Climate Change Defines Our Era

Imagine living where all the hard working citizens unnecessarily export almost $15 billion of their hard earned money out of state each and every year. Imagine what those folks could do with it if they kept that money right where they live: a better standard of living for all, better services and more local jobs to be sure. Of course, the folks I’m talking about are us.

According to a Wisconsin State Energy Office report that’s what we spend every year on the fossil fuels we heat and light our homes and fill our car’s gas tanks with – resources we don’t have and must import. Most of it is spent on transportation. Sadly, we are also buying mercury polluted lakes, oil pipeline leaks and tanker spills that foul our soils and waters, we get asthma and other health problems and dangerous explosions like the one up in Superior back in April. Most importantly, we get a changing climate that is already causing great suffering and destabilizing life all over this planet.

Our attempt at a solution is to drive a fairly inexpensive, used, plug-in hybrid, trading gasoline for electricity and greatly diminishing our contribution to the torrent of cash leaving Wisconsin. Investing in rooftop solar to produce our own electricity means largely exchanging our expensive and polluting coal and natural gas imports for free sunshine, a clean energy source Wisconsin actually has quite a bit of. We now drive on good old Wisconsin sunshine.

By shifting to renewable energy we can plug the hole in our fiscal dyke, reduce the pollution that degrades our health, and our environment, and at the same time, stabilize our climate. Common sense alone should encourage our embrace of renewable energy and electric cars.

Here are some things you can do: Watch the PBS documentary DECODING THE WEATHER MACHINE. Attend a Solar Power Hour of the Midwest Renewable Energy Association to learn how to produce solar electricity.

Climate change is arguably the defining challenge of our lifetime”. With these words NOVA begins its video of a discussion about what you and I can do in both our personal and political lives. The PBS documentary “Decoding the Weather Machine” is an excellent program that zeros in on our changing climate as increasing heat and drought, flooding, forest fires and rising sea levels threaten people all over the world.

In addition, the folks at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association and North Wind Renewable Energy are offering Solar Power Hours and group buy incentives for folks who want to produce their own, clean solar electricity. Check their schedule for a meeting near you.

8/20/18 – Monday – 6:30 PM Plover Village Hall (Activity Room) 2400 Post Rd, Plover

8/25/18 – Saturday – 1:45 PM Central Waters Brewing Company 351 Allen St, Amherst

8/29/18 – Wednesday – 6:30 PM McMillan Memorial Library (All Purpose Room) 490 E Grand Ave, Wisconsin Rapids