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NBC's Sea Change series and ABC's A Closer Look both brought bad news for the planet on Earth Day. ABC's Bill Blakemore told us about global warming "rising faster than worst case scenarios projected just a few years ago." The world's three biggest carbon polluters are China, the United States and Indonesia. Glaciers are vanishing. Species are becoming extinct. Coral reefs "could be gone by mid-century." NBC's Ian Williams traveled to Tasmania to focus on marine ecology's vicious cycle: because excess carbon in the atmosphere is absorbed by salt water, the oceans are becoming more acidic; because of the higher acid, shellfish are unable to grow; "and critically since the shells are carbon absorbers the world loses a vital buffer against climate change."
CBS' Daniel Sieberg and ABC's Dan Harris searched for a green future. ABC's Harris showed us synthetic carbon-dioxide-absorbing trees and technology to recycle algae and methane. CBS' Sieberg traveled to the village of Ventanilla in Peru--he doubled up on this trip, telling us about microloans last week--to bring us a low-tech invention from MIT's D-Lab. The D-Lab makes affordable, reparable, sustainable, efficient appliances for Third World communities. Sieberg introduced us to La Sagrada Familia orphanage--600 children, two tons of laundry each week--that uses MIT's $125 bici-lavadora to clean clothes. He punningly demonstrated the pedal-powered washing machine: "one gear for wash; one for rinse; even one for the spin cycle."
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