PEOPLE COUNT: HEATING UP

1997

As world leaders gathered at the Kyoto Climate Change Conference in Japan to write a treaty to reduce harmful greenhouse gases, Barbara Pyle heads to an area that lies directly in the danger zone – Southern Louisiana. Pyle first talks with New Orleans’ Mosquito and Termite Control Board about the effects that warming is having on the city’s rapidly increasing insect population.

Pyle also travels to the wetlands of Louisiana , where erosion is claiming the area at the rate of one football field every 15 minutes. She talks to Milton Cambre, a former oil rigger turned conservationist, whose mission is to save the fragile marshes and vast array of fish and animal life dependent upon these marshes, from disappearing as the seas rise from global warming.

Next stop in the bayou is an adventure with Alligator Annie, a one-woman show, who introduces us to her best friends –alligators! Calling each by name she entertains us by feeding them whole chickens and in the end making us appreciate the beasts - almost as much as she does. Annie hopes by educating others she will save her friends from extinction.

Finally, Pyle meets Kit Senter, a New Orleans native who has built an energy efficient bed and breakfast and explains how people can make their homes more environmentally-friendly and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

Throughout this engaging special we are treated to the sounds of the world famous Harold Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band.

Produced for the Kyoto Climate Change Conference