Thoughts

The UW Foundation handles incoming donations, and invests them into a variety of stock. The divestment campaign is asking the UW Foundation to take their money out of stock in fossil fuels.  In 2013, the UW-Madison Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee hosted forums for the students and public to participate in a discussion on whether or not the university should divest form fossil fuels. The Senate Committee will be deciding whether or not the faculty will be supporting the University in a move toward divestment. Many professors on the committee are leading climate scientists. This letter was formed from a collaborative effort from a variety of orgs on campus that participate in the Fossil Free UW Coalition, a student movement which strives for a cleaner, greener, UW.  ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Dear Members of the Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Divestment, We are writing to you to thank you for hosting t

In the entire history of humankind, yours is the single most important generation. We as a species have unknowingly and steadfastly marched in the direction of our own destruction since before the dawn of the industrial age. Recent science on climate change has made that abundantly clear.  If there is any room left to right the course of human history, it will be the unique span of your lifetime which will provide that pivotal moment. How strange; how terrible and beautiful that your generation faces such a challenge, and such a special responsibility: It is as if two arcs grew up out of the roots of history and have been bending through time toward one another; preparing to cross at precisely this moment. One arc is our budding understanding of our deeply interconnected role on this planet--how we fit into this complex dance of life-- and the other is our growing awareness that if we continue as we have, our time here will soon come to an end. One has to ask, why have things been

                                                                                                                                      November 8 th , 2013 Members of the EPA panel, During a recent summer vacation I took a trip with my youngest son William, intending to see some of this beautiful country as we made our way toward Madison, Wisconsin. We loaded our car with binoculars, backpacks and peanut-butter and jelly, and left the Oregon coast intending to camp our way back. But the forest fires in Oregon and Northern Idaho blackened the sky overhead. After watching the fire-fighting helicopters swoop down to lower their hoses and suck water from the Clearwater River we’d planned to camp along, we had no choice but to push on, crossing into Montana where I told my son his asthma would get better in “big sky” country. But the smoke and flying ash followed us across the border, and the sun hung alien and red, barely penetrating the haze. Tuning in to local talk-radio produc