Jessica's latest column

If you did not see our own Jessica Garrels' latest column in today's Press-Gazette, here it is. Nice job, Jessica!

It's time to invest in renewable energy

Greg Summers at the library

This is part of the library's Local History Series

Central Library Auditorium
515 Pine Street, Downtown Green Bay
Thursday, October 19
7:00-8:15 P.M.

A River of Paper? Early Environmentalism in the Fox River Valley: 1850-1950

Presenters: Greg Summers

Economic growth vs. environmental quality.

An interesting an unexpected connection exists between the efficient use of natural resources and the desire to protect them.

This program will reveal the history of this decades-long debate over the industrial pollution of the Fox River and the struggle to clean it up including a 1945 courtroom battle between the Izaak Walton League and the paper industry.

Presenter: Gregory Summers is Asst. Prof. of History at UW-Stevens Point. He received his Ph.D. from UW-Madison where he specialized in American environmental history, the history of Wisconsin, and the history of technology. He is currently at work on a second book, entitled “The Comforts of Nature: A Natural History of the American Home.”

Come to "Green Drinks" afterwards!!!!

green bay's toxic trio

The Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters recently released their legislative scorecard for the 2005-06 session. Three of our legislators who are up for reelection received pathetically low scores:

Judy Krawczyk (920-469-4364) = 6%
Phil Montgomery (920-496-5953) = 6%
Karl Van Roy (920-662-0804) = 6%

Yes, that is correct. 6%. You almost have to try to be that bad. Who are these people listening to anyway? Can you say "corporate lobbyists"?

You know what to do! Please call Judy, Phil or Karl and tell them how upset you are about their dismal conservation voting records. If you are not sure which one represents you click HERE.

Then, donate to or volunteer your time for one of their opponents. These people need your help! Their contact info:

Jim Soletski 920-468-5921 (running against Krawczyk)
Rich Langan 920-490-1086 (running against Montgomery)
Gary Froseth http://www.garyfroseth.com/ (running against Van Roy)

On the other hand, Assemblyman Tom Nelson has a very good environmental voting record. He was scored at 82%. Go to Tom’s website and donate or sign up to volunteer to help his campaign. He deserves to be reelected and needs your help.

To see the the complete WLCV Scorecard and for a detailed analysis of legislative voting records click HERE.

a UWGB that's fossil-fuel-free

An exciting article from today's Press-Gazette:

UW-GB envisions a fossil-fuel-free campus

Congrats to "Green Drinks" regular Crystal Osman for being mentioned!!

-And can you believe ANYONE could belittle this plan? Mark notGreen just keeps digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself.

Perhaps the governor should spend more time worrying about how to make our UW schools more affordable for Wisconsin families who have watched tuition skyrocket by 50 percent in the last four years.

-Mark notGreen spokesman Luke Punzenberger

Great Lakes put on back burner again

I know that our NEXT Congress will be willing to deal with this issue!!!

"Great Lakes: Recovery efforts left high and dry"

Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' Free Showing!

In a similar thread to what Rich said, if you want to learn more about global warming and what you can do to reduce your own contributions, there is a free showing of Al Gore's movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' next Tuesday, October 3rd at 7pm at St. Norbert College. Come to the Killeen Room in the Norbertine Center. RSVP at 920.337.4315.

Green Bay's best air in 20 years

In today’s Press Gazette there was a front page headline that read “Pollution problem still hovers over Green Bay.” Anyone who lives downtown, like I do, realizes this is true. It is definitely an issue that has to be dealt with.

These headlines are bad for business and bad for Green Bay’s image. I am worried that some of our leaders may want to solve the problem by eliminating the headlines and not by eliminating the pollution. At times, they seem to be more worried about image than about our quality of life.

In a very positive step for Green Bay, Mayor Schmitt recently formed a Sustainable Green Bay Task Force. One of the working subcommittees is going to be dealing with air and water issues. Hopefully, as difficult a challenge as it may be, they will be dealing with this issue. If Green Bay is truly to be a sustainable community that cares about the environment and has people living and working in an exciting downtown, our air quality has to be a major concern.

If you read between the lines of the article, the major source of the problem is still coming from the burning of coal for energy at several factories. Energy use is at the heart of our air problems. We have to start producing clean and renewable energy. Still, there is no excuse for the non-energy toxic load being dumped into our air, and there is definitely no excuse for the problems described at Western Lime Corporation.

The article also mentions that the city struggles to comply with state standards for particulate and ozone production caused by cars and trucks. From what I see as I walk around town, pollution from vehicles is a MAJOR problem.

The city and state should not wait for the federal government to solve our air problems. That would take forever, especially with our current federal government. We can address our air quality with locally produced solutions.

So how DO we solve our air pollution problem? The article seemed to leave this out. I have some ideas.

Conserve energy.
Use clean and renewable energy supplies.
Make sure all local factories are not breaking any current air pollution laws and continue to make examples of the ones who are.
Make our sate and local laws the toughest in the country.
Work with local companies to find and attract the engineers they need to solve their waste problems.
Make every effort to attract sustainable and non-polluting businesses to our downtown.
Continue the effort to revitalize downtown to make it a place where people want to live and work so that they can walk to work and walk for services.
Make Green Bay more walkable and bikeable so that people don’t have to drive every day.

Austin, TX, cleaned up its air by forming a municipal energy utility and focusing on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Seattle slashed its particulate pollution by focusing on reducing pollution from its own fleet of heavy-duty diesel vehicles and creating “urban villages” that cluster offices, stores, and homes in walkable villages. Green Bay could do the same thing.

The news is not all bad. The article did point out that our air is much cleaner than it was twenty years ago. Maybe that should have been the headline. However, we can’t stop focusing on this issue. Our quality of life, health, and economy depend on it.

eddy out,
rich