Lois Chang
Anchor Intro
Pollution in the Arctic
4/18/15
Industrial chemicals
The frozen land of the Arctic, called the Cryosphere, is in trouble and scientists say industrial chemicals bear much of the blame.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (po-li-chlo-ri-nat-ed bi-phi-nuls) are among the industrial chemicals that have traveled up from countries such as China, Russia, and the US and ended up in the Northern Cryosphere.
Lois Chang reports on the problem of the pollutants that persist in the Arctic environment.
Tape log index (4:56)
Lois Chang (2:44)
Reporter
David Nugent ( :15)
Professor and Director of Emory University’s Development Practice Program
Greg Huey( :10)
Professor and Chair of Georgia Institute of Technology
Crispin Halsall( 1:00 )
Professor of Lancaster University, UK
Lois Chang
Anchor Intro
Pollution in the Arctic
4/18/15
Reporter Voicer (20)
Polychlorinated biphenyls (po-li-chlo-ri-nat-ed bi-phi-nuls) are man-made chemicals that were manufactured and widely distributed in countries like the U.S., the UK, China, and Russia. It wasn’t until 1970’s when they were banned globally.
Industrial chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls travel from these countries and settle down in the Arctic.
Crispin Halsall (Crisp-in Hal-sahl), an environmental chemist and professor of Lancaster University, explains how the chemicals are building up and destabilizing the Arctic environment.
Actuality (13 )
Crispin Halsall
Professor of Lancaster University, UK
Those chemicals can over time deposit, end up in surface media like marine waters, surface snow and soil in the tundra. And they can eventually accumulate into the Arctic food web.
Reporter Voicer (20)
Given the widespread pollution of chemicals in the Arctic ecosystem, the chemicals are building up and destabilizing the Arctic environment.
Georgia Institute of Technology professor Greg Huey (Greg Hew-ee) explains that climate change melts the permafrost and unleashes these chemicals.
Actuality (10)
Greg Huey
Professor and Chair of Georgia Institute of Technology
The Cryosphere is ultimately mobile. Tundra that used to be permafrost melt periodically throughout the year because of climate change. You’re going to start mobilizing things that haven’t been mobilized before.
Reporter Voicer ( 12)
Heightening atmospheric temperatures are dramatically melting the ice in the North Pole. For this reason, the chemicals trapped inside the ice is starting to enter the environment at an increasing rate.
Halsall (Hal-sahl), the Lancaster professor, says climate change is harming the Arctic
ecosystem in other ways. Chemicals are contaminating traditional food supplies and creating a
dilemma for indigenous people.
Actuality (20 )
Crispin Halsall
Professor of Lancaster University, UK
The Arctic is undergoing unprecedented changes because of climate change. There’s lots of subtle timing of events and changes which may be affecting or exacerbating chemical pathways or routes of exposure to the marine food-web that we haven’t thought about before.”
Reporter Voicer ( 10 )
Halsall (Hal-sahl) admits that traditional diet may be healthier than the alternatives.
Actuality ( 12 )
Crispin Halsall
Professor of Lancaster University, UK
The country food diet is a very healthy diet. Overall the country style diet is a good one and you should pursue that. Lots of the culture of those people is based on hunting and the sharing of food. It would be devastating to stop that process.
Reporter Voicer (10)
Halsall argues that the Indigenous people ought to pursue their traditional diet. At the same time, he recognizes the potential dangers associated with it.
Actuality (10 )
Crispin Halsall
Professor of Lancaster University, UK
That’s the difficulty with contaminant science. You want to preserve those communities but you also want to prevent the detrimental health effects because of exposure to these chemicals.
Reporter Voicer (12)
The hunting and sharing of traditional food such as seal, whale, and fish have been practiced for thousands of years. This livelihood makes up the Indigenous communities in the Arctic. David Nugent (Da-vid Noo-gent), an anthropologist who studied Inuit lifestyle and ecology on Canada’s western coast, explains indigenous people often have a community approach to food.
Actuality (15 )
David Nugent
Professor and Director of Emory University’s Development Practice Program
There are three powerful obligations that everybody has in respect to food in particular. To give…to receive…and to repay. That keeps the cycle going. They just don’t use private property concepts with respect to subsistence activities.
Reporter Closing (15)
The tension that exists between the scientific knowledge on the industrial chemicals and the ethical values of preserving Indigenous culture continues to be a problem today. With much effort by public health officials, scientists and anthropologists, steps are been taken forward in finding some compromise.
Tag: Lois Chang, Emory News Now