More action/education opportunities

Mark your calendar. Planning is continuing on our local sustainable climate involvement fair. It will be on Saturday, March 5 from 2 to 6 p.m. at the First Congregational Church (corner of Main Street and Losey Boulevard). Stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, please plan to attend and if your group or organization would like to have a booth, please contact us using the form on this page.

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Yesterday's National Sierra Club conference call in coordination with the Communication Workers of America focussed on what we can do to stop approval of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) "free" trade legislation that is on a fast track to make it harder for American workers and those of us concerned about global warming. Called NAFTA on steroids, the legislation would give multinational corporations power over local, state and federal laws. As we have seen, a similar "free" trade law, NAFTA, pushed by and signed by President Bill Clinton, is being used by Trans-Canada to sue the US for not permitting their Keystone XL Pipeline.

To learn more about the bill, why it's important that we all get involved immediately, and what we can do locally RIGHT NOW, please head over to sierraclub.org/trade/trans-pacific-partnership. First suggestion - you can do it RIGHT NOW - pick up your keyboard or pad and paper, and write a letter to the editor about this legislation and why it's terrible for the environment and why you will not support it or anyone who does. (Please read this article, "Ron Kind is Obama's Point Man on TPP," )

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  Speaking of letters to the editor, there were a few good ones in today's La Crosse Tribune. A short, but direct, letter about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (your letter could focus on a specific point in the bill); a longer, detailed explanation of why state Republicans' plans to end Wisconsin's moratorium on nuclear power plants is a very bad idea; and an educational letter from Minnesota about what happens when local government goes bad.

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Thursday, January 21 marks RENEW Wisconsin’s fifth annual summit, “Shaping the Utility of the Future.” Among the speakers:

We will hear from one of the nation’s utility leaders, CEO Mary Powell of Green Mountain Power in Vermont, who is seven years into creating what she calls the “Energy Company of the Future.” Mary’s formula includes solar on rooftops, solar on old landfills, wind power, “cow power” and clean lakes initiatives, electric vehicles, a smarter grid, partnering with Tesla to offer home battery storage, and offering financing to customers to upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes and appliances. Along the way, her company has decreased electric rates twice in the past three years.

More info and registration information.                                                        - cathy