Uppity Wisconsin

Here's a beautifully crafted video (produced by Greta Wing-Miller and Aarick Beher, of DowntownDailies.com) of the rally that took the issues of Organic Rules violations to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack himself. The rally took place on July 16 at the La Crosse County Fairgrounds in West Salem, Wisconsin. Cornucopia Institute led the way on the issue, organizing the event, and speaking truth to power on behalf of those dairy farmers subject to an unfair structure.

I think we all predicted this when the USDA first got involved...remember that?

“We must protect our land,” urged the Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture. “Land is our most precious natural resource.”

Secretary Rod Nilsestuen testified before a Joint Hearing of the Assembly Agriculture Committee and the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Higher Education. I had the distinct honor of chairing the Joint Hearing. The topic was protecting farmland – specifically the Working Lands Initiative.

We are permanently losing farmland at an alarming rate. State-wide we are losing about one township of productive farmland every year. UW research documented our state lost about 100,000 acres in the first five years of this decade. We simply cannot sustain such a loss of a vital part of our economy, our heritage and an irreplaceable natural resource.

I warned against Pabst Farms back in February 2008. Another retail wonderland is the last thing Wisconsin needs to be publicly-funding at this - or for that matter, any other - time. Such subsidization merely realigns spending away from existing shopping destinations toward the newer, shinier destination. A colossal waste of public (and private) resources if there ever was one.

But wait a minute, things aren't going as planned.

I thought this was a slam-dunk economic development initiative?

One of those unstoppable catalysts that was necessary, creates jobs, and spurs further development.

So why can't the developers even sign tenants?

Maybe it has to do something with the duplicative, sprawling, inefficient, environmentally unsound, and bribery-laden path of our urban planning & economic development. Sites compete for capital, subsidizing businesses to locate in less

I became an environmental activist in the early 1970s just as I was completing my doctorate in ecology at the University of British Columbia. It was the height of the Cold War and the height of the Viet Nam War and we were compelled to take a very public stand against activities we thought to be catastrophic both for people and for the planet.

I joined a small committee that was meeting in the basement of the Unitarian Church. We organized a protest voyage against U.S. hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska and had tens of thousands marching in the streets. When that H-bomb was set off at Amchitka Island in November 1971, it was the last hydrogen bomb the U.S. ever detonated.

It was the birth of Greenpeace, the organization I co-founded, spending 15 years in its top committee, helping to lead environmental campaigns around the world.

But it's ironic in the extreme that, as we mark the 100th anniversary of drinking water chlorination, my old organization and other activist groups aligned with it continue to oppose this most important public health achievement.

This is so cool!

Four UW-Madison students have developed an interactive, online map to help promote and locate Wisconsin farms and restaurants that serve locally-grown food.

The average American meal travels 1,500 miles to reach your plate for consumption.

Get Uppity! Buy local! 

Update: The map is in beta stage and will get more usable in the coming weeks.

The state wants to spend more than $20 million on an bells-and-whistles interstate interchange in rural western Waukesha County - - as access to an upscale mega-shopping mall that might not be built.

 Details here.

The State of Michigan's pioneering regulations to keep invasive species out of the Great Lakes has been ruled legal.

Now is the time for Wisconsin to do the same.

Details here.

Milwaukee Folks -

And this probably means you since the bulk of the Uppity Wisconsin readers are in Milwaukee -

If you want a better, cleaner, happier Milwaukee, please go read this article about Milwaukee Green Print  in One Wisconsin Now, and find out what you can do to help with the vote. 

A special state legislative study committee that is supposed to write a Wisconsin bill to adopt a Great Lakes management and conservation agreement hasn't met since December.

Though its work has been stalled by business interests in fast-sprawling Waukesha County, where developers want easy access to Lake Michigan water, the committee chair sought another six months from Legislative leaders to draft the Wisconsin bill.

He got three months, and the odds are slim that he can pull it off.

Details, background and consequences for the state here.

Some years ago, then State Sen. Margaret Farrow, later to become acting Lt. Gov. under Acting Gov. Scott McCallum, suggested collecting tolls to finance the rebuilding of the region's freeways.

Now that people out in her county want a new, $20 million interchange for the proposed upscale Pabst Farms shopping mall, this could be the right time for Farrow & Co. to bring back their tolling idea.

That would make the interchange user-funded, and off the taxpayers back.

Details here.

Want to help stop the diversion of Great Lakes water? Want to make sure communities improve their water conservation?

An International agreement with Canada is undergoing review and the public comment period ends June 8th.

I had posted the other day about the urgency surrounding public comment on the Great Lakes Compact's conservation standard-setting.

     Here is a nice, direct link to join the debate.

     Or go here for an email address - - commentscglg [dot] org (  commentscglg [dot] org)

     Just do it before June 8th.