 20s work on public or preservation lands to clean up and repair parts of the outdoor environment their elders have despoiled. Teams of kids, uniformed and hardhatted, fix nature trails, repair bridges, improve drainage, move huge rocks, reroof park buildings, reseed and plant, clean out waterways. One 17-year-old said, incredulously, "I gathered so much junk from that little pond, we had to bring in a truck." Some corps even manage public parks for a season.

Many of the youth come from disadvantaged homes or inner cities. Many have never before walked in a rural field, or waded a wild brook, or climbed a tree, or seen a bog, or cooked outdoors, or even gone swimming. In their own words, they're blown away when they're shown such a different world so near by. Many team leaders are former members of the corps, and the professionals running the programs are practical and knowledgeable.

Youth respects obvious know-how. They expect only to learn outdoor skills, but they actually ingest facts by the brainload. When a lad points to a mushroom, he's staggered to be told that it's a fruit with tiny underground threads that reach way past that big stand of trees. A girl sees for the first time how nature's camouflage works, when she's startled by a snake that matches the grass.

Most of the youth are surprised to find that when they work with a team of peers and get hot, wet, and exhausted together, they become friends. Do they mind laboring for zero or scanty pay? Hah. Large numbers always ask, "Can I join again next year?" Participants are paid in most states. In California, they get minimum wage. In Vermont, they get $1,000 for 8 weeks tough labor. For all of them, visible accomplishment, something other people will see, is the greatest reward. Working, eating, and living outdoors raises self-confidence. Some who have never in their lives been praised for anything glow when visitors stop to ask about the work they're doing. And as one young Vermonter said in surprise, at the end of last summer's service, "Most of all, I learned about myself."

CURWOOD: Commentator Ruth Page lives in Burlington, Vermont. She comes to us from Vermont Public Radio.

Back to top

(Music up and under)

CURWOOD: Coming up next on Living on Earth, it's Terra Talk. But first, tell us about how you or someone you know is making a difference for the environment. Give us a call right now on our listener line at 1-800-218-9988. That's 1-800-218-9988. Or you can write to us at Living on Earth at Box 639, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238. That's Living on Earth at Box 639, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238. Transcripts and tapes are $10 each.

Terra Talk

And now, it's time for those curmudgeons of compost, the Gaia Sisters.

(Theme music from Car Talk up and under)

PHYLLIS: Hello, this is Phyllis.

DEIDRE: And Deidre.

PHYLLIS: We're the Gaia Sisters coming to you from the Island of Manhattan with yet another edition of:

PHYLLIS AND DEIDRE: Terra Talk!

DEIDRE: Yes, the call-in show you know and love, with occasionally practical tips for easy ways to a better planet.

PHYLLIS: Switchboard's lit up, so let's go to our first caller. Hello! You're on Terra Talk.

CALLER: Hi, this is Dawn. I'm calling from Vermont.

PHYLLIS: Vermont! I was up at a protest in Vermont.

DEIDRE: Wasn't that the zukes not nukes organic farming vigil?

PHYLLIS: Nah, I think it was the time we buried a car.

DIERDRE: You buried a car?

PHYLLIS: Yeah, to signify the end of the industrial revolution. Symbolically of course.

DEIDRE: There you have it, folks, my principled and muscular sister has actually dug a hole in the wilds of New England to inter a gas guzzler. (Laughs)

DAWN: Hey guys?

PHYLLIS: Oh yeah, Dawn, what was the question?

DAWN: Well I read recently that it takes about 6 gallons of water every time you flush a toilet?

PHYLLIS AND DEIDRE: Uh huh, yeah.

DAWN: And my roommate said she heard that we if we put a brick in the tank -

PHYLLIS: Aaaaaargh!!!

DEIDRE: Oh no, not the brick. Not the brick! Hoo, Dawn, Dawn, honey, get with the program.

PHYLLIS: I think what my sister is trying to communicate, Dawn, is that using a brick is a surefire way to keep your local plumber employed.

DEIDRE: Uh huh.

PHYLLIS: You see, although the brick does displace water, it will also over time chip off tiny brick flakes that will lodge themselves in your plumbing system.

DEIDRE: Right.

PHYLLIS: The way to go is to take a plastic bottle and fill it with water -

DEIDRE: Oh no.

PHYLLIS: Put that in your tank and flush it.

DEIDRE: Oh, no no no no no. That is a fine temporary solution, Dawn, but what you really want is to invest in a low flush toilet -

PHYLLIS: Oh, here we go.

DEIDRE: That will save you far more water than your brontosaurus of a porcelain waste dispenser. I for one have this nifty Swedish model -

PHYLLIS: Naah, no no. Dawn, you are a perfect candidate for a composting toilet.

DEIDRE: You're not pushing that indoor outhouse you use.

PHYLLIS: Oh, we had a small odor problem but I installed a little fan right under the seat.

DEIDRE: Oh hold on, hold on, hold on. Your john has a fanny fan?

PHYLLIS: With a rechargeable battery.

DEIDRE: (Hoots) Well, Dawn, such are the valiant absurdities concocted by yours truly in the quest for ecological purity. Hi, you're on the air.

CALLER: Hey, yo. My name is Jeff, I'm calling from Minnesota.

DEIDRE: Oh yeah.

JEFF: I'm having real problems with my compost heap.

PHYLLIS: Oh, talk to us, Jeff!

JEFF: You bet. Well, it was going real well for the first 6 months or so, you know? But it's lately gotten kind of real stinky, and it's kind of hard to turn.

PHYLLIS: Okay, Jeff. Two questions, right? When did you start growing corn in your organic garden?

DEIDRE: (Laughs) And when did you move the pile from your front yard to underneath the kitchen sink because your neighbors threatened you with a health violation?

JEFF: How'd you know that?

PHYLLIS AND DEIDRE: Ah hah!

PHYLLIS: We know all.

DEIDRE: We see all.

PHYLLIS AND DEIDRE: Because we are the Gaia Sisters! (Laughs)

DEIDRE: But seriously, Jeff, your corn cobs. They have been the bane of many a hardy composter's existence.

PHYLLIS: Yeah!

DEIDRE: They just won't decompose like good little vegetables. They sit there like these nuggets of discord in the middle of your happy compost family. What you gotta do is mince those corn cobs into pulp.

PHYLLIS: And your stink problem, Jeff, probably also comes from your little pile not getting enough sunlight and oxygen. Gotta roll up your sleeves and really aerate that sucker.

DEIDRE: Try adding eggshells.

PHYLLIS: And coffee grounds. Coffee grounds are marvelous for getting that rich humusy texture.

DEIDRE: Okay, Jeff, good luck. Hoo! I just never thought that being an eco-warrior would be so pungent.

PHYLLIS: But when one reflects on what ecology really means -

DEIDRE: Ah yes. And what does it mean, my family philologist?

PHYLLIS: (Laughs) Ecology, which we all know comes from the Latin root for the word "household" refers to the system that transforms resources from use to waste, such as industry, such as a house -

DEIDRE: Oh yeah -

PHYLLIS: - and such as a human being. And of course, our goal is to change all these systems from a linear to a circular process.

DEIDRE: My god, that is so deep.

PHYLLIS: As deep as that car in Vermont?

DEIDRE: (Laughs) Okay, next caller.

CALLER: Hi, this is Mark from Boston. I'm calling for my wife. I have a recycling question.

PHYLLIS: He's calling for his wife.

DEIDRE: (Laughs) Maybe he should recycle his wife. I'd like to recycle my brother-in-law.

PHYLLIS: Okay, we'll get serious. Mark.

MARK: Well, I recently insisted that my family start using cloth napkins.

PHYLLIS: Uh huh.

MARK: But my wife says the amount of energy in water it takes to clean the napkins every week is as bad as the amount of trees cut down to make paper napkins.

PHYLLIS: Yeah.

DEIDRE: Mm hmm hmm.

MARK: So what do you think's better?

PHYLLIS: Excellent question there, Mark.

DEIDRE: Well, what's the answer, my systems-minded sibling?

PHYLLIS: Hey, get off my back. Can't you see I'm stalling? (Laughs) Mark, you have run up against the classic conundrum of the earth-loving individual. Whether 'tis nobler to use energy to keep cleaning a thing or to make more of that thing from a renewable resource, which unfortunately you gotta throw out.

DEIDRE: Also known as the disposable diaper dilemma.

PHYLLIS: Gets so confusing sometimes it seems the best solution is not to have kids.

DEIDRE: Though the problem is, I mean you could have your tubes tied for Mother Earth, but you still slobber when you eat.

PHYLLIS: Mark, we suggest you do what we do.

PHYLLIS AND DEIDRE: Use your sleeve. (Laughs.)

PHYLLIS: Our next caller.

CALLER: Yeah. Uh, I'm calling from Phoenix. I've got a question about my '73 Ford pickup.

DEIDRE: I'm sorry, you have the wrong program.

PHYLLIS: Another hour of Terra Talk has mercifully come to a close. I'm Phyllis.

DEIDRE: And I'm Deidre. And whether you wear your Walkman as you wander through the redwoods -

PHYLLIS: Or cruising through town on your solar-powered car -

DIERDRE: For God's sake, make sure to tune in to -

PHYLLIS AND DEIDRE: Terra Talk!

Back to top

(Car Talk theme music up and under)

CURWOOD: Terra Talk was produced for Living on Earth by the Underground Railway Theater of Arlington, Massachusetts. With Wes Sanders, Deborah Wise, and Deborah Fortson. Kudos for writing to Cathy Cevoli and Living on Earth's Chris Page. With apologies to Car Talk. Living on Earth is produced and edited by Peter Thomson. The coordinating producer is George Homsy, our director is Debra Stavro, and our associate producer is Kim Motylewski. Our production team includes Colleen Singer Coxe, Eve Stewart, Jessika Bella Mura, and engineers Laurie Azaria, Keith Shields, and Bob Connolly. Our theme music was composed by Michael Aharon.

Living on Earth is a project of the World Media Foundation, in cooperation with the Public Media Foundation and WBUR, Boston. I'm Steve Curwood, executive producer.

ANNOUNCER: Living on Earth is made possible with major funding provided by the W. Alton Jones Foundation, supporting efforts to protect the global environment; the Pew Charitable Trusts; the National Science Foundation; and all-natural Stonyfield Farm Yogurt - whether supporting worthwhile causes or producing healthy foods, Stonyfield's goal is to make you feel good inside. Additional contributors include Jennifer and Ted Stanley and the NPR News and Information Fund.

NPR ANNOUNCER: This is NPR, National Public Radio.

The preceding text has been professionally transcribed. However, although the text has been checked against an audio track, in order to meet rigid transmission and distribution deadlines, it has not yet been proofread against tape.