12.4.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello. This Kelly Taylor, and I'll be your host for
Radioized Diary of Science and Nature. We'll have articles related
to science and nature. But first a reminder. RADIOI is
a reading service intended for people who are blind or
have other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Today,

(00:22):
I'll apologize for being kind of stopped up and hopefully
you'll be able to understand everything. Okay, We'll begin with
an article that focuses on how we can help wildlife
in the winter time. This comes from huff Post and

(00:45):
the title is I asked Wildlife Charities how to be
kind to nature this winter? Written by Amy Glover. Tis
the season to spread kindness and though that can include
your friends, family and neighbors. According to the Wildlife Trusts,
winter is a great chance to make a difference in

(01:05):
the creatures on your doorstep too. Tom Hibbert, a wildlife
expert from the charity, told HuffPost UK that as the
colder winter creeps in, water and food sources become scarce
and nature needs our helping hand. Doctor Benedict Dempsey, people

(01:27):
and nature advisor at WWF, a World Wildlife Fund, agrees,
noting that our gardens and outdoor spaces become vital refuges
for wildlife preparing for the coldest months ahead. There are
many simple ways we can show nature kindness over these
chilly months, he added, So here are some of the

(01:47):
steps the experts recommend. Number one, provide ice free water.
One of the most obvious ways to help is by
keeping water stations in your garden ice free and clean.
Hibbert shared, offer a shallow dish of fresh water, making
sure to clean and replace weakly. And if you have

(02:08):
a pond, melt a hole in the ice with hot
water to allow birds and other animals to drink and
access it. Also, if you plan to clean your pond
in the chillier months, doctor Dempsey urges caution. Quote even
beneath the surface, life stirs. Dragonfly larvae remain active hunters
throughout midwinter in ponds, he explained. Number two, leave your

(02:32):
leaves good news for tired gardeners. The Wildlife Trust said
that those dead leaves piling up on your grass are
best left alone or at least placed in a pile,
rather than being disposed of completely. Quote. Leaving a douvet
of leaves can provide a perfect hiding spot for insects

(02:53):
that are shutting down until next year. Hibbert said, many
of next year's butterflies are already with us, waiting out
the the winter as eggs, caterpillars or pupy and dead
leaves can be important sanctuaries for these and other insects.
In quote number three, have a couple of messy backyard patches,

(03:14):
it's not just leaves that can provide sanctuary either. Quote.
Providing even the smallest wild spaces makes a real difference.
Dead Wood and log piles are havens for life wwfs.
Doctor Dempsey stated a wide range of insects, like patchwork
leafcutter bees use holes in dead wood as nest chambers.

(03:36):
You can help by drilling holes in leftover timber or
creating a simple bee hotel. Leaving seedheads and log piles
can provide shelter for the many mini beasts in your
garden and food for birds, Hibbert agreed. Meanwhile, sleepier species
such as newts, beetles, and plenty of other insects can

(03:57):
crawl into the logs to get cozy and curl up
for the foreseeable Number four consider bat and bird boxes.
Shelter is crucial for small animals in the winter, which
is why the Wildlife Trust started. Or stated it's great
idea to provide specially made kinds if you can place

(04:19):
bird and bat boxes away from human activity without encroaching
on any other critter's turf for the best results. After all,
doctor Dempsey explained, small birds like tits and wrens can
lose five percent or more of their body weight on
a single cold night. They sometimes huddle together in empty
nest boxes to conserve warmth, so leaving these in place

(04:41):
can be a lifesaver. Number five, remember to look after
the wildlife you can't see. Though a lot of the
natural world rests in winter, it's important to remember that
much of it is still there. Doctor Dempsey said, moth
larvae and pupy shelter in the soil. Spider eggs can
be found in sheltered places and quiet corners waiting to

(05:03):
hatch in spring. He said, try to be aware of
our less visible wildlife so you don't disturb their homes.
And number six, don't let not having a garden hold
you back. I don't have a garden of my own,
but neither expert thinks that should hold me back from
giving nature a helping hand, turning off unnecessary lights, switching

(05:25):
to warmer toned bulbs, and using motion sensor lights and
timers will help reduce light pollution and protect our furry
friends throughout the chili season, said Hibbert. Additionally, doctor Dempsey
said indoor container gardening can make a big difference for nature.
Plant pots of hardy early bloomers like crocuses, hell bores

(05:47):
or snowdrops that provide vital nectar for pollinators. These pots
also offer shelters of slugs and spiders escaping the frost.
Just make sure to choose peat free compost. Wildlife Trust
and WWF offer animal adoption programs too, which you can
support no matter where you live. Now we'll turn to

(06:10):
The Guardian. This article headline is the environmental costs of
corn should the US change how it grows its dominant crop,
dated December the third, written by Ames Alexander. For decades,
corn has rained over American agriculture. It sprawls across ninety

(06:32):
million acres, about the size of Montana, and goes into
everything from livestock feed and processed foods to the ethanol
blended into most of the nation's gasoline. But a growing
body of research reveals that the US's obsession with corn
has a steep price. The fertilizer used to grow it

(06:56):
is warming the planet and contaminating water. Corn is essential
to the rural economy and to the world's food supply,
and researchers say the problem isn't the corn itself, it's
how we grow it. Corn farmers rely on heavy fertilizer
use to sustain today's high yields, and when the nitrogen
in the fertilizer breaks down in the soil, it releases nitrosoxide,

(07:20):
a greenhouse gas nearly three hundred times more potent than
carbon dioxide producing nitrogen. Fertilizer also emits large amounts of
carbon dioxide, adding to its climate footprint. The corn and
ethanol industries insist that rapid growth in ethanol, which now

(07:41):
consumes forty percent of the US corn crop, is a
net environmental benefit, and they strongly dispute research suggesting otherwise.
Industry is also pushing for ethanol based jet fuel and
higher ethanol gasoline blends as growth in electric vehicles threatens
long term gasoline sales. Agriculture accounts for more than ten

(08:06):
percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. And corn uses more
than two thirds of all nitrogen fertilizer nationwide, making it
the leading driver of agricultural nitrous oxide emissions. Since two thousand,
US corn production has surged almost fifty percent, further adding
to the crops climate impact. The environmental costs of corn

(08:29):
rarely make headlines or factor into political debates. Much of
the dynamic traces back to federal policy and to the
powerful corn and ethanol lobby that helped shape it. The
Renewable Fuel Standard the RFS, passed in the mid two thousands,
required that gasoline be blended with ethanol, a biofuel that

(08:53):
in the United States comes almost entirely from corn. That
mandate drove up demand and prices for corn corn, spurring
farmers to plant more of it. Many plant corn year
after year on the same land. The practice, called continuous corn,
demands massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and drives especially high

(09:14):
nitrous oxide emissions. At the same time, federal subsidies make
it more lucrative to grow corn than to diversify. Taxpayers
have covered more than fifty billion dollars in corn insurance
premiums over the past thirty years. According to Federal data
compiled by the Environmental Working Group. Researchers say proven conservation

(09:39):
steps such as planting rows of trees, shrubs, and grasses
in corn fields could sharply reduce these emissions, but the
Trump administration has eliminated many of the incentives that helped
farmers try such practices. Experts say it all raises a
larger question. If the US is most widely land crop

(10:00):
is worsening climate change, shouldn't it begin growing it in
a different way. In the late nineteen nineties, the US
corn farmers were in trouble. Prices had cratered amid a
global grain glut and the Asian financial crisis. A nineteen
ninety nine report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
said corn crop prices had hit crop bottom. Corn production

(10:25):
really took off in the two thousands after federal mandates
and incentives helped turn much of the US corn crop
into ethanol. In two thousand and one, the US Department
of Agriculture launched the bio Energy Program, which paid ethanol
producers to increase their use of farm commodities for fuel.
Then the two thousand and two Farm Bill created programs

(10:47):
supporting ethanol and other renewable energy. Corn growers soon mounted
an all out campaign to persuade Congress to require that
gasoline be blended with ethanol, arguing it cut greenhouse gases,
reduced oil dependence, and revived rural economies. Quote. I started

(11:07):
receiving calls from Capitol Hill saying, would you have your
growers stop calling us. We are with you. John Doggett,
than the industry's chief lobbyist, said in an article published
by the National Corn Grower Association. Quote I had not
seen anything like it before, and haven't seen anything like
it since. In two thousand and five, Congress created the RFS,

(11:31):
which requires adding ethanol to gasoline, and expanded it two
years later. The amount of corn used for ethanol domestically
has more than tripled in the past twenty years. When
demand for corn spiked as a result of the RFS,
it pushed up prices worldwide. The result was more land

(11:53):
cleared to grow corn. The Global Carbon Project found that
nitrous oxide emissions from human activity rose forty percent from
nineteen eighty to twenty twenty in the United States. King
corn in quotes became a political force. Since twenty ten,

(12:13):
national corn and ethanol trade groups had spent more than
fifty five million dollars on lobbying and millions more on
political donations to Democrats and Republicans alike, according to campaign
finance records. In twenty twenty four alone, those trade groups
spent twice as much on lobbying as the National Rifle Association. Now,

(12:36):
the sectors are pushing for the next big prize, expanding
higher ethanol gasoline blends and positioning ethanol based jet fuel
as aviation's low carbon future. Corn and ethanol trade groups
did not respond to requests for interviews, but they have

(12:58):
long promoted corn ethanol as a climate friendly fuel. The
Renewable Fuels Association cites government and university research that finds
burning ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by roughly forty to
fifty percent compared to the gasoline. The ethanol industry says
the climate critics have it wrong, and that most of

(13:20):
the corn used for fuel comes from better yields and
smarter farming, not from plowing up new land. The amount
of fertilizer required to produce a bushel of corn has
dropped sharply in recent decades. They say, quote ethanol reduces
carbon emissions, removing the carbon equivalent of twelve million cars
from the road each year, quote, according to the Renewable

(13:44):
Fuels Association. Growth Energy, a major ethanol trade group, said
in a written statement to Floodlight that US farmers and
biofuel producers are quote constantly finding new ways to make
their operations more efficient and more environmentally beneficial, using things

(14:07):
like cover crops to reduce their carbon footprint. The statement
went on to say biofuel producers are making investments today
that will make their products net zero or even net
negative in the next two decades. Some research tells a
different story. A recent Environmental Working Group report finds that

(14:33):
the way corn has grown in much of the Midwest,
with the same fields planted in corn here after year,
carries a heavy climate cost and research in twenty twenty
two by agricultural land use expert Tyler Lark and colleagues
links the renewable fuel standard to worsening water pollution and

(14:53):
increased emissions, concluding the climate impact is quote no less
than gas lean and likely at least twenty four percent higher.
Lark's research has been disputed by scientists at the Argonne
National Laboratory, Purdue University and the University of Illinois, who
published a formal rebuttal arguing the study relied on questionable

(15:18):
assumptions and faulty modeling, a charge that Lark's team has rejected.
One recent study found that solar panels can generate as
much energy as corn ethanol on roughly three percent of
the land. It's just a terrible use of land, says Searchinger,
a Princeton researcher. And you can't solve climate change if

(15:41):
you're going to make such terrible use of land. The
nitrogen used to grow corn and other crops is also
a key source of drinking water pollution, experts say. According
to a new report by Clean Wisconsin and the Alliance
for the Great Lakes, more than ninety percent of nitrate
contamination and with ker Conson's groundwater is linked to agricultural sources,

(16:04):
mostly synthetic fertilizer and manure. In twenty twenty two, Tyler
Frye and his wife moved into a new home in
the rural village of Casco, Wisconsin, about twenty miles east
of Green Bay. Testing found their well water had nitrate
levels more than twice the EPA's safe limit. We were

(16:24):
pretty shocked. Fry said he installed a reverse osmosis system
in the basement and still buys bottled water for his wife,
who is breastfeeding their daughter. When he watches manure or
fertilizer being spread on nearby fields, he said, one question
nags him, where does that go? Reducing Korn's climate footprint

(16:47):
is possible, but the farmers trying to do it are
swimming against the policy tide. Recent moves by the Trump
administration have stripped out Biden era incentives for climate friendly
farming prectices, which the Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins dismissed as
part of the green new scam. Research, however, shows that

(17:09):
proven conservation practices, including planting trees, shrubs and hedgerows and cornfields,
could make a measurable difference. In northern Iowa, Wendy Johnson
is planting fruit and nut trees, organic grains, shrubs, and
other plants they need little or no nitrogen fertilizer on
one hundred and thirty of the twelve hundred acres of

(17:30):
corn and soybeans she farms with her father. Across the
rest of the farm, they enriched the soil by rotating
crops and planting cover crops. They have also converted less
productive parts of the fields into prairie strips, bands of
prairie grass that store carbon and require no fertilizer. They

(17:52):
were counting on twenty thousand dollars a year from the
now canceled Climate Smart grant program, but it never came.
It's hard to take risks on your own, Johnson said,
that's where federal support really helps. In Southeast Iowa, sixth
generation farmer Levi Lyle mixes organic and conventional methods across

(18:12):
two hundred ninety acres. He uses a three year rotation,
extensive cover crops, and a technique called roller crimping flattening
rye each spring to create a mulch that suppresses weeds,
feeds the soil, and reduces fertilizer needs. Quote the roller
crimping of cover crops is a huge, huge opportunity to

(18:34):
sequester more carbon, improve soil health, save money on chemicals,
and still get a similar yield, Lyle said. Despite mounting
research about corn's climate costs, industry groups or pushing for
legislation to pave the way for ethanol based jet fuel,
researchers warned that producing enough ethanol based aviation fuel could

(18:56):
prompt another one hundred fourteen million acres to be converted
to corn, or twenty percent more corn acres than the
US plants. For all purposes, The result, said University of
Iowa professor and natural resource economists Sylvia Secci, would be
essentially to enshrine this dysfunctional system that we created. And

(19:23):
now we have an article from the Atlantic electricity should
be free at noon and two other ideas for lowering
electricity costs. This is by Leah Stokes, December third. Electricity
prices are becoming an outsized issue in American politics because
they themselves are legitimately outsized compared with the cost of

(19:46):
consumer goods, which have been rising rapidly over the past
few years. Electricity prices are climbing even faster and estimated
thirteen percent nationwide since twenty twenty two. This year, roughly
half of household making less than fifty thousand dollars struggled
to pay their electricity bills. In California, where the rise

(20:07):
has been particularly steep, rates have essentially doubled over the
past decade. When electricity was first commercialized, utilities were allowed
to operate as monopolies for one main reason to deliver
lower cost For a century, it worked. Companies spread the

(20:28):
fixed cost of growing the system across their locked in customers,
and prices dropped precipitously. In eighteen ninety, a kilowatt hour
was nine dollars and forty eight cents on average nationwide
in today's dollars. By nineteen fifty it had dropped to
forty one cents, and by nineteen ninety to twenty one cents.

(20:52):
But recently, this century long trend has reversed. In many states,
utilities are failing to keep prices low. Prices arising for
many reasons, not all of which apply in every state.
In some states, data centers are pushing uprates. In others,
wildfire costs are showing up on bills. Despite what President

(21:14):
Trump has argued, higher prices have little to do with
the country's move toward clean energy. If anything, Trump's One Big,
Beautiful Bill Act has made it harder to invest in
the cheapest ways of building new solar, wind and batteries.
Ignoring those technologies will make electricity only more expensive in
the years to come. If regulators, policymakers, and utility executives

(21:38):
actually want to lower prices, they will have to deal
strategically with both the clean energy boom and climate change
is strain on the electricity system. Clean energy is cheap energy.
Building a large scale solar or wind project costs less
than a new gas plant, and solar and wind require

(21:59):
no fuel to operate rate, making each additional kilowatt hour
essentially free. When combined with batteries, these projects can now
operate like traditional power plants, providing power on demand. In
places with a lot of solar, including California, some installations
are producing more energy than is being consumed, so some

(22:20):
power is being wasted. If people shifted more of their
electricity use toward the middle of the day, the grid's
overall costs would go down because demand would decrease in
later hours, when prices are the highest, and the easiest
way to nudge people towards using that midday powers to
make it cheaper or even free. Like California, Australia has

(22:40):
an enormous amount of solar. The country's Climate Change and
Energy Minister just announced that starting in July, electricity suppliers
will be required to offer at least three hours three
free hours of midday power. In some regions. This will
give people a reason to change their electric I'm sorry.
This will give people a reason to charge their electric vehicles,

(23:04):
use heat pumps to pre cool and preheat their homes
in water, and store more clean electricity in batteries. When
cheap energy is abundant later in the day, when the
system relies on dirtier and more expensive energy sources, people
will likely demand less power, reducing costs for everyone. Plenty
of places in the US could try this too. The

(23:25):
states with the most solar, including California and Texas, are
already wasting about ten percent of their solar energy, but
utilities and regulators have done little to set electricity prices
lower during the day. The closest anyone has come is
in California, where as part of a regulatory proceeding San
Diego Gas an Electric are greed in September to create

(23:48):
a lower cost period from ten AM to two PM.
In the long run, as solar and wind supply more
and more of Americans power, aligning electionletricity rates with clean
energies availability could allow the grid to operate more cheaply.
If the first clear way to cut electricity bills is

(24:10):
strategically lowering prices for customers, the second is strategically cutting
back profits for utilities even as consumers bills rose. California's
Pacific Gas and Electric, for example, reported record profit two
point four to seven billion dollars last year. North Carolina's
Duke Energy had profits north of four billion dollars. Legislators

(24:35):
could trim these profits directly by more closely aligning utilities
guaranteed rates of return with their actual costs. Such adjustments
would also limit utilities endless quest for more infrastructure. Right now,
a utility could make tens of millions of dollars on, say,
putting a transmission line underground, because those that operate as monopolies,

(24:59):
that is, most of them, can charge customers for almost
every dollar spent expanding the transmission and distribution system plus
a profit, so more spending equals more profits, a perverse
incentive called gold plating. One solution is to have states
build the transmission system instead. A new law in California

(25:22):
will pilot this idea, using a fund to publicly financed transmission.
This will not only reduce utility profits, lowering electricity bills,
it will also make electricity cost less regressive by shifting
the burden from lower income people onto the wider tax base.
A third way to lower prices is to take the

(25:45):
cost of climate impacts out of electric bills. As wildfires
rip across the West, their damages are being borne by
utility customers. This is a major reason that costs in
California are so high. Take one example, the twenty seventeen
Thomas fire created two point four billion dollars in liabilities

(26:06):
for southern California. Edison, which sparked the fire. Its customers,
myself included, are now on the hook for two thirds
of those costs. The company, like PG and E, posted
record profits last year. If companies aren't charging ratepayers for
fire damage, then they might be charging them for the
anticipated cost of fires. In Utah, the legislature passed a

(26:31):
law that allows Rocky Mountain Power to proactively collect revenue
from customers for a fire fund. In Colorado, regulators approved
a one point nine billion dollar plan to harden against
future wildfires, jacking up bills by ten percent. Other climate
impacts are increasing electricity rates too. Hurricane prone places like

(26:54):
Florida are also hardening their grids, driving rate increases. The
climate's scientist Andrew Desler has estimated that Texas's electricity prices
were sixteen percent higher in twenty twenty three because of
the demand driven by climate change induced heat waves. Theema's
recent decision not to cover the utilities damages for a

(27:16):
brutal ice storm in Michigan, which may have been more
likely because of climate change, could mean that rural customers
will be playing paying forty five hundred dollars each to
cover the bill. Passing on these climate costs to rate
payers is not the only way of dealing with them.
Hawaii's legislature decided to limit the local utilities liability for

(27:38):
the deadly Maui fires and use state funds to compensate survivors.
Policymakers can also keep utilities for making a profit on
wildfire mitigation and other grid hardening costs, as California has
recently done. Well, that's going to be all for today's
Diary of Science and Nature. Your reader is Kelly Taylor.

(27:59):
Now stay tuned for further programming on RADIOI