I’d like to share my second article that appeared recently in The Dodgeville Chronicle.  I’m  covering a 4-part series of evening presentations called “Floods, Droughts, Land and Energy: What Is Wisconsin’s Future.”  (Check out the first installment How Will Global Warming Affect Wisconsin.” 

“We all have a role to play in how Wisconsin creates and uses energy,” Sherrie Gruder, UW-Extension Sustainable Design Specialist, told an audience who braved another intensely cold night to attend the second of a four-part series on Wisconsin’s future weather and its implications. “How we use energy will play a crucial role in Wisconsin’s economy, environment and public health.”
“We are moving toward a low-carbon economy based on new energy,” she said. “It may not always feel like it, but it is steadily happening all around us. New energy will create jobs and decrease the negative impact that coal-generated power has on our land, water and our health. Burning coal produces a lot of sulfur dioxide, which causes respiratory diseases like asthma. In addition, every lake in Wisconsin has mercury pollution from these coal plants. That’s why we have health advisories that limit the number of fish we should eat – especially pregnant women.”
Wisconsin spends about $19 billion each year on energy, and almost $13 billion of that total leaves the state because we have to buy our power elsewhere.

According to Gruder, what’s needed is a new energy economy in which many people and communities become “prosumers” – not just consuming energy, but producing energy using the sun, wind and biomass.  Read More here.