Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining Presentation

Thursday, April 30th at 6:00 PM in Cartwright room 259

There will be a guest speaker from Appalachian Voices speaking about the evils of mountain top removal coal mining.

This is being organized by the Sierra Club as part of their campaign to convert all state owned coal fired power plants, all of which use coal from mountain top removal. Governor Doyle has mandated that the UW Madison coal plant will be converted from coal to natural gas and biofuels. This presentation will allow UW-L sustainability supporters to network and begin to build a case for switching over UW-L's coal power plant as well.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Earth Week in La Crosse a Success

La Crosse Earth Week events and participation in them definitely entered a new arena in 2009. Many factors making this possible came together including the creation of a new Green La Crosse.com website, an active Earth Week planning committee, and collaboration between a number of organizations in the La Crosse area including UW-La Crosse, Viterbo University, Western Technical College, Gundersen Lutheran, the City and County of La Crosse, the La Crosse Public Library, Three Rivers Waldorf School, Myrick Hixon Ecopark, and Coulee Partners for Sustainability (CPS). Our thanks to all of them for their support and involvement.

While Earth Week has been an annual milestone since 1970, the work being done to promote sustainability on our campus, as well as in our community, state, nation and world, must continue each and every day. There's no time to sit back and rest on our Earth Week accomplishments. Let's expand our sustainability efforts so that on Earth Week 2010 we can look back and marvel at all we have accomplished during another year.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Earth Day Event Focuses on Land and Water Conservation

Our Land and Water: Conservation for a Sustainable Future, sponsored by UW-L’s Joint Committee on Environmental Sustainability, will feature three area land and water conservation experts — Gretchen Benjamin, Tim Jacobson and David Vetrano —who will each give an individual presentation then participate in a panel discussion with questions and answers.

Gretchen Benjamin has spent her career on the Mississippi River working for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for almost 25 years and recently moving into the non-profit world of The Nature Conservancy as assistant director of its Upper Mississippi River (UMR) Program. She will discuss the work of the The Nature Conservancy with respect to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Tim Jacobson is the Executive Director of Mississippi Valley Conservancy, a nonprofit land trust headquartered in La Crosse. He will discuss threats to Wisconsin’s natural landscape and agricultural lands and non-regulatory approaches to protecting and enhancing the best parts of our landscape for future generations.

David Vetrano is a fisheries supervisor for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. He is directly responsible for the fisheries on over 1500 miles of rivers and streams and several small lakes in the La Crosse area. Vetrano will provide a short history of how past agricultural land use practices have completely altered the Driftless Area landscape. He will also show how those past practices still affect us and why there is tremendous potential for a much more sustainable future for agriculture and tourism.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

La Crosse Area Earth Week Events

There are a number of Earth Week events (April 19-26) planned in the La Crosse area this year. Events include film showings, presentations and panel discussions, dumpster dives, book discussions, hikes, clean-ups, bike rides and much more. You can find a complete schedule of events at http://www.greenlacrosse.com