Of the various chores that come with adulthood, I like shoveling snow. I appreciate the sense of accomplishment I get when I look back at a clean sidewalk. Shoveling is a good form of exercise. I also appreciate that I can think about other stuff while I shovel without jeopardizing the quality of my efforts; whereas cooking means I have to be attentive, nobody complains if I daydream while I shovel the driveway.
Dane County’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) is enormously ambitious and profoundly practical. As a private citizen, I was delighted to play a small role in helping to create some of the recommendations in the CAP and I was proud of Dane County’s outstanding leadership on climate action. Today I am even more delighted to be the Dane County staff person leading efforts to implement the CAP.
Amid all of the election news this week, it is plausible that you might have missed the important climate milestone. On November 4, 2020 the United States officially withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement.
“Adaptation and Resiliency” is one of the six guiding principles of the Dane County Climate Action Plan. But what do these words really mean? From an ecological perspective, adaptation and resilience are a natural system’s ability to adjust to change and bounce back from a disturbance.
Climate change is already impacting organic vegetable farmers in our area according to Claire Strader, Organic Vegetable Educator for Dane County Extension. Strader should know. A former organic farmer herself, she currently works with organic vegetable farmers across Dane County.
Deep into a summer during which multiple of our society’s wicked problems seem to be coming to a head, I sought inspiration in a webinar... The message that we need to move away from framing environmental issues as fatalistic problems resonated with me.
The County cannot reduce all emissions unless all stakeholders—businesses, nonprofits, farms, individuals—are part of the solution. So engagement is an important part of our strategy. Indeed, we are hosting a virtual meeting on August 20, 2020 to engage one really important set of stakeholders—the people who are part of green teams at their workplaces.
“There's an old African proverb that says ‘If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ We have to go far — quickly.” - Al Gore, March 23, 2016 Communities across Dane County aim to address climate change—they aim to go far and they aim to go fast. It is good, then, that we are all working together.
It has been a long and fun journey to Madison and my work at Dane County Office of Energy and Climate Change (OECC). I grew up in a city in South Korea and I traveled around the world thanks to my uncle and aunt who lived in Australia and France. This wonderful opportunity gave me a chance to experience different kinds of nature compared to South Korea, including this interaction with a baby kangaroo. I think my kangaroo encounter was the start of my interest in the environment.
The murder of George Floyd has prompted thousands of protests around the US and the world as well as millions of conversations about racism. Everywhere I look I see conversations about policing and community justice. I am hopeful this is the beginning of a long-overdue discussion about racism in the US. And I’m hopeful that we’ll address a comprehensive set of issues affected by racism, that we’ll address everything—including climate change.
