Forest for the Trees

A few years back was my first visit to a rather unique natural feature just southwest of Baraboo, WI.  I was surprised it took me so long to know about it since I  worked for a few years in Baraboo only a few miles from this natural feature.   It is a gorge of 30-40' deep in which runs Skillet Creek.  I do recall being involved is in some watershed planning efforts to help protect the water quality of the creek back in the early 1980's.  I wrote about Pewitt's Nest in a blog post in 2016, which you can read here.  In that post, I noted that Skillet Creek will be affected by the new USH 12 bypass and development that I am sure will follow.   The new road is not by itself necessarily overly harmful, but it is what the road interchanges bring that can take a watershed over the tipping point.  The surrounding land use is a matter of local control, and local officials love large big box developments which tend to follow interchanges.  On this Earth Day, we need to see the forest for the trees?

Pewitt's Nest

USH 12 was expanded several years ago in western Dane County from Middleton to Sauk City, but during the planning phase for this project then County Executive Kathleen Falk got WIDOT concurrence for WIDOT to pay for town plans to help preserve the farm land through which the road went from development.  My contacts in Sauk County say much of the reason for the highway came from the politicians in the Village of West Baraboo, and points north (i.e. Wisconsin Dells area).  While we celebrate Earth Day, we also need to think in terms of a renewed and a cohesive environmental ethic.

The main environmental issue that most focus on today, is not air pollution, or water pollution, but climate change.  However, some new books are contending that with a focus on climate change, other aspects of the environmental movement are being ignored.  One commentator said that environmentalists have become number cruncher's in three piece suits walking the halls of varied legislatures.  As I pondered that comment, I suspect there may be some truth to the focus on climate change.  In a sense are they too missing the forest for the trees?  Good ecological practice requires more than the 3 R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), but also the 3 E's--Economic, Environmental and Equity. 

Hwy 12 to Pewitt's Nest, about 2800 feet

Sustainability, at many levels, seems to be more related to economics than any other factor.  People were more careful when gasoline prices were in the $4.00/gallon range.  When gas prices are more moderate, as they are today, there is less concern. The world's oceans have large floating islands consisting of plastic waste washed into our streams and lakes and, depending upon the watershed, makes its way to the oceans.  Out of sight, out of mind.  While recycling is important, so too is reduce and reuse.  Human's are, well human.  I am sure that an economist could easily discuss people doing what is in one's self-interest.  However, best-interest and self-interest are not necessarily the same.

Pewitt's Nest

There are many in the nation who don't feel climate change is a real occurrence.  As I look back, I wonder if climate advocates brought it about themselves using the term global warming and people looking at a cold, snowy spring and ask: What global warming?  The Madison area has yet to hit 60 degrees since Jan. 1, the first in recorded weather history.  Hence, part of the reason of the move to the phrase climate change.  The use of the term climate change better denotes larger storm events, and even the existence of colder weather patterns in some areas; in other words it more aptly describes greater variations in the overall weather pattern.  Interestingly, the best article I have ever read on climate change was in "Backpacker" magazine in about 2006, which talked about a study in the Boundary Waters which identified how species in that climate zone were becoming more like species found in central Wisconsin.  Dealing with climate, however, there may be no normal.

Interchange to Pewitt's Nest, about 4,200 feet

Evidence of climate change is easier to spot in other parts of the world.  For example, about a month ago Cardinal John Ribat commented in Washington D.C. that "the southwest Pacific Ocean nation of Papua New Guinea", from which hails, "face dual threats from rising sea levels and the advent of undersea mining for valuable metals."  Americans tend to think the world revolves around us, but it does not.  The world is also those persons in New Guinea, those in the Savannah's of Africa, or the indigenous communities of South America,; they are part of those on the peripheries that Pope Francis had in mind when writing his encyclical, "Laudato Si". This work also brings the equity part of the three E's to the forefront.  Perhaps an introduction in the "New York Times" to "Laudato Si" from June 2015 best summarizes this encyclical:

Pope Francis has written the first papal encyclical focused solely on the environment, attempting to reframe care of the earth as a moral and spiritual concern, and not just a matter of politics, science and economics. In the document, “Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home,” he argues that the environment is in crisis – cities to oceans, forests to farmland. He emphasizes that the poor are most affected by damage from what he describes as economic systems that favor the wealthy, and political systems that lack the courage to look beyond short-term rewards. But the encyclical is addressed to everyone on the planet. Its 184 pages are an urgent, accessible call to action, making a case that all is interconnected, including the solutions to the grave environmental crisis.

Pewitt's Nest

Reading the encyclical what came to mind is a need to reinvigorate or change our values and our ethos.  The small actions that people can take will be related to their values, and if we lack a conservation ethic little will happen.  Some things occur, due in part to cost.  Think of LED light bulbs, particularly now that they have declined in price.  But, there is a need to see both the trees and forest.  Let me use one example.  Where I work there is a large basically flat area formed by a former glacial lake with excellent top soil for crops and since it is so flat it does not erode.  Not only that, it is under laid by some of the best geology of soils possessing a high capacity for ground water recharge if not in for much of southern Wisconsin, then for Dane County.  If any place should be preserved for agriculture, and groundwater recharge, it is this.  Yet, there is now a desire to cover 120 acres of this prime agricultural land with solar panels.  Solar panels are a great idea, but placement on some of the best farm and high recharge soils makes little sense.  The  effort, being pushed by an alder-person has many thinking how great this is, look at the electricity that will be produced, and the reduction in green house gases.  What they don't realize is that solar panels are best located where there is a dual purpose, such as on roof tops, over parking lots, or even in an old abandoned quarry or denuded south facing hillside.  Plenty of which exist within about a 1/2 mile of this site.  Instead, there is a lack of a true environmental ethic to see the forest through the trees.  Farmland, in this case, is not thought of as a resource in its own right, but as a place on which to build.  Pursuit of matters in a uni-dimensional view like a solar field on prime farmland is a fools errand of prioritization.  It is not sustainable thinking.  Simply having solar panels which cover prime farmland is not consistent with an overall environmental ethic.  Sustainable thinking requires examination of the whole, is multi-faceted, and needs to work with varied facets of economy, equity and ecology.

Opening Paragraph, "Laudato Si"
2015 Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter "Laudato Si"
Paragraph copied from on-line from pdf version

We need to rethink our scale of economy and create a new ethic that looks at the whole picture in a sustainable measure from more than just climate change.  The use of this 120 acres for a solar farm will take prime farm land out of production, reduce ground water recharge.  but, those two aspects are treated as if they are of lesser importance.   Food and ground water are also very important.  Place the panels over the large asphalt parking lots at the large industrial user just to the north.  Less than three years ago the then Mayor of Fitchburg asked the industrial user to design their 400,000 sq ft footprint addition to accommodate solar panels, they did not do so.  Now, however, some say they are one reason for the solar panel initiative on prime farmland.

Madison set (setting) a record for the most days since the start of  any year without
having at least one day since Jan 1 of that year reach 60 degrees.
This is a first since weather record keeping began
Source:  Channel3000.com, 4/18/2018

When USH 12 was reconstructed near Pewitt's Nest travel and economics trumped environment.  As time moves, the Pewitt's Nest natural area may be affected by the big boxes sure to come to West Baraboo.  Like the solar installation on a prairie south of Madison a multi-faceted approach is required.  So, too is climate one part of a larger ecological whole.  Or, what Pope Francis would term an integral ecology. We, who make the world, need to implement practices that are more than one-dimensional in nature.  This does not mean that small decisions have no effect.  Any small decision that helps lead to an environmental ethic can't be bad.  Small decisions can use the trees to see the forest.  As noted by Pope Francis in this video, the earth is not just our common home, it is our common heritage.  Happy Earth Day!

Pewitt's Nest photos by author, August 2016.
Maps from Google Maps.