Everyday Thinking

WSKG celebrates Earth Day with special programming

During the week of April 21 and through the end of the month, WSKG invites you to tune in and learn about the current status of our environment, scientific innovations and how to become more environmentally conscious.

On Tuesday, April 22 at 1 pm, WSKG radio’s Crystal Sarakas hosts Thinking Green, a special Earth Day call-in program featuring a discussion of how we can make changes in our lives that are Earth-friendly, whether it’s a large project like building a new home or something as ordinary as changing a shower curtain. Thinking Green airs at 1 pm with a rebroadcast at 7 pm on WSKG radio. The program will also be available for on-demand listening at WSKG.ORG.

WSKG Television hosts a line-up of science and environmental programming for Earth Day and beyond, as well as special programming for kids.

On the PBS KIDS preschool block, Miss Lori and Hooper teach children how to recycle their trash at home, and new stories from Dot’s Story Factory show how kids at home can celebrate the planet. Earth Day-themed episodes from CURIOUS GEORGE, CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG and IT’S A BIG BIG WORLD will air alongside themed music videos from the award-winning kids’ rock band Milkshake.

PBS KIDS GO!, for elementary school kids, celebrates Earth Day with themed programming from ARTHUR, MAYA & MIGUEL and CYBERCHASE. Throughout the late afternoon programming block, PBS KIDS GO! presents creative ideas for kids to take care of the environment by recycling, cleaning up their neighborhoods and more.

Other programming on environmental issues include:

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC’S STRANGE DAYS ON PLANET EARTH
Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET

Edward Norton hosts this two-part special. “Most Dangerous Catch”: Over-fishing is affecting life far beyond the shoreline, including Earth’s own life support systems. “Dirty Secrets”: Striped bass are succumbing to flesh-eating bacteria in the Chesapeake Bay. Majestic seabirds are starving in Hawai’i. Coral reefs are weakening under a growing assault of invisible contaminants. How are these mysteries related? In HD where available. http://www.pbs.org/strangedays

NOVA

“Car of the Future”
Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET

Tom and Ray Magliozzi of NPR’s “Car Talk” take viewers on a roller-coaster ride into the world of cars as NOVA takes a look at the latest and greatest in the automotive industry. In HD where available.

FRONTLINE “Hot Politics” (Repeat)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET

FRONTLINE and the Center for Investigative Reporting go behind the scenes to explore how bi-partisan political and economic forces prevented the U.S. government from confronting what may be one of the most serious problems facing humanity today — global warming.

INDEPENDENT LENS “The Creek Runs Red” (Repeat)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET

This program explores the human response to an environmental disaster and the complex connection between people and place in the mining town that the EPA calls the most toxic place in America — Picher, Oklahoma. In HD where available.

Bats are dying off and no one knows why

Al Hicks was standing outside an old mine in the Adirondacks, the largest bat hibernaculum, or winter resting place, in New York State.

It was broad daylight in the middle of winter, and bats flew out of the mine about one a minute. Some had fallen to the ground where they flailed around on the snow like tiny wind-broken umbrellas, using the thumbs at the top joint of their wings to gain their balance.

All would be dead by nightfall. Mr. Hicks, a mammal specialist with the state’s Environmental Conservation Department, said: “Bats don’t fly in the daytime, and bats don’t fly in the winter. Every bat you see out here is a ‘dead bat flying,’ so to speak.”

They have plenty of company. In what is one of the worst calamities to hit bat populations in the United States, on average 90 percent of the hibernating bats in four caves and mines in New York have died since last winter.

Wildlife biologists fear a significant die-off in about 15 caves and mines in New York, as well as at sites in Massachusetts and Vermont. Whatever is killing the bats leaves them unusually thin and, in some cases, dotted with a white fungus. Bat experts fear that what they call White Nose Syndrome may spell doom for several species that keep insect pests under control.

Read the full article here.

(Photograph: Michael Durham/Getty Images)

La Niña in full swing

Cool, wet conditions in the Northwest, frigid weather on the Plains, and record dry conditions in the Southeast, all signs that La Niña is in full swing.

With winter gearing up, a moderate La Niña is hitting its peak. And we are just beginning to see the full effects of this oceanographic phenomenon, as La Niña episodes are typically strongest in January.

A La Niña event occurs when cooler than normal sea surface temperatures form along the equator in the Pacific Ocean, specifically in the eastern to central Pacific. The La Niña we are experiencing now has a significant presence in the eastern part of the ocean.

The cooler water temperatures associated with La Niña are caused by an increase in easterly sea surface winds. Under normal conditions these winds force cooler water from below up to the surface of the ocean. When the winds increase in speed, more cold water from below is forced up, cooling the ocean surface.

“With this La Niña, the sea-surface temperatures are about two degrees colder than normal in the eastern Pacific and that’s a pretty significant difference,” says David Adamec of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but remember this is water that probably covers an area the size of the United States. It’s like you put this big air conditioner out there -- and the atmosphere is going to feel it.”

Read the full article here.