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Global Challenges

A Look at How New Technology Around World Impacts Environment

Aired March 19, 2005 -   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES HODSON, CNN HOST (voice-over): Coming up on GLOBAL CHALLENGES, the virus that flu the coop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is one of the scariest viruses that has emerged in recent years.

HODSON: Scientists try to clip the wings of bird flu before it's too late.

Motor mouth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe motor sport is the way to get that message across concerning sustainable energy and reducing carbon dioxide levels.

HODSON: One man steers the youth of today toward a greener future.

And reef grief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You cannot compare this to anything. I have never seen anything like this before.

HODSON: The unseen side of Thailand's cleanup after the tsunami.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(voice-over): The serene English countryside, complete with rolling hills, green pastures and farmland.

But not long ago, cattle farms in certain parts of the country were in disarray, first over Mad Cow Disease, then Foot and Mouth. Grisly scenes of mass (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and cremation are still fresh in our memory.

(on camera): Luckily, things have settled down a bit around here since those dark days, but they did serve to bring home to us just how frightening an animal disease can be, especially if it is capable of passing from animals to people.

Now far away from here another disease is emerging that does spread from animals to people. If it mutates into a strain that is capable of human to human infection, we could have a pandemic on our hands.

That disease is Avian Flu.

Mike Chinoy traveled to Vietnam to find out what is being done about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is so remote, it doesn't have a name, we had to take a dug-out canoe to reach Village Number 4 in Tomtan (ph) District of Southern Vietnam's Lonon (ph) Province.

And it was here we found 39-year-old To Ti Wan (ph) weeping over the grave of her 10-year-old daughter Vo Ti Nwan (ph), one of the latest victims of Avian Influenza, bird flu.

"She kept telling me she was having breathing problems," says To Ti Wan (ph). "She was crying and saying, "I'm so tired. I feel like I'm going to die."" And after eight days at the Ho Chi Minh City Children's Hospital, she died.

This is a family of simple rice farmers raising a few chickens on the side. A few days before Vo Ti Nwan (ph) got sick, the family's chickens died. They didn't know why, but doctors later confirmed it was bird flu, and somehow the little girl had been infected.

(on camera): It is in villages like this, where people live in close proximity to poultry and other animals, that virtually all the human cases of Avian Flu in Vietnam have occurred. Precisely the setting, experts fear, where the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans with devastating consequences.

(voice-over): 10,000 miles away, at the U.S. Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Tim Uteki spends a lot of time worrying about cases like that of Vo Ti Nwan (ph).

DR. TIM UTEKI, CDC: This is one of the scariest viruses that's emerged in recent years. That's for sure. It is the most concerning influenza virus that we have seen. This is highly pathogenic in poultry. It is highly pathogenic in people.

CHINOY: Dr. Uteki is an epidemiologist, part of a team of experts struggling to prevent Avian Flu, technically known as the H5N1 virus, from sparking a health crisis around the globe.

UTEKI: But with H5N1, if it is to acquire the ability to efficiently go from person to person, then the majority of the world's population will have no immunity to H5N1, will all be susceptible. And we know that human influenza is extremely contagious.

CHINOY: Dr. Hans Trodjsen (ph) is the World Health Organization's man in Vietnam. He is well aware of what that means.

DR. HANS TRODJSEN (ph), WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: We would see millions of people dying. We will have a pandemic that would shut down societies and communities and conservative estimations are saying maybe 5 to 7 million deaths. That is conservative. We could be up to 50 or 100 million deaths.

CHINOY: It hasn't happened yet. But throughout Southeast Asia, the virus has become endemic among poultry, especially in Vietnam. And even though transmission to humans remains relatively rare so far, the disease has already killed dozens of people.

At the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, Dr. Fan Van To (ph) meets with WHO officials to plot strategy. The institute is Vietnam's nerve center for the fight against Avian Flu, coordinating surveillance in the countryside, conducting research on the nature of H5N1, especially whether it is evolving into a strain which can easily infect and kill humans.

So lethal is Avian Flu that very few who have caught the disease have survived. 10-year-old Hunan (ph) is an exception. At the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, she is greeted by the doctor who saved her life. Hunan (ph) caught the virus from her pet duck.

"I felt like I was losing consciousness," she tells me." I was lying there with pains in my chest."

"We had no hope she would survive," says Hunan's (ph) mother, Tan Chow (ph). "We were sure she would die. We made preparations for her funeral."

After five weeks, though, Hunan (ph) pulled through. Dr. Tran Sing Hen (ph) says she is OK now. He credits her recovery to a rapid diagnosis and speedy administration of antiviral medication.

With no certain cure and such a high death rate, scientists are racing to find a vaccine, so far with limited success.

UTEKI: One of the challenges is, as these viruses evolve, we need to really stay on top of how these viruses are evolving, and the reason is, is that vaccines that were produced experimentally against the 1997 viruses in Hong Kong, they would have no protection against the 2004-2005 H5N1 viruses in Southeast Asia. The viruses have changed.

CHINOY: At a recent international conference on Avian Flu held in Vietnam, the World Health Organization sounded the alarm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We at WHO believe that now is the greatest possible danger of a pandemic.

CHINOY: WHO officials called for governments around the world to develop plans to deal with a flu emergency.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will have probably to close schools. You will have to close workplaces. Trade will be effected. You need to decide if you have to ban gatherings and you need to protect key functions, like the police, fire brigade, health workers, to be effective.

CHINOY: In the meantime, the burden of preventing a disaster rests largely on the members of Vietnam's understaffed, under-funded, technologically backward but dedicated public health system. People like veterinarian Nguyen Van Qong (ph), who puts himself at risk every time he takes the blood sample of poultry farmers, or his boss, Dr. Nguyen Dui Lan (ph), who supervises the lab where the samples are tests for H5N1. Every month hundreds come back positive, underscoring the fact that the virus is endemic in this country.

And for every big state-run chicken form, where the workers have protective clothing and take the right safety precautions, there are thousands of family farms like this, kids playing as chickens wander in the yard. No precautions, a breeding ground, potentially, for disaster.

In the village where 10-year-old Vo Ti Nwan (ph) died, the provincial preventive medicine chief, No Van Huang (ph), visits the locals. His message: be careful. Eating healthy chickens is OK, but don't cook chickens that have gotten sick and died, and don't throw carcasses into the river.

"There is some advice and education we have to have the community understand," he says. "They shouldn't do these kinds of things."

It's an uphill struggle with enormous stakes, to insure that what happened to Vo Ti Nwan (ph) remains a tragic but isolated episode and not the start of a global public health disaster.

Mike Chinoy, CNN, Lonon (ph) Province, Vietnam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HODSON: A number of countries, including Britain, France, the United States and Japan, are already stocking up on antiviral drugs so that they can reduce at least the risk of infection should a human strain of bird flu emerge.

Up next on GLOBAL CHALLENGES, something a great deal less dire. In fact, possibly racy.

We'll explain after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HODSON: Welcome back.

As stories about oil supplies and rising prices continue to make headlines, alternative energy sources, like wind and solar power, are also getting more attention.

Some countries, especially in Europe, have set ambitious targets for renewable energy. Here in United Kingdom, for example, the government wants to generate 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources within 5 years and 20 percent by 2020.

But getting people fired up about this issue is a challenge, especially the younger generation.

One man in southern England, though, has come up with a novel way of supercharging the effort.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BOLDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Go-cart racing can be hazardous, so these young drivers are suited up to lessen the danger. But what about the danger from car racing to the environment?

As these gasoline powered carts continue to attack the circuit, Gordon Foat is parked up in the pits, planning for the day when cart racing, indeed all car racing, takes the environment as seriously as it takes winning, to show young people the environment matters.

GORTON FOAT, GREEN MOTOR SPORTS: We need a really high profile way of putting the message across, and I believe motor sport is the way to get that message across concerning sustainable energy and reducing carbon dioxide levels.

BOLDEN: 31-year-old Foat runs Green Motor Sport, a company in southeast England dedicated to showing one of the least environmentally friendly sports how to clean up its act.

But before he gets his cart on the track, Foat has to get his two micro-wind turbines up and running.

(on camera): Now, I wouldn't think of a wind turbine at a cart track or a race track. Why is this important for you?

FOAT: Well, it is important for us to generate electricity so we can power our portable tools. This one gives 100 watts, so over a period of time you can generate quite an amount of energy. And that is for our industrial batteries.

BOLDEN (voice-over): Foat expects his new turbines to one day generate power in the pits. For now, he uses the solar panels on the top of this trailer for power.

Gordon Foat has asked up and coming British racer Becky Beth Cox (ph) to take his green cart for a spin.

It is the first time Cox (ph) has ridden in a cart not run on fossil fuels. Foat's cart uses only a battery.

Cox (ph) says the battery-powered cart runs as fast as a gas-powered machine, and actually starts faster.

(on camera): Can the technology here in this cart also go into car racing? Indeed, could it go into, say, Formula One one day?

FOAT: Absolutely. The technology on this cart is transferable to the automotive industry and potentially into Formula One.

BOLDEN (voice-over): And as drivers like Cox (ph) dream of jumping from carts to cars to even Formula One, so does Foat.

He wants to show the world's top drivers how to cut emissions around every corner.

Cox (ph) had her turn at the wheel. Now it is my turn.

(on camera): Ready? Let's do it. My first time.

Very tight squeeze in here. Let's see how I go.

Currently the battery on this cart is recharged using electricity, but Gordon Foat says with just a little bit of funding, the entire thing could be done using fuel cells, which would mean running the cart with zero emissions.

(voice-over): This electric extension cord plugged into the wall reveals that truth.

FOAT: We can power the fuel cell using renewable energies to generate hydrogen, and then convert it into electricity to charge the electric car.

BOLDEN (on camera): It is that simple?

FOAT: It is that simple.

BOLDEN (voice-over): Foat's team points out that fuel cells can make the grade. A nearby swimming complex is run entirely by a few cell which emits only steam.

But Green Motor Sports says a fuel cell plugged into the back of a racing car will have much more impact than one stuck in the back of a building.

ALEX SWANSON, GREEN MOTOR SPORTS: We see a lot of environmental projects around that really fail to engage people, especially the young, and I think something like motor support has immense appeal and it has sex appeal for young people.

BOLDEN: And Foat wants to prove that next year. He is planning for an environmentally aware cart race.

FOAT: We're going to have 12 cars on the grid powered from renewable sources, using micro-wind turbines, using fuel cells, a whole accumulation of technologies, using BP solar panels and, basically, microgeneration (ph) technologies.

BOLDEN: An ambitious goal to show other motor sports there is another way.

Jim Bolden, CNN, Eisher (ph), England.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HODSON: Welcome back.

If you caught the last edition of GLOBAL CHALLENGES, you'll have seen that all of our stories came from countries struck by December's tsunami. We plan to continue reporting on the recovery efforts in the months ahead.

Today a story from a different perspective, off the coast of Thailand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A few meters under the Indian Ocean, sites unseen even by the most experienced divers. Nestled amidst Thailand's coral reefs are well over 1,000 tons of debris, a stark reminder of the vicious destruction that ravaged the region last year.

When the Asian tsunami hit, the ferocious waves did not just crash on the shore. They also withdrew with enormous force, carrying anything too weak to stay on ground; people, cars, buildings. Their wrath was indiscriminate.

And in the aftermath, from kitchen sinks to televisions, all the amenities of land are occupying the ocean's landscape. Here in Phuket, underwater rehabilitation is as critical as above ground rebuilding.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) heads the government's efforts to clean the coral reefs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

RAMAN: Resources not just for life underwater, but for livelihoods as well. Entire industries are dependent upon divers wanting to see Thailand's coral reefs. And unless they are restored, the number of tourists will dwindle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Worst case is, if we cannot bring all the debris on time, it will be destroyed, probably more permanently in some places, to the coral. The coral itself can grow very slowly, some part of the coral could grow only a few centimeters per year. So I think that is what we have to do.

RAMAN (voice-over): Within days after the tsunami, the Thai government made it clear that it needed help. It needed volunteer divers to help remove the trash from sites all across Phuket. The response was beyond anyone's expectation.

From foreign diving instructors, for whom Thailand is a second home, to tourists who felt the need to help, every weekend at outings across the island, people are diving for debris.

Dennis Calson (ph), a dive master in Phuket, is a regular volunteer.

DENNIS CALSON (ph), DIVE MASTER: You cannot compare this to anything. I have never seen anything like this before. It is a strange feeling to be down there.

There is so much stuff that is not supposed to be there, so it is a strange feeling.

RAMAN: Each trip down brings with it newfound oddities. Some require cranes. Others that are simply too heavy for a diver to move are marked by a buoy for the boats to tow.

CALSON (ph): I have found a TV and a guitar amplifier and also another bigger amplifier today, so, yes, many things. Also, we know that there is a car trailer down here and we will see if it is too big to actually recover. Or otherwise it will be part of our reef.

RAMAN (on camera): This effort is truly remarkable, the likes of which the Thai government has never seen before. But that timeline is essentially. If they don't meet the deadline, the implications for the environment and the economy could be devastating.

(voice-over): They have until the end of April when monsoon rains will make diving impossible and insure that any leftover debris causes permanent damage, but confidence is the overriding sentiment.

At this dive shop, the owner seems to speak for the entire island.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I am very optimistic, and not less because we got all the feedback from the companies, for the divers, some asking for help and saying we need your support right now to survive. You know, we still have instructors coming in and students buying equipment, so there is no reason to give up.

RAMAN: This is but one link in an intricate economic chain of people who cannot contemplate the thought of permanent damage. For them, for their professions, the reefs must and will be restored.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you have the hotels and the service providers, like the dive center or like the tailor shops, but everything who supplies, like captains, boat boys, the food supplier, the dive industry which supplies with items and so on, so they are just looking at the moment. They are hanging behind and waiting what happens.

RAMAN: In the myriad of concerns that followed the tsunami, this is but one. Perhaps not the most critical, not even the most daunting. But for this industry and the people who need it to survive, there is no more important struggle.

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Phuket, Thailand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HODSON: We're out of time, but if you have any comments on the show, please e-mail us at Global.Challenges@CNN.COM.

I'm Charles Hodson. Thanks for watching.

END

TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired March 19, 2005 - Avian Influenza; Bird Flu; Vietnam; Renewable Energy; Conservation; Asia; Tsunami; Phuket, Thailand   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLES HODSON, CNN HOST (voice-over): Coming up on GLOBAL CHALLENGES, the virus that flu the coop.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is one of the scariest viruses that has emerged in recent years.

HODSON: Scientists try to clip the wings of bird flu before it's too late.

Motor mouth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe motor sport is the way to get that message across concerning sustainable energy and reducing carbon dioxide levels.

HODSON: One man steers the youth of today toward a greener future.

And reef grief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You cannot compare this to anything. I have never seen anything like this before.

HODSON: The unseen side of Thailand's cleanup after the tsunami.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(voice-over): The serene English countryside, complete with rolling hills, green pastures and farmland.

But not long ago, cattle farms in certain parts of the country were in disarray, first over Mad Cow Disease, then Foot and Mouth. Grisly scenes of mass (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and cremation are still fresh in our memory.

(on camera): Luckily, things have settled down a bit around here since those dark days, but they did serve to bring home to us just how frightening an animal disease can be, especially if it is capable of passing from animals to people.

Now far away from here another disease is emerging that does spread from animals to people. If it mutates into a strain that is capable of human to human infection, we could have a pandemic on our hands.

That disease is Avian Flu.

Mike Chinoy traveled to Vietnam to find out what is being done about it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is so remote, it doesn't have a name, we had to take a dug-out canoe to reach Village Number 4 in Tomtan (ph) District of Southern Vietnam's Lonon (ph) Province.

And it was here we found 39-year-old To Ti Wan (ph) weeping over the grave of her 10-year-old daughter Vo Ti Nwan (ph), one of the latest victims of Avian Influenza, bird flu.

"She kept telling me she was having breathing problems," says To Ti Wan (ph). "She was crying and saying, "I'm so tired. I feel like I'm going to die."" And after eight days at the Ho Chi Minh City Children's Hospital, she died.

This is a family of simple rice farmers raising a few chickens on the side. A few days before Vo Ti Nwan (ph) got sick, the family's chickens died. They didn't know why, but doctors later confirmed it was bird flu, and somehow the little girl had been infected.

(on camera): It is in villages like this, where people live in close proximity to poultry and other animals, that virtually all the human cases of Avian Flu in Vietnam have occurred. Precisely the setting, experts fear, where the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans with devastating consequences.

(voice-over): 10,000 miles away, at the U.S. Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, Dr. Tim Uteki spends a lot of time worrying about cases like that of Vo Ti Nwan (ph).

DR. TIM UTEKI, CDC: This is one of the scariest viruses that's emerged in recent years. That's for sure. It is the most concerning influenza virus that we have seen. This is highly pathogenic in poultry. It is highly pathogenic in people.

CHINOY: Dr. Uteki is an epidemiologist, part of a team of experts struggling to prevent Avian Flu, technically known as the H5N1 virus, from sparking a health crisis around the globe.

UTEKI: But with H5N1, if it is to acquire the ability to efficiently go from person to person, then the majority of the world's population will have no immunity to H5N1, will all be susceptible. And we know that human influenza is extremely contagious.

CHINOY: Dr. Hans Trodjsen (ph) is the World Health Organization's man in Vietnam. He is well aware of what that means.

DR. HANS TRODJSEN (ph), WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: We would see millions of people dying. We will have a pandemic that would shut down societies and communities and conservative estimations are saying maybe 5 to 7 million deaths. That is conservative. We could be up to 50 or 100 million deaths.

CHINOY: It hasn't happened yet. But throughout Southeast Asia, the virus has become endemic among poultry, especially in Vietnam. And even though transmission to humans remains relatively rare so far, the disease has already killed dozens of people.

At the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, Dr. Fan Van To (ph) meets with WHO officials to plot strategy. The institute is Vietnam's nerve center for the fight against Avian Flu, coordinating surveillance in the countryside, conducting research on the nature of H5N1, especially whether it is evolving into a strain which can easily infect and kill humans.

So lethal is Avian Flu that very few who have caught the disease have survived. 10-year-old Hunan (ph) is an exception. At the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, she is greeted by the doctor who saved her life. Hunan (ph) caught the virus from her pet duck.

"I felt like I was losing consciousness," she tells me." I was lying there with pains in my chest."

"We had no hope she would survive," says Hunan's (ph) mother, Tan Chow (ph). "We were sure she would die. We made preparations for her funeral."

After five weeks, though, Hunan (ph) pulled through. Dr. Tran Sing Hen (ph) says she is OK now. He credits her recovery to a rapid diagnosis and speedy administration of antiviral medication.

With no certain cure and such a high death rate, scientists are racing to find a vaccine, so far with limited success.

UTEKI: One of the challenges is, as these viruses evolve, we need to really stay on top of how these viruses are evolving, and the reason is, is that vaccines that were produced experimentally against the 1997 viruses in Hong Kong, they would have no protection against the 2004-2005 H5N1 viruses in Southeast Asia. The viruses have changed.

CHINOY: At a recent international conference on Avian Flu held in Vietnam, the World Health Organization sounded the alarm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We at WHO believe that now is the greatest possible danger of a pandemic.

CHINOY: WHO officials called for governments around the world to develop plans to deal with a flu emergency.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You will have probably to close schools. You will have to close workplaces. Trade will be effected. You need to decide if you have to ban gatherings and you need to protect key functions, like the police, fire brigade, health workers, to be effective.

CHINOY: In the meantime, the burden of preventing a disaster rests largely on the members of Vietnam's understaffed, under-funded, technologically backward but dedicated public health system. People like veterinarian Nguyen Van Qong (ph), who puts himself at risk every time he takes the blood sample of poultry farmers, or his boss, Dr. Nguyen Dui Lan (ph), who supervises the lab where the samples are tests for H5N1. Every month hundreds come back positive, underscoring the fact that the virus is endemic in this country.

And for every big state-run chicken form, where the workers have protective clothing and take the right safety precautions, there are thousands of family farms like this, kids playing as chickens wander in the yard. No precautions, a breeding ground, potentially, for disaster.

In the village where 10-year-old Vo Ti Nwan (ph) died, the provincial preventive medicine chief, No Van Huang (ph), visits the locals. His message: be careful. Eating healthy chickens is OK, but don't cook chickens that have gotten sick and died, and don't throw carcasses into the river.

"There is some advice and education we have to have the community understand," he says. "They shouldn't do these kinds of things."

It's an uphill struggle with enormous stakes, to insure that what happened to Vo Ti Nwan (ph) remains a tragic but isolated episode and not the start of a global public health disaster.

Mike Chinoy, CNN, Lonon (ph) Province, Vietnam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HODSON: A number of countries, including Britain, France, the United States and Japan, are already stocking up on antiviral drugs so that they can reduce at least the risk of infection should a human strain of bird flu emerge.

Up next on GLOBAL CHALLENGES, something a great deal less dire. In fact, possibly racy.

We'll explain after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HODSON: Welcome back.

As stories about oil supplies and rising prices continue to make headlines, alternative energy sources, like wind and solar power, are also getting more attention.

Some countries, especially in Europe, have set ambitious targets for renewable energy. Here in United Kingdom, for example, the government wants to generate 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources within 5 years and 20 percent by 2020.

But getting people fired up about this issue is a challenge, especially the younger generation.

One man in southern England, though, has come up with a novel way of supercharging the effort.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM BOLDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Go-cart racing can be hazardous, so these young drivers are suited up to lessen the danger. But what about the danger from car racing to the environment?

As these gasoline powered carts continue to attack the circuit, Gordon Foat is parked up in the pits, planning for the day when cart racing, indeed all car racing, takes the environment as seriously as it takes winning, to show young people the environment matters.

GORTON FOAT, GREEN MOTOR SPORTS: We need a really high profile way of putting the message across, and I believe motor sport is the way to get that message across concerning sustainable energy and reducing carbon dioxide levels.

BOLDEN: 31-year-old Foat runs Green Motor Sport, a company in southeast England dedicated to showing one of the least environmentally friendly sports how to clean up its act.

But before he gets his cart on the track, Foat has to get his two micro-wind turbines up and running.

(on camera): Now, I wouldn't think of a wind turbine at a cart track or a race track. Why is this important for you?

FOAT: Well, it is important for us to generate electricity so we can power our portable tools. This one gives 100 watts, so over a period of time you can generate quite an amount of energy. And that is for our industrial batteries.

BOLDEN (voice-over): Foat expects his new turbines to one day generate power in the pits. For now, he uses the solar panels on the top of this trailer for power.

Gordon Foat has asked up and coming British racer Becky Beth Cox (ph) to take his green cart for a spin.

It is the first time Cox (ph) has ridden in a cart not run on fossil fuels. Foat's cart uses only a battery.

Cox (ph) says the battery-powered cart runs as fast as a gas-powered machine, and actually starts faster.

(on camera): Can the technology here in this cart also go into car racing? Indeed, could it go into, say, Formula One one day?

FOAT: Absolutely. The technology on this cart is transferable to the automotive industry and potentially into Formula One.

BOLDEN (voice-over): And as drivers like Cox (ph) dream of jumping from carts to cars to even Formula One, so does Foat.

He wants to show the world's top drivers how to cut emissions around every corner.

Cox (ph) had her turn at the wheel. Now it is my turn.

(on camera): Ready? Let's do it. My first time.

Very tight squeeze in here. Let's see how I go.

Currently the battery on this cart is recharged using electricity, but Gordon Foat says with just a little bit of funding, the entire thing could be done using fuel cells, which would mean running the cart with zero emissions.

(voice-over): This electric extension cord plugged into the wall reveals that truth.

FOAT: We can power the fuel cell using renewable energies to generate hydrogen, and then convert it into electricity to charge the electric car.

BOLDEN (on camera): It is that simple?

FOAT: It is that simple.

BOLDEN (voice-over): Foat's team points out that fuel cells can make the grade. A nearby swimming complex is run entirely by a few cell which emits only steam.

But Green Motor Sports says a fuel cell plugged into the back of a racing car will have much more impact than one stuck in the back of a building.

ALEX SWANSON, GREEN MOTOR SPORTS: We see a lot of environmental projects around that really fail to engage people, especially the young, and I think something like motor support has immense appeal and it has sex appeal for young people.

BOLDEN: And Foat wants to prove that next year. He is planning for an environmentally aware cart race.

FOAT: We're going to have 12 cars on the grid powered from renewable sources, using micro-wind turbines, using fuel cells, a whole accumulation of technologies, using BP solar panels and, basically, microgeneration (ph) technologies.

BOLDEN: An ambitious goal to show other motor sports there is another way.

Jim Bolden, CNN, Eisher (ph), England.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HODSON: Welcome back.

If you caught the last edition of GLOBAL CHALLENGES, you'll have seen that all of our stories came from countries struck by December's tsunami. We plan to continue reporting on the recovery efforts in the months ahead.

Today a story from a different perspective, off the coast of Thailand.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANEESH RAMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A few meters under the Indian Ocean, sites unseen even by the most experienced divers. Nestled amidst Thailand's coral reefs are well over 1,000 tons of debris, a stark reminder of the vicious destruction that ravaged the region last year.

When the Asian tsunami hit, the ferocious waves did not just crash on the shore. They also withdrew with enormous force, carrying anything too weak to stay on ground; people, cars, buildings. Their wrath was indiscriminate.

And in the aftermath, from kitchen sinks to televisions, all the amenities of land are occupying the ocean's landscape. Here in Phuket, underwater rehabilitation is as critical as above ground rebuilding.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE) heads the government's efforts to clean the coral reefs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

RAMAN: Resources not just for life underwater, but for livelihoods as well. Entire industries are dependent upon divers wanting to see Thailand's coral reefs. And unless they are restored, the number of tourists will dwindle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Worst case is, if we cannot bring all the debris on time, it will be destroyed, probably more permanently in some places, to the coral. The coral itself can grow very slowly, some part of the coral could grow only a few centimeters per year. So I think that is what we have to do.

RAMAN (voice-over): Within days after the tsunami, the Thai government made it clear that it needed help. It needed volunteer divers to help remove the trash from sites all across Phuket. The response was beyond anyone's expectation.

From foreign diving instructors, for whom Thailand is a second home, to tourists who felt the need to help, every weekend at outings across the island, people are diving for debris.

Dennis Calson (ph), a dive master in Phuket, is a regular volunteer.

DENNIS CALSON (ph), DIVE MASTER: You cannot compare this to anything. I have never seen anything like this before. It is a strange feeling to be down there.

There is so much stuff that is not supposed to be there, so it is a strange feeling.

RAMAN: Each trip down brings with it newfound oddities. Some require cranes. Others that are simply too heavy for a diver to move are marked by a buoy for the boats to tow.

CALSON (ph): I have found a TV and a guitar amplifier and also another bigger amplifier today, so, yes, many things. Also, we know that there is a car trailer down here and we will see if it is too big to actually recover. Or otherwise it will be part of our reef.

RAMAN (on camera): This effort is truly remarkable, the likes of which the Thai government has never seen before. But that timeline is essentially. If they don't meet the deadline, the implications for the environment and the economy could be devastating.

(voice-over): They have until the end of April when monsoon rains will make diving impossible and insure that any leftover debris causes permanent damage, but confidence is the overriding sentiment.

At this dive shop, the owner seems to speak for the entire island.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I am very optimistic, and not less because we got all the feedback from the companies, for the divers, some asking for help and saying we need your support right now to survive. You know, we still have instructors coming in and students buying equipment, so there is no reason to give up.

RAMAN: This is but one link in an intricate economic chain of people who cannot contemplate the thought of permanent damage. For them, for their professions, the reefs must and will be restored.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you have the hotels and the service providers, like the dive center or like the tailor shops, but everything who supplies, like captains, boat boys, the food supplier, the dive industry which supplies with items and so on, so they are just looking at the moment. They are hanging behind and waiting what happens.

RAMAN: In the myriad of concerns that followed the tsunami, this is but one. Perhaps not the most critical, not even the most daunting. But for this industry and the people who need it to survive, there is no more important struggle.

Aneesh Raman, CNN, Phuket, Thailand.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HODSON: We're out of time, but if you have any comments on the show, please e-mail us at Global.Challenges@CNN.COM.

I'm Charles Hodson. Thanks for watching.

END

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