TUESDAY, January 28 at 7 p.m. Water Quality in the Coulee Region with Karl Green, UW-Extension, Ho-Chunk Three Rivers House (8th & Main, La Crosse) Water is life, and the threat to clean water one of the top concerns of Coulee Region residents. Whether it’s CAFO siting rules, blue green algae, flooding, phosphorous, PFAs, high capacity wells, or new water treatment standards, water issues require our understanding and constant attention.
On January 28, we’ll welcome Karl Green, Community Natural Resource and Economic Development Agent for La Crosse County, who will discuss our region‘s leading water quality issues, what’s being done, and what we can do to protect this precious resource.
Karl is a university professor, parent, outdoorsperson, and community collaborator involved with several diverse groups, from La Crosse Promise to La Crosse Partners in Learning to the La Crosse Urban Stormwater Group.
Everyone is welcome to this event. You need not be a Sierra Club member to participate. We will also introduce our new board, hear your ideas and hopes for the new year, and discuss plans for 2020. Refreshments will be provided!
Start the new year with a pledge to CLIMATE ACTION! In 1959, Dr. Edward Teller warned the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. government officials attending his speech that burning fossil fuels emitted carbon dioxide into the atmosphere causing the Earth’s climate to warm, polar ice caps to melt, and coastal cities to be inundated. That was 60 years ago.
Countless papers, speeches, books, articles, testimonies, and movies later, we are rocketing past sustainable limits - CO2 levels of 350 ppm (we just passed 415 ppm) and a global temperature rise of no more than 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels (we are at about 1 degree already).
Last month, the 25th UN conference on climate change ended in failure because powerful interests, rich from a fossil fuel system, will not yield, not even for their own children. Our planet is in grave peril. Some climate experts say CO2 emissions must peak in 2020, but we continue to burn fossil fuels for fun and profit at every opportunity.
Writing in The Correspondent, environment reporter Eric Holthaus calls on us to get political. “It’s not constructive to continue to pretend that polite compromise and incremental changes will save us.”
Every month, we will highlight ways we can, as individuals and members of communities, redouble our efforts to lower carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. This month, consider assessing your family’s personal carbon footprint and make a plan to lower your emissions by at least 5 percent. This page will give you ideas and resources. Share your own ideas for our next newsletter. Email CRSierraClub@gmail.comcrsierraclub@gmail.com
Reminder: Enviro-Edu Grants! The Coulee Region Sierra Club is offering grants of up
to $200 for environmental education projects involving young people at the elementary and middle school level. The application and more details are available at tinyurl.com/CRSCGrantInfo. The application deadline is JANUARY 5, 2020. Please spread the word about this opportunity available to those in Crawford, Grant, Jackson, La Crosse, Monroe, Richland, Trempealeau and Vernon counties. If you have questions, please email CRSierraClub@gmail.com.
Board Elections Thank you to everyone who voted and to those who volunteered to serve on the board in 2020! Thank you and congratulations to new board members Veronica Bauer and Ned Gaztke. Meet your board at our January meeting. Veronica and Ned will join current board members Kathy Allen, Nancy Hartje, Maureen Kinney, Avery Van Gaard, Cathy Van Maren, and Pat Wilson. Please email CRSierraClub@gmail.com if you have input, ideas, or suggestions.
Thank You! Thank you to Barb and Don Frank for hosting our annual holiday social on December 17. The food was great, the conversation enlightening, and the energy for making 2020 a great year for our environment, inspiring.
Join Our New CRSC (Online) Book Club! In 2020, we will try to connect our large Coulee Region nline through an environmental book club. The CRSC Enviro Book Club is now open for your participation at Goodreads.com. To join, make a Goodreads account (or use one you already have), and visit tinyurl.com/CRSCBookClub. We’ll do one book a month, but if that’s too much for you, skip one or two or go at your own pace. In addition
to connecting our club members, this will be a chance for us to share and find new favorites.
You are welcome to set up a time to meet in person with friends and other community members. In-person groups may meet at a library or restaurant where internet access
would allow you to use online comments as talking points and contribute your sub-group’s ideas to the online club.
Let’s try it! We can adjust logistics as we go along if needed. Our January and February books are set, but we want your suggestions for March and beyond. Please use this form (tinyurl.com/CRSCBookNom) to suggest a club book. Next month, we’ll vote on March’s book. If your book is chosen, we’ll include your brief description in the newsletter. At the very least, we’ll end the year with twelve good books to read and share. We might even make some new online book club friends.
For January, Susan Colliton suggested The Overstory by Richard Powers. Good reading. See you online!
A Tale of Trees I doubt anyone could write a more inspired review of Richard Powers’ powerful, timely novel, The Overstory, than the one by Barbara Kingsolver for the New York Times Book Review. I certainly won’t attempt it. Instead, I will recommend Kingsolver’s review, and The Overstory, to those who haven’t yet taken the journey down the switch-back pathways of this remarkable, treelined novel. It is carved by Powers of the deepest heartwood -- ringed with resonance from human designed mythological symbols of prosperity to today’s human-driven environmental destruction. But trees are resilient beings, and fortunately smarter than we are in many respects. What better reading for the short, bare, cold days of winter than a novel about tall, green, growing things -- and the diverse, devoted human lives they direct and alter.
Sustain: La Crosse The Sustainability Institute at Western Technical College invites businesses and organizations of the 7 Rivers Region to apply for their Spring 2020 cohort-based program that will provide participants with, “the inspiration, tools, and network they need to better implement and amplify their unique social and environmental impacts.” The program begins in March. See sustaininstitute.com/sustain for more information.
You’ll find Kingsolver’s review, “The Heroes of This Novel Are Centuries Old and 300 Feet Tall,” at www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/books/review/overstory-richard-powers.html. TheOverstory, winner of the 2018 National Book Award and 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is available at your favorite book source. - Susan Colliton
Monroe County CCTF In September, the Monroe County board voted unanimously to recognize the dangers of climate change and begin to seek ways to protect county resources and residents through a new Climate Change Task Force. To support the county’s efforts, a new citizen group has formed, POWER (Protect Our Water and Environmental
Resources) is providing awareness and education though public meetings. A November 29 POWER meeting drew more than 75 citizens who heard from a variety of speakers and groups. Participants at a December CCTF meeting learned about the Flood Center at the University of Iowa. We hope to include more updates about this important group and find ways to connect climate change groups in the Coulee Region so we can share energy
and ideas.
Kickapoo Reserve Events The Kickapoo Valley Reserve near La Farge will host a
Winter Festival on Saturday, January 11 and guided ice formations hikes on January 18 and 25. The reserve is a unique example of the driftless area ecoregion managed under a joint agreement between the State of Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation. Learn more at
kvr.state.wi.us/events.
Report on Water Conference Dave and Donna Swanson sent information about the
Discovery Farms Water Conference held in Wisconsin Dells on December 11. Discovery Farms is a Division of the University of Wisconsin Extension. The conference covered best farm practices for water protection, the Southwest Wisconsin water study, help for private well owners, and news about the Water Quality Task Force. The Task Force update included news that the Assembly will recommend funding increases for county conservation positions, a nitrate pilot program, and more. A vote on the bill is expected in spring. Read more at tinyurl.com/DellsWaterConf. Keep up on area issues through reporting by Gillian Pomplun in the Crawford County Independent, www.independentscout.com.
January Water Lobby Day Wisconsin Conservation Voters will join with others to host a special Clean Water Lobby Day in Madison on Thursday, January 30 from noon to 5 p.m. in the Madison Concourse Hotel and the State Capitol. “The three major threats to our water quality are nitrate from ag pollution, the ‘forever chemicals’ called PFAs, and lead. ... We’re
headed back to the State Capitol to speak directly with lawmakers who hold the future of our water quality in their hands.” Learn more about the day and RSVP at conservationvoters.org/events/clean-water-lobby-day. UPDATE: There will be a bus from Eau Claire with stops in Black River Falls and Tomah. Donations will be accepted to help pay for the bus. After you sign up for lobby day, sign up for the bus at http://bit.ly/2tliMdJ
January Science Cafe - Water The La Crosse Science Cafe will turn to water quality
with a presentation by Stuart Giblin, the Mississippi River Water Quality Specialist for the Wisconsin DNR. His talk, “Water Quality and the Mississippi River - Past, Present,and Future,” will be held at JavaVino, 2311 State Road, La Crosse on Saturday, January 11 at 6:00 p.m. Read more: www.facebook.com/LaCrosseScienceCafe.
Position Available The John Muir Chapter is looking for a campaign coordinator to work on campaigns, recruit and train volunteers, administer communications, and participate in equity, inclusion and justice initiatives. Read more about it at tinyurl.com/rugnytg.
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