Air Date: August 12, 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: Amy Eddings, Pippin Ross, Alex Van Oss
GUEST: David Freeman

(Theme music intro)

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

(Music up and under)

CURWOOD: I'm Steve Curwood.

Fish farming has become a booming business, but it can often bring big pollution problems as well. This week, we meet a man who's raising fish and plants together with virtually no pollution.

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

CURWOOD: And we talk with the head of the New York Power Authority, who says he's eager to put electric cars to work in New York City, and not just to clean up the air.

FREEMAN: On a hot summer day, if you replace all these internal combustion engines, Manhattan will be cooler. But more important than that, it will be quieter. The electric car doesn't make much noise.

CURWOOD: On Living on Earth. First this news.

Environmental News

NUNLEY: I'm Jan Nunley with this summary of environmental news. Lawyers say a suit against the EPA by 6 former workers at an alleged secret air base in Nevada could open the door to tougher environmental inspections of all US military facilities. The plaintiffs claim they were poisoned by hazardous waste illegally burned at a site known as Area 51, or the Groom Lake Base, which the government won't acknowledge exists. The suit claims plaintiffs were forced to work near the burning pits without protection, and now suffer from mysterious rashes, respiratory problems, and blackouts. Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, is their attorney.

TURLEY: The military knows exactly what was in those trenches. The military knows exactly what the exposure rates were like for these workers. In essence, the military is holding on to information which is a real matter of life and death for my clients.

NUNLEY: Turley says the EPA is required to enforce environmental laws on all military bases and can do it without compromising national security. The EPA's lawyer acknowledges only that the suit has been filed. An official in the Agency's regional office says they have no record of Area 51, but if such a secret base exists, the agency has the power to inspect it.

Negotiators at next month's Cairo Conference on Population and Development hope to discuss a range of strategies for slowing global population growth. But right now, most of the debate centers on abortion. The Roman Catholic Church and a handful of nations want all references to abortions stripped from the document. From WFUV in New York, Amy Eddings explains.

EDDINGS: Much of the focus at the Conference is supposed to be on improving women's education, earning prospects, and overall health. But it's the planned section on reproductive rights, and sexual and reproductive health, that's prompting the fiercest debate. The document doesn't specifically support abortion as a family planning method, but it does acknowledge the dangers of unsafe abortions and includes abortion in its discussion of quality health care. Supporters, including the United States, say the plan lays out a broad set of non-binding suggestions on family planning and medical care, and it would leave specific policies up to individual countries. But the Vatican says the plan would encourage abortions, promiscuity, and homosexuality, and diminish the value of human life and the family. Instead, the Vatican supports an economic approach to stabilizing population. It wants the plan to focus on increasing development in poor countries. The stalemate will be carried into next month's conference. Supporters of the current plan believe they far outnumber the countries which back the Vatican's point of view. They hope they can pressure the Vatican to abstain from voting on the document's contested sections and allow an agreement to be reached. But many participants worry that the conference will get bogged down in the abortion debate, diverting time from other important issues, like funding. For Living on Earth, this is Amy Eddings in New York.

NUNLEY: This is Living on Earth. Any population agreements emerging from next month's Cairo conference will likely carry hefty price tags. One estimate puts the cost at $17 billion by the year 2000 and more than triple that by the year 2015. The money would pay for more and better family planning and reproductive health care services in the developing world and prevention programs for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Who will foot the bill is still in question. The draft plan calls for the developing world with the most extreme population pressures to pay two thirds of the cost. But the money may not be there, and the one third expected from developed nations may not come easily, either. The US and some other nations insist they don't want to pay their share without assurances that human rights will be respected in the countries receiving their money.

George's Bank, an area off the New England coast that was once one of the world's most bountiful fishing regions, might have to close to halt the devastation of ground fish stocks. That's the conclusion of a new report by a scientific advisory board of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The report says over-fishing has reduced key populations to record lows, and the latest plan to cut catches by more than half may not be enough to restore cod, flounder, and haddock populations. But the report's recommendation that catches be reduced even further may not be acted upon any time soon. That decision rests with the local Fisheries Management Council, which has generally avoided steps that would put large numbers of fishing boats out of business.

Researchers at the University of Southern California say electromagnetic fields may be an important contributor to Alzheimer's disease. The researchers, who presented their study at a recent international conference on Alzheimer's, found that people with high occupational exposure to EMS have 3 times the average rate of the disease. The study says dressmakers and tailors are especially at risk because sewing machines produce much larger electromagnetic fields than other appliances. The researchers speculate that exposure may lead to the breakdown of neurons in the brain, which causes Alzheimer's.

That's this summary of environmental news. I'm Jan Nunley.

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Farming Fish for the Future

CURWOOD: This is Living on Earth. I'm Steve Curwood. As the world's population has doubled in the past generation, people have extracted so much food from the oceans that catches are plummeting. At the same time, health concerns are pushing demand up. To fill the gap, markets are turning to fish farmers. Last year, almost a half a billion pounds of fish were farmed in the US alone. But like other livestock operations, fish farming can foul waterways with manure. In Amherst, Massachusetts, one small businessman thinks he's found a solution to the 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 tilapia. 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 tilapia, 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. 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 flowering tropical plants. And those plants produce the pollen that the beneficial insects need to live on when the pest insects are not around.

ROSS: 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 tilapia are weighed and loaded onto ice to be shipped to a local supermarket, Reed says this limitation presents a problem. Tilapia 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, 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 another few hundred others that are hanging out.

ROSS: Reed's current goal is to increase his tilapia 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.

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An Environmental Justice Pioneer

CURWOOD: Clean-running electric cars may be the wave of the future for American drivers. But so far, most electrics are still mired in the past. The standard design is a century old. It uses heavy batteries with a big electric motor coupled to a heavy transmission. And all that weight limits efficiency and driving range. With a 1998 mandate looming to sell thousands of electric cars, auto makers are trying to extend their range, focusing largely on better batteries. But a Maryland company is taking a different approach. They want to throw out the entire central motor and drive train and use computers to link small, lightweight motors right at the wheels. Alex Van Oss reports.

(Highway traffic)

VAN OSS: Route 5 runs through the steamy green flatlands of southern Maryland, where you can pull over and crack crabs all day or cruise past a traditional Amish family on the highway as they clop along in a horse-drawn buggy. Or you can look for the non-descript gray block building, nothing special at all on the outside, which is the home of Town Creek Industries, Inc. And it's here you'll find the prototype of US Patent 5,067,932, the electric wheel.

(Spinning, with a high-pitched hum)

TEATHER: These motors are 96% efficient. It will be able to do 100 miles in forward, 100 miles an hour, and 100 miles an hour in reverse because the electronics don't care.

VAN OSS: David Teather is President of Town Creek Industries, and he spends a lot of his time these days carting around and showing off the one and only electric wheel in existence, hoping to raise enough capital to build, some day, a prototype car that runs on electric wheels.

TEATHER: Environmentally speaking, the advantage of this is, it enables electric vehicles to achieve fossil fuel power using existing battery technology.

VAN OSS: That means the electric wheel could go as far and fast as a gas powered car goes today, but on a lot less fuel. The technology is nothing new. The invention uses a kind of motor that's found in ceiling fans, and it's got a gear system that's been used in tractors since the 1960s. What is new is how those gears spin and work together in a small, lightweight, and highly efficient propulsion system. In place of a central motor and drive train and their hundreds of moving parts, David Teather envisions a car with just a power supply, some wiring, and 4 of the electric wheels coordinated by a computer.

TEATHER: Basically, we've gotten the propulsion system down to a very inexpensive computer control game.

LOVINS: I think this invention is a neat example of the American tradition of garage tinkerers that once in a while come up with something really interesting and important.

VAN OSS: Amory Lovins directs the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit resource policy center in Colorado. He also advises the developers of the electric wheel, and there is the possibility that he may become their business partner. The electric car fits in well with Amory Lovins's projected concept of a future super-car that would be fuel-efficient and avoid air pollution. If the idea works, he says, it could solve a number of problems, particularly that of weight.

LOVINS: Normally, to run electric cars, which often have a lot of heavy batteries, you need great big motors to get decent acceleration. But the electric wheel enables you to use much smaller motors plus a clever, simple arrangement of gears to get a lot of oomph.

VAN OSS: Promoters say the electric wheel could make it easier for California and other states to phase in zero emission vehicles. In theory, the electric wheel could also be used in wheelchairs, lawn mowers, military tanks, bulldozers, and conveyor belts, and save fuel even in aviation. Amory Lovins.

(Airplane engines)

LOVINS: It will have a variety of niche markets. One, apparently, of interest that I must say had not occurred to me, is moving airplanes around on the ground. It's a lot more efficient to do that with a little motor in the wheel than to use, say, the jet engines burning lots of fuel. Because those are really designed to make you fly, not to make you crawl along on wheels.

VAN OSS: Town Creek Industries has been careful to take out a patent on the electric wheel, and has entered negotiations with the military, corporations, and universities, and NASA. They claim to have had some nibbles of interest from big auto companies, but so far, getting the electric wheel rolling at the corporate level has not been easy. Town Creek President David Teather:

TEATHER: We continually run up to the "not invented here" problem. You know, we're 3 guys in a little company down here in southern Maryland that are up there telling them that our device works better than their $50 million think tank can produce.

VAN OSS: Teather says that in theory the electric wheel should even work under water, since each wheel is a sealed, self-contained and replaceable unit. The real test, of course, is getting them to work on the road under all conditions. But even if an electric wheel breaks down, says David Teather, there's no need to pull over and call a tow truck.

(Electric wheel running)

TEATHER: In the case of a single motor concept, you're dead meat along the road. In the motor in the wheel concept, you lost one of your wheels, you lost 25% of your power. You still have 75%. You're still going home. Probably still even doing the speed limit.

VAN OSS: Well, say 2 wheels go.

TEATHER: Now you have half your speed achievable. You're going home at 45 miles an hour but you're still going home. Three of them go, all right we're doing 15 miles an hour on the berm of the road, but we're still going home.

VAN OSS: David Teather is President of Town Creek Industries, developers of the as yet unavailable electric wheel. For Living on Earth, this is Alex Van Oss in Washington.

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Kids in the Woods

CURWOOD: Whether they run on electric wheels or more traditional designs, the first place to see large numbers of electric cars could be New York City. That's if David Freeman's vision of the future prevails. Freeman was among the early supporters of energy efficiency and renewable power more than 20 years ago, and he's recently signed on as head of the New York Power Authority, one of the largest public utilities in the country. David Freeman joins us now from his office in New York City. Mr. Freeman, why electric cars for New York?

FREEMAN: There's a lot of good things about electric cars that people usually talk about. You know, it's going to displace imported oil and stop global warming. But I want to talk about some things that are a good deal more apparent to the naked eye. The electric car does not emit any heat. So that on a hot summer day, if you replace all these internal combustion engines, Manhattan will be cooler. But more important than that, it will be quieter. The electric car doesn't make much noise. If you imagine all the screeching and screaming of the cars that travel now, gone, you have a city that's cooler and quieter, and then there's no pollution out of the tailpipe of anything. So that the air is essentially much, much cleaner. Now, those are things that would turn you on for electric cars, and you think you've developed a new idea. And then some senior citizen writes you a letter like they did me last week, with the pages from the December 10, 1898 Harper's Bazaar. And guess what the article was about? Electric taxi cabs in New York City. There was a company that operated a fleet of electric taxi cabs in New York, way back at the turn of the century. The charge was 30 cents a passenger mile, and the cabs did about 20 miles per hour. The average in New York today is about 7 miles per hour. So we need to go back to the future and have electrics that are smaller, safer, stronger, quieter, and cleaner.

CURWOOD: Of course I'm wondering if all those New York cabs are quieter because they are electric, that we'll actually hear what the cabbies are saying to each other and us as we drive by.

FREEMAN: Well, we might get educated. I always learn from the New York cab drivers, perhaps as much from the media, as to what the hell's going on.

CURWOOD: Or other things. But seriously, why push the electric in New York where a lot of people don't even use a car? Don't even need a car?

FREEMAN: Well for one reason, this is a culture where people don't live in their automobile for hours at a time, as they do in California. Some people do, I know they commute. But we have a huge number of people who are already dependent on electric transportation in terms of the subways and in terms of the trains. And they are candidates for small electrics to get to the train station, and this is a population that I think would be quite amenable and excited about electric taxi cabs and things. I've conducted my own poll. I've asked every cab driver whose cab I've been in, what they would think. I have had no negative response and, you know, these - the cab drivers are perfectly happy and excited, some of them, about the idea of driving cabs where they don't have to pay for all this gasoline. Because the electricity will certainly be a lot cheaper.

CURWOOD: Manhattan certainly has lots of traffic jams. And I'm wondering, what advantage do electric cars have, do you think, for traffic jams?

FREEMAN: If you're stuck in traffic in an electric car, you're not idling. You don't use any energy at all. That's a significant advantage in New York City, believe me.

CURWOOD: The government there in New York has passed this law requiring 2% of all cars manufactured or sold in the state be electric. Now how do you convince people to buy these cars? Do you have one yourself?

FREEMAN: Well I had one in Sacramento. I don't own an automobile in New York City. But I will guarantee you that this utility will have a few soon. But the way they'll be marketed initially is the utilities will help bring them to the market, and they'll be leased on the basis, you know, try one. And if you like it you can keep it; if not, you can turn it back in. I think that the public is hungry for a clean car.

CURWOOD: David Freeman, thank you so much for taking this time with us.

FREEMAN: Well thank you for having me.

CURWOOD: David Freeman heads the New York Power Authority.

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(Music up and under)

CURWOOD: Would you buy an electric car? Call us right now at 1-800-218-9988. That's 1-800-218-9988. Transcripts and tapes are $10.

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.

DIERDRE: And Dierdre.

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

PHYLLIS AND DIERDRE: Terra Talk!

DIERDRE: 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.

DIERDRE: 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.

DIERDRE: 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 DIERDRE: Uh huh, yeah.

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

PHYLLIS: Aaaaaargh!!!

DIERDRE: 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.

DIERDRE: 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.

DIERDRE: Right.

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

DIERDRE: Oh no.

PHYLLIS: Put that in your tank and flush it.

DIERDRE: 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.

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

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

DIERDRE: 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.

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

PHYLLIS: With a rechargeable battery.

DIERDRE: (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.

DIERDRE: 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?

DIERDRE: (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 DIERDRE: Ah hah!

PHYLLIS: We know all.

DIERDRE: We see all.

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

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

PHYLLIS: Yeah!

DIERDRE: 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.

DIERDRE: Try adding eggshells.

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

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

DIERDRE: (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.

DIERDRE: (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.

DIERDRE: Oh.

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.

DIERDRE: Mm hmm hmm.

MARK: So what do you think's better?

PHYLLIS: Excellent question there, Mark.

DIERDRE: 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.

DIERDRE: Also known as the disposable diaper dilemma.

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

DIERDRE: 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 DIERDRE: 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.

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

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

DIERDRE: And I'm Dierdre. 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 DIERDRE: Terra Talk!

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(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, Deborah Fortsyn, and Cathy Cevoli. Special thanks to Chris Page, and sincere apologies to Click and Clack and Dewey, Cheetham and Howe. Living on Earth is produced and edited by Peter Thomson and directed by Deborah Stavro. The coordinating producer is George Homsy, the associate producer is Kim Motylewski. We had help from Jan Nunley, Julia Madeson, Nora Alogna, Danielle Wyser-Pratte, J.P. Anderson, Colleen Singer Coxe, Jessika Bella Mura, and WBUR engineers Laurie Azaria, Karen Given, and Bill Haslom. Michael Aharon wrote our theme.

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.

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