Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rebecca Davison of Montpelier.
Think about the following if you are planning to pledge support to Vermont Public Radio this week.
A few years ago VPR dropped a weekly environmental program called “Living on Earth.” So aside from a periodic story (usually around some disaster), we get no daily (certainly) or weekly environmental news. This week we’ve missed some important stories:
• Leaking natural gas wells in Canada spew methane, Vancouver Sun
• California drought: Voluntary cutback falls short in Bay Area, San Francisco Chronicle
• Why Buffett, Apple, Google love solar power, USA Today
• Vermont smack in the middle of crucial electricity supply and demand, VTDigger
• Air conditioning turns up city heat, Climate News Network
• EPA to regulate emissions from power plants, Living on Earth
• Tom Steyer’s slow, and ongoing, conversion from fossil-fuels to investor to climate activist, Washington Post
I wrote a letter to John Van Hoesen, the station’s director of programming, and I received a short reply back from Robin Turnau, the president and CEO of VPR, stating that listeners were not interested in environmental programming, that’s why they dropped “Living on Earth.” I do wonder how they came to that conclusion.
VPR needs to make a commitment to put economics and the environment news together on a regular basis if we are going to going to understand the whole story.
What I find particularly interesting is that there are daily broadcasts of business and economic news. As they say on “Marketplace,” let’s do the numbers: “Marketplace,” one hour on Saturdays, “Marketplace” news every weeknight, 30 minutes, plus every morning for 10 to 15 minutes, and regular segments on NPR. This adds up to about 6½ hours of weekly business and economic news. The amount of regular environmental news is 0.
Ironically, the health of the economy and of business rests on the natural environment and nature has its limits. If business and economic decisions don’t include the environment, we will be making choices that have serious consequences. Businesses like individuals have to be informed in order to make good decisions.
If VPR is worried about all the bad news, they shouldn’t be. There is a lot of very good news that could be reported and is inspiring: cities and town along the coasts are preserving wetlands and salt marshes as natural barriers against severe storms; advances in energy storage for renewal power sources; big Internet businesses like Apple, Google and Facebook are moving away from coal plants to power their servers; and even a great story about Eben Bayer, a Vermont native, who has created an alternative to plastic/styrofoam packaging material from mushrooms. Can’t beat that.
VPR needs to make a commitment to put economics and the environment news together on a regular basis if we are going to going to understand the whole story. This is pledge week for VPR, if you want more environmental reporting, tell them.
