Uppity Wisconsin

5/9 Sat 10:30 am – 6 pm  2nd Annual Fair Trade Crawl – Milwaukee area. Kick-off and central organizing at The Outpost Natural Foods Co-op, 2826 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.in Bay View. 

This event is a celebration of socially responsible shopping, with many programs and discounts. Prizes are available to shoppers who "crawl" to at least 6 shops: including Wigwam socks, Equal Exchange coffee, Sven's coffee, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap, and fair trade wine. Free and open to the public. 31 shops in the greater Milwaukee that sell at least one fair trade product will participate. About 20 shops will participate in the effort to break the record for the world's largest fair trade coffee break. This is part of World Fair Trade Day.

“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.