Photo: Kerry Geck - Getty Images
Smokestack
The world is getting hotter and Wisconsin weather more extreme. Global carbon emissions are the main culprit. Climate change is too hot to handle for some but in Milwaukee, government, non-profits, citizens and some businesses are working hard to bend the temperature curve.
The recent surge of federal funding is enabling units of government, builders, advocates and citizens to do more and better on advancing rooftop solar, electric vehicles and charging stations, and too many worthwhile projects to cover in one article.
“We’re in trouble and we have to be serious about stopping the emissions from the fossil fuel industry, which is the biggest contributor to the problem,” says Julie Enslow, one of the facilitators of 350.org MKE. The long-time Milwaukee peace activist helped start the group 10 years ago and one activity is protesting outside big banks on Fridays.
It's a national campaign to tell banks to stop funding destructive projects like pipelines and fracking. The largest funder in the world is Chase Bank, she says, with a convenient branch at corner of Water and Wisconsin.
Why “350”? That's parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere, Enslow explained, the limit “to sustain life on earth as we know it.” Our earth now has 420 ppm and rising, so groups like 350.org urgently advocate both upward, to those with wealth and power but reluctant to change, and to the public, such as with fliers and conversations as pedestrians pass the bank.
Room for Optimism
Erick Shambarger sees room for optimism. He’s the City of Milwaukee environmental sustainability director, heading the Environmental Collaboration Office (ECO). “The City of Milwaukee, including Mayor Johnson and the Common Council, is taking climate change seriously,” he says. “We are working very hard to put Milwaukee in a good position to capitalize on the Federal opportunity, the primary funding source, for our climate equity plan.”
That federal money came from the American Rescue Plan Act (2021) with much more coming from the Inflation Reduction Act (2022). The IRA rules are not finished so it is not yet known how much will come to Milwaukee. Some funds will go to ECOs “Ten Big Ideas.” Among them, by 2025, the city aims to have 25% of its electricity generated from renewable sources.
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Besides big ideas, ECO can help homeowners do their bit against climate change with the Milwaukee Energy Efficiency Program (ME2) and “Grow Solar.” And for your electric vehicle, ECO promotes public charging systems. According to PlugShare, Milwaukee County has some 75 locations to juice up, although showing nothing at the We Energies coal plant in Oak Creek. Hmmm.
Shambarger helped lead the City-County Task Force on Climate and Economic Equity, formed in 2019, comprising public officials and activists, and making serious recommendations.
One task force member, Pam Fendt, president of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council, noted that lots of EV charging stations are coming with IRA money, including enough to drive a circle tour of Lake Michigan. She found the diversity and "mutual education" useful and is disappointed that the Task Force will not continue.
Creating New Jobs
Part of the “Equity,” as Fendt sees it, is that “we can’t leave workers in the dust” during the transition of a green economy. The union movement is training apprentices, and some worked alongside Laborers and Electricians union members to build the Paris Solar Farm, the second largest in Wisconsin, in Kenosha County. She also likes Green Homeowners United, a small and all-union contractor helping low and moderate-income homeowners retrofit their houses.
Wisconsin has many environmental collaborations including a new one, announced on March 29 by Gov. Tony Evers, the Clean Economy Coalition of Wisconsin. It includes the Walnut Way Conservation Corp., the Sierra Club Wisconsin Chapter, and 10 more.
Perhaps they can help move some of the state surplus funds to its Focus on Energy, a program beloved by environmentalists but resisted by Republicans in the legislature, according to Don Ferber, co-chair of the Sierra Club chapter.
The Walnut Way, a Milwaukee group headed by Executive Director Antonio Butts, had a collaboration called ME Energies with Wisconsin Citizen Action, North Side Rising and the Sierra Club to challenge We Energies’ rate structure as it impacts poor neighborhoods. Despite Butts’ heartfelt testimony to the state Public Service Commission, WE raised the rates.
WE Energies’ coal plant in Oak Creek is the largest point source of greenhouse gases in Milwaukee County and every group concerned with climate change has ideas for how WE should move faster and do better. WE plans to switch that plant from coal to natural gas, a step in the right direction according to Tom Content, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, an advocacy group.
However, says Content, this puts off the need for more renewable energy plants. Federal tax credits for solar and energy storage are already in effect, he adds, although the utilities restrict how you do that rooftop solar.
Environmental Justice
Montré Moore chairs the Wisconsin NAACP Environmental Justice Committee and is a member of yet another collaboration, the Wisconsin Climate Table, a network of 33 organizations pushing for equitable solutions to the climate crisis.
“We’re working to reduce carbon emissions and to bring awareness to environmental justice,” he says. “I want everyone to have access to information such as, ‘What are the energy rebates?’ I want to make sure that federal environmental money gets to underserved communities, to black and brown neighborhoods.”
Moore is working with the Governor’s Office of Sustainability to ensure that Evers’ clean energy plan comes to fruition. “The planet is getting hotter and there will be climate migration to Wisconsin because of Lake Michigan water. We have to be ready for that.”
Will all this activity stop climate change? No, but it is making a difference. According to Environmental Protection Agency 1990-2020 data, total gross greenhouse gases peaked in Wisconsin in 2005, and the 2020 total was the lowest since 1990. Ditto for the electric power industry. For the transportation sector, CO2 peaked in 2004, and the 2020 total was the lowest since 1993. Wisconsin is doing something right.
