May 29, 2010

The Hidden Cost of Your New TV

That beautiful plasma television you bought may look nice, but it may be costing you more green than you thought. We have the eye-opening story. Then heres a truly shocking statistic: deaths by poisoning are soaring in the latest surveys. What are the facts behind this deadly surge? Plus is our education system giving our American workers the skills to compete in the global market? An expert doesnt think so, but has ways to fix the problem.

Episode Segments:

A Turn-off about New TVs When you by a flat screen TV, you look at its size and picture resolution. But how about its energy usage? Dr. Tom Reddoch is Manager of Energy Utilization at the Electric Power Research Institute, an independent, nonprofit center for public-interest energy and environmental research. His laboratory found that a plasma TV typically uses over twice the electricity than the TV it replaces. He also talks about the surprising energy usage of devices like cable boxes, digital video recorders and electronic picture frames.
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The Deadly Details on Poisoning Deaths Drug poisoning deaths are on the rise and have become the second-leading cause of injury deaths in the US. Lois Fingerhut, Special Assistant for Injury Epidemiology in the Office of Analysis and Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says the narcotic methadone is the primary reason for the trend, usually through an overdose of prescription pills. She said doctors and patients must be better educated in the safe use of methadone.
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Updating the Skills of the American Worker The global economy continues to change. But are the skills of the American worker able to keep up? Marc Tucker is President of the National Center on Education and the Economy. Mr. Tucker is in favor of radical reforms in our nations educational system. He shares the results of a report by his organization that examines the skills that American workers need to compete in the global economy.
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Guest(s) Appearing on this Episode

Lois Fingerhut Lois A. Fingerhut is the Special Assistant for Injury Epidemiology in the Office of Analysis and Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ms. Fingerhut is the Chair of the International Collaborative Effort (ICE) on Injury Statistics, a multinational project, the focus of which is to understand cross-national differences in injury mortality and morbidity. Her research includes analyses of injury data from most NCHS health care and vital statistics data sets. In addition, she has significant experience with classification of injury morbidity and mortality data. Ms. Fingerhut received a Masters degree in demography from Georgetown University in 1975 and has been at NCHS since 1977.

Marc Tucker Marc Tucker is President and founder of NCEE. He created the first Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce in 1989, as well as the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce in 2005 and authored the New Commission's report, Tough Choices or Tough Times. A leader of the national standards movement for many years, Tucker co-authored, with Ray Marshall, Thinking for a Living: Education and the Wealth of Nations, co-authored, with Judy Codding, Standards for Our Schools: How to Set Them, Measure Them and Reach Them, and co-edited, with Codding, The Principal Challenge. Click here to visit his website