8:30 am Check-in and Coffee
9:00 am Welcome and Introduction
9:15 am Panel: A Road Map for Wisconsin’s Climate and Energy Future
What does the path look like for Wisconsin? Conservation, efficiency, renewables, smart transportation systems, and other strategies can help reduce our carbon footprint and green our energy sources. Where are the big opportunities in Wisconsin?
Presenter: Jane Elder, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters
Panelists: John Imes, Wisconsin Environmental Initiative; Kathy Kuntz, Cool Choices; Don Wichert, RENEW Wisconsin; Keith Reopelle, Clean Wisconsin
10:45 am Break
11:00 am Panel: Waters of Wisconsin: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?
While Wisconsin has made great strides in improving water quality and conserving water supplies over the last decade, today we are facing phosphorus pollution, concerns about well contamination, and growing pressure to pump precious groundwater. Did we mention impacts from surface mining and climate change? What will it take to safeguard Wisconsin waters?
Presenter: Curt Meine, conservation biologist, historian, and writer
Panelists: Todd Ambs, Healing Our Waters Great Lakes Coalition; Emily Jones, Clean Wisconsin; Ron Seely, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
12:30 pm Lunch
Discuss reactions and suggestions for a resilient Wisconsin with fellow forum attendees over lunch.
1:30 pm Concurrent workshop sessions (descriptions below)
3:00 pm Break
3:30 pm Closing Address - Torbjörn Lahti, Institute for Ecomunicipality Education & Assistance
Returning to the Midwest for the third time in 15 years, Mr. Lahti, who has inspired dozens of Wisconsin communities to action, will provide insight into how local efforts combined with guiding principles grounded in a democratic change process can help to ensure sustained—and sustainable—progress.
4:15 pm Closing Remarks
Jane Elder, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters
4:25 pm Final Reflection
Robin Chapman, poet
II. It’s All Connected: Resilience and Wisconsin’s Water-Energy-Food-Climate Nexus
Energy and clean, abundant water are essential for farming. With a changing climate and shifting weather patterns, farmers are being affected, with the biggest impacts on food production and food security. Rather than thinking about water, energy, or food separately, a nexus approach takes all three and their interconnections into account at once. Increasingly, climate change is exacerbating the challenge. What does the nexus look like in Wisconsin, and how can we make choices to meet our needs and to manage resources for generations to come?
Workshop leaders: Michelle Miller, UW-Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems; Ken Potter, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, UW-Madison; Tom Quinn, Wisconsin Farmers Union; Joe Tomandl, Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship
III. Communicating About Water: Strategies and Tools
How can we shape a Wisconsin water narrative that embraces our values and speaks to today’s water concerns? Language, visual imagery, and other techniques can help to elicit common stories and experiences to deepen our Wisconsin connection to water and to one another. Join the discussion of a “fresh” water narrative.
Workshop leaders: Bret Shaw, Associate Professor, Department of Life Sciences Communications, UW-Madison; Jane Elder, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters; Moira Harrington, UW-Madison Sea Grant; Kirsten Shead, Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee
IV. Can We Talk? Constructive Conversations About Climate and Energy
The Road Map for Wisconsin’s Climate and Energy Future aims to start a conversation. How can such conversations get past barriers of either ideological conflict or homogeneity to help identify concerns, find common connections, and explore specific issues? Explore options for starting fruitful conversations about these and other complex topics.
Workshop leaders: Adolf Gundersen and James Schneider, Interactivity Foundation
