A little on the ethics of gardening

We're just relaxing today after one hell of a Saturday. We had a huge plant sale yesterday down in Waynesville. The day started at around 3:30 a.m., and, aside from the car ride there, I didn't sit down again until around 5 p.m.; then my head didn't hit the pillow until around 11 or 12 last night. Yeah, it was busy. We sold lots of beautiful plants though, which will find cozy homes in the gardens of lots of folks. We hear from the media and see firsthand that gardening is on the increase this year. Which is great.

There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.

That quote is from Aldo Leopold, one of the great forefathers of environmental ethics and ecology. A Sand County Almanac is his masterwork, wherein he philosphically and beautifully documents a year of living on a small farm he reclaimed in south-central Wisconsin. Key to Leopold's work is his Land Ethic, which, in a nutshell, says humans need to face the undeniable fact that we are part of the natural world, not separate from it and, therefore, "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

The book was written in the 40s. Leopold was worried then about Americans' tendency to focus so much on being "productive," rule-following, patriotic citizen-consumers, leaving the bulk of important decisions to "others," notably the government. In other words, Leopold felt that without direct, individual obligation--an ethical relationship--to the preservation of the land and everything on it, we could lose all that sustained our lives and made them worth living. An obligation without personal commitment and conscience is often an unfulfilled obligation.

Could it be that 60 years after A Sand County Almanac was first published folks might be embracing the land ethic?

Yesterday I sold plants to people who have never gardened before. And I hope I sold them good, strong plants and gave them some useful tips. Because it might be that their livelihood--or at least their comfort--depends on our plants providing their family with some sustenance. Some people spent $50 on little vegetable and herb plants. That's 20+ plants. For their home garden. All these folks--and apparently they're out in record numbers all across the country--have decided to take a little bit more responsibility for their own existence, closing the door just a bit on the destruction caused by mechanized petrochemical agribusiness and government subsidies. They know (or will see soon) that viability springs from the soil, from other plants, from animals, from the sun, and from other people.

I don't know if people are doing this out of necessity, if they're being pragmatic, or if it's the start of a new era in this country. We'll see. But no matter the motivation, this year's gardeners/farmers (the two words can be interchanged in my opinion) will gain or solidify valuable skills for the necessity of the near future. 'Cause I don't think it will be long before people need to grow at least some of their own food. Same as it almost ever was.

From The French Broad, by Wilma Dykeman:

It would be difficult to find a dozen people who have a family history in the French Broad country who don't count at least one farmer, and more likely several, among their ancestors. Even professional men by vocation were also farmers by necessity until recently, and savings were often deposited in lands rather than in banks.
[...]
In the rugged Tennessee county of Sevier, bordered by the Smoky Mountains and sliced by the Little Pigeon River, there were 1,071 heads of families listed in a census of 1850. Of these, all but 89 were designated farmers, with the exception of one or two candid souls who admittedly "did nothing." Of this eight percent of nonfarmers, blacksmiths (14), millers (11), and Baptist minsters (9) led the list. Half-a-dozen carpenters and wagon makers, five merchants, three each of physicians, tanners, shoemakers and horse traders, a brace of lawyers, coopers, Methodist ministers, hammermen and saddlers, and a single hatter, miner, wheelwright, navigator and cabinetmaker just about complete a fairly clear picture of the pre-Civil War life of that and many a neighboring county.

And I'd venture to guess it was like that in most of America a century-and-a-half ago. When I read those numbers, I was shocked, and proud of our ancestors; almost everyone was a small farmer, and many non-farmers provided people with the products and services they required to live a decent life. It's been like this on most of the planet for most of human history. People knew what it meant to work and survive. Most everyone possessed skills that mattered. And, in many cases, that direct, knowing dependence on the biotic community for one's livelihood automatically led to an ethical obligation to care for the land. That obligation slowly eroded; but maybe we've reached the valley.

Mainstream media and politicians at the federal level will probably not admit it until the very end, but the American lifestyle haphazardly erected during the past century or so is just about over. I don't know if I'd go as far as Jim Kunstler, who says that the demise of our deeply embedded irresponsible stuff-based culture will lead to a "national psychotic breakdown" or that "the current mood of public paralysis will dissolve in a blur of blood and spittle sometime between Memorial Day and July Fourth," but I like the way he tries to lay it all out bare on the floor. Sometime in the near future, life in America is gonna be very different. People are gonna have to relearn nearly lost skills. Thankfully some folks have preserved old knowledge and have worked to adapt them into usable, modern, ethically based skills.

Gardening is the best first step in our recovery--a real stimulus. I admire all those folks who came out yesterday to start their gardens for the season.

The tractor dilemma

Sometimes I'm an insomniac. Like right now. I've been up for a few hours, and I really have no need to be up. In other words, more sleep would probably be good. But there's no use fighting what you can't fight, so here I am. At least I can be productive in some way.

We were transplanting yesterday using this transplanter (see right for a picture of the old single-seat setup) that attaches to the tractor. A description of the equipment is a topic for another post, but in a few words, it automates something I've been used to doing by hand. Transplanting by hand involves pulling seedlings out of the trays they were started in, dropping them in the field, and getting your hands (and usually many other parts of your body) dirty by securing the plant in the appropriate spot. The tractor transplanter does the actual spacing and planting for you.

It has its pluses and minuses. A big plus is the actual time to get the plants in the ground is fast: it took about 10 minutes for four people (one driver, two transplanters, one quality control person tailing the tractor--three people would suffice though) to do two rows in one 275 foot bed. That's blazing fast. A big minus is that it's a piece of equipment, and therefore it doesn't always work right, which leads to frustration, backtracking, and tinkering.

When we first used the recently improved transplanter (two seats now) yesterday, it went perfect, and I was truly impressed. If it could save that much time, then, I thought, it might be the thing that convinces me that a tractor is something really worth having. But further transplanting proved to me that the perfection was fleeting. And while the transplanter always saved time (compared to hand transplanting) no matter what, I'm not sure that the time savings itself is worth the money and effort to have and maintain the equipment.

Besides, I've been wanting to avoid machines, because, well, I'm not sure the infrastructure and resources are gonna exist for much longer to allow us to continue to use machines the way we do as a society. As oil becomes more scarce and prices go through the roof (and don't fret, it will go back up in the not-too-distant future), I'm not sure tractors are going to make sense.

And on principle I find many machines ridiculously wasteful when I can do the very same things with my own body (often better) and simultaneously reap the benefits of pushing myself physically. In that case, time is not a cost, it is a benefit. As the subhead of my blog attests, I'm trying to live a simpler life, because simpler is good for me and is the only way that we as a community are gonna even begin to get on track to healing the clear-as-day wounds inflicted by our longtime hyper-consumerist ways. So, usually it's a no-brainer: I'll take manual labor over machine labor when it makes the most sense, which is most of the time.

But there are fuzzy areas. Both organic CSA farms I've worked at use tractors, for good reason. Both are about the same size at around five acres, which is small, but big enough that it's easy to see why a tractor comes in handy. For instance, manually preparing the soil for planting five acres would probably kill you before summer's first harvest (someone tell me if my perspective is limited on this). So as I see it our options when we have our own farm are three: buy a tractor (a used one, obviously, and biodiesel powered), secure the services of an animal (horse, mule), or scale down to where manual labor and small machines suffice.

The last two options are most appealing to me, for many reasons I'm sure I'll get into in future posts. But they beg some questions: Can we farm an acre or two and still make a living? Can we make the transition from machine-based labor to animal-based labor (I prominently include myself in the animal category) in a season while knowing very little about how to work with draft animals? Or maybe we should make the bulk of our money other ways and just have a garden plot big enough to mainly feed ourselves for the whole year and therefore not worry at all about non-human labor?

These are critical and difficult questions for a wannabe sustanainable farmer today. We hope to come up with some satisfactory answers in the next year or two.

Economy: It's hard work

You've been hearing it all over the place, probably every single day for the last several months: the economy sucks. Everyone says it. And it sure looks like it, with people losing their jobs left and right.

I know a little bit about this. I've been looking for work on and off for the past several months, and I can tell you that the available employment situation in central Wisconsin has worsened considerably--and it wasn't even that great to begin with. In the middle of '08 I would say there were plenty of jobs available, albeit not-so-desirable jobs, but still, plenty of jobs. Now, well, it's slim out there. Back then, a non-specific job search on the local daily newspaper classifieds yielded about 15-20 new job postings a day. Now you get that many new job postings every five days or so.

Still, in 08, wife and I combined made more money than we ever did as a couple. But we still struggled to make it at the end of the year. I don't exactly know why. For one, we probably spent more in general (that tends to happen when you make more money). For another, food and fuel costs were way up (though, we were less impacted by food prices because of our involvement with local agriculture). Regarding fuel: since we've lived in this apartment (it's been over four years now) we've managed to, on average, cut our electricity usage year to year. Electricity runs everything in our apartment (heat, stove, hot water, etc.). And yet, our electricity bills have continued to rise, this past December being the highest bill ever. Granted, it was cold, so heat was being generated at a high rate. But still, what kind of encouragement is that? People learn to use less, people cut back, but costs continue to rise. What's that? It's a dysfunctional economy.

That's right, the economy isn't bad, it's fundamentally dysfunctional.

I understand there are holes in my examples above. I do admit that we probably spent more in general. But ask my wife, she thinks I'm pretty extreme about avoiding purchases, so my idea of increased spending is probably a bit overstated. And I do admit that the winter has been cold. But if you look at the raw numbers provided on our little electric bill you can see that we've done a pretty damn good job of cutting our kWh usage in relation to heating/cooling degree days.

I think it has gotten to the point where if you live most of your existence in the mainstream American economy, you have few options to control your own livelihood--unless, of course, you desire money, pursue it, and are good at attaining it (the shortcomings of money coveting is a topic for a different post). For the rest of us who hold different values, our only opportunity for making a living, in my opinion, is to reject the dominant economic paradigm.

(What I'm about to say, I'm fully aware, is not anything new. It's all been said before. But now's the time for us to really consider viable alternatives to an economy that's been broken for so long. Perhaps this is the first time in several decades where a critical mass of people is willing to really question the way things are run and how it affects their daily lives. I'm just a messenger trying to straddle the divide.)


So, if I want to cut costs, take gentle steps on the Earth, and live a more satisfying life, I need to either change the deeply entrenched economic system (which many people much smarter than me have been trying to do for so many years now, to nearly no avail) or a bunch of us need to opt out and make our own economy (which is already happening successfully in small patches throughout the world). Whichever path one chooses to take to an alternative economy, it's gonna involve a rededication to good old human labor.


In the alternative economy I'm directly responsible for my heat, for example. If I'm using wood, the biggest "cost" is personal labor, which involves me and my neighbors actively managing a forest, cutting down some trees (or clearing dead timbers), hauling wood, and maintaining a heating system. But (here's a major key) it's not a cost in the traditional sense, with the proper mindset, because my labor is enjoyable. I get to be physically and mentally active (it keeps me healthy in more ways than one), in many cases I get to be outside (which I think is a built-in human desire), and the cash money I need to spend on such an activity is minimal. No doubt, physical labor and active, meaningful problem solving aren't always a "good time," but far worse is paying the utility provider, who you have absolutely no sway with. (And really, we pay money to go to college or work out at the gym, when a good majority of both meaningful education and physical wellness can be provided through truly productive personal labor.) If I'm providing my own utilities, on the other hand, I guide the entire process: I make the decisions that affect me--not some faceless, sprawling company who doesn't have a meaningful relationship with me or have my interests at heart.


Two things about this economy. Despite the way I describe it, it's not an "I" economy; it requires people consciously working together. Imagine that. It requires community. In that sense, it is much more like the way we have lived for the majority of our time on this planet. The other thing: using wood for heat is only a convenient example; this economy is a modern and forward-looking one that can utilize (when it comes to the example of energy use) things like solar forced-hot-air, earth-rammed construction, passive solar, and, really, anything you can think of that is not energy intensive.

So, I have a real stimulus package for you: we should learn to do things and make the majority of our decisions on a small-scale local level. But let's not be ridiculous about this. You don't have to be some jack of all trades, some complete do-it-yourselfer. It's the 21st century, and we've learned a lot, invented a lot of useful things. Specialization makes sense, but only if we have a general understanding and awareness of the system that makes it possible for us to live a good life. We need to make the system accountable to what we value. Then the possibilities expand.


But we can't be afraid to do a little bit of hard work.

Plastic or plastic?

There's a lot of plastic out there. So much, in fact, that the ocean is filled with it. In the North Pacific alone there's so much plastic floating around that it continuously accumulates into a continent-sized area. It just collects in what the science folks call a gyre, which is sort of an intersection of ocean currents. Check out this astounding firsthand info from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation:

The North Pacific Gyre is roughly twice the size of the United States, occupying much of the North Pacific Ocean. We begin to see evidence that we are in the Eastern Patch 500 miles off the California coast. Others have found what is believed to be a Western Garbage Patch a few hundred miles off the coast of Japan. It's dimensions and location shift seasonally, and the density of debris varies. Our first investigation of plastic density in the North Pacific Gyre in 1999 found an average of .002g/m2, with the dry weight of plankton outweighed by plastic 6 times. In 2008 we replicated the same study and found an average of .004g/m2 plastic density, doubling in 9 years. The ratio of plastic to plankton was 46 to 1, likely a representation the spatial and temporal variability in plankton production, but alarming when considering the many filter feeding pelagic species that are impacted.

My readings tell me plastic doesn't biodegrade; it photodegrades, until it eventually "breaks down" into tiny plastic molecules, but it is unknown whether plastics can fully degrade and become bioavailable.

So plastic finds its way into the oceans from boat waste (e.g. nets), from coastal storms that sweep it into the water, and from rivers that transport the plastic hundreds and thousands of miles. Then it collects. And collects. And collects. And then some fish and birds and turtles eat it or get caught in it. And some of them die because of it. Or we end up eating some of these plastic-filled creatures. The plastic doesn't disappear, and we don't have any real idea of what the long-term effects of it are. Plastics floating around in water absorb chemicals that aren't water soluble, and when they get eaten those chemicals are attracted to fatty tissues where they bioaccumulate. Sucks for those of us at the top of the food chain. Plastic contains toxic chemicals from the start of its lifetime, and as it floats in the ocean it gets even more toxic. Yikes.

I read about the plastic-filled gyre more than a year ago in an issue of Harper's, and it startled me then. But now I'm shocked. And sad. It's another indication of us having absolutely no sense of moderation as a society. I try to avoid plastic whenever I can (which is really difficult in America), but I think we have to start really taking a stand on this one (remember the old styrofoam fight?); because, really, a good portion of this plastic garbage doesn't have to be made in the first place.

Ruining the climate change party

How about that An Inconvenient Truth? I actually think that Al Gore changed the world like few people have in recent history. Don't ask me how he made such a tremendous splash with a PowerPoint presentation. I guess it was the straightforward, few-frills approach. It's quite unexplainable. Whatever the case, we've reached a tipping point, where a critical mass of people stands up to tell our leaders (and everyone else in the panopticon) that something needs to be done or shit is really going to hit the fan. Even non-chemists know what the hell CO2 means now. Every company that wants to continue making money has learned that they have to "go green" and proclaim their love for "the environment" publicly. For fuck's sake, even Rupert Murdoch, in what must be a sign that the Four Horsemen are on their way, has said that he is revamping News Corp. to be more, as the kids say, ecofriendly.

I'm all for it (ignore my cynical panopticon reference for a moment), as long as people back up their talk with action and we see the earth and its creatures (people too, for you anthropocentrists) begin to heal after a couple hundred years of industrial onslaught.

But, I'm a party pooper, too. See, there are two major problems with all the rage over climate change: 1) some people are faking their concern or using it to cover other misdeeds, and 2) the welcome but overly obsessive focus on this issue has taken almost all attention off other equally important ecological issues.

Regarding point 2, yeah, it sucks that so many people are pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at such high rates. But it also sucks that so many people are destroying (both legally and illegally) such large quantities of intricately evolved habitat that unique species are losing their only homes and niches, and localized ecosystems are quickly (in the blink of the earth's eye) collapsing. Biodiversity is on a rapid decline thanks to direct (as opposed to, for example, the secondary collapses associated with climate change) human destruction, which has got to be just as urgent a situation as greenhouse-gas emissions. Let's not take our eye off the larger ball.

I mean, people are obsessed with the topic of climate change. They say, "We're reducing our emissions." That's great and all, but I think reducing emissions and encouraging companies by buying into their emission-reduction advertisements is missing the whole point of making a change. Whether people are reducing their emissions is not really the central concern here: the key question we need to be asking each other is, are you adjusting so that you no longer needlessly wound the earth? In other words, are people reducing their emissions simply because reducing emissions seems like the righteous thing to do , or are they reducing their emissions because they understand it to be part of their wider obligation to protecting their home? If it's the former, we're screwed; if it's the latter, well, then we are automatically concerned with more than climate change and will make a real difference. Wholesale changes are needed, not fads or marketing campaigns.

What I really worry about in the short term with the whole banging of the environmental drum is that people are going to paint themselves green in order to take advantage of the wildly popular image they can create. The cases are popping up already because companies know they can make some serious money if they lead the way.

Here's one example--

Gulahiyi thoroughly informs us, in several well-written posts, of the very recent bursting of a dam that was part of the exclusive, highly touted Balsam Mountain Preserve (nice name, huh?) golf course in the mountains of North Carolina:

Balsam Mountain Preserve is an interesting case. Ever since they set up shop here, they’ve garnered plenty of press. But reportage has been almost entirely public relations, with hardly any NEWS. Chalk it up to a Balsam Mountain Preserve public relations team that understands media, understands the message it wants to convey, and understands how to use environmentally-friendly jargon designed to project a certain image.

The out-of-town investors behind the project claimed that the waters they managed in the "preserve" were uber-clean, their practices were so environmentally friendly, and their water was the last remaining haven of southern brook trout. In the meantime, rivers downstream from the golf course were slowly silting up and wildlife was dying. Oh, and it turns out that they were wrong about the trout. And then, the damn burst and people downstream were really up a creek. Luckily no one died. But the local media are apparently doing a shitty job of reporting on the situation.

Golf courses and rich folk retirement/vacation communities are going up all over the mountains (ah, to enjoy nature's beauty, right?), leading to landslides, water quality problems, erosion, and general habitat destruction.

Old transportation of the two-wheel kind

I ride my bike to work almost every day. I do it for the earth, my health, and my wallet.

From an ecological perspective, all I emit is the CO2 I exhale during my ride. My bike spews zero chemicals (aside from the occasional lubricant I need for my old chain), all the parts are original, and the bike is probably 15 years old.

As far as cost goes, smart environmental decisions often equal smart financial decisions. Many people in america are just beginning to really figure this connection out, but it has been evident for so long. And, as I said, the bike is 15 years old, yet I haven't had to throw down money on replacement parts. Granted, it's in pretty bad shape, and I haven't always ridden it full time, but it has been quite durable nonetheless. The brakes do need to be changed soon though--before I crash into a tree or get impaled on a hood ornament.

The health thing is definitely the most tangible reward for biking it every day. It's awesome to feel myself get stronger and gain more endurance with each ride. I probably get into work smelling like a dirty hippy and sweating like a crackhead, but life requires such tradeoffs.

My journey is six miles round trip, and I probably do another couple miles during lunch. It takes about 20 minutes to get to work. The most amazing thing about cycling, I've found, is that it's personally fulfilling and liberating to power myself around. And it actually makes going to the office a bit more tolerable.

When I first moved to Central Wisconsin, my round-trip commute to work was about 50 miles. Later, when I went back to school, it took 70 miles to get to and from the university. Now, during a normal week, I put more miles on my bike than my car. I much prefer my current mode of transportation.

I only wish I didn't have to deal with such harsh winters, however. To that end: Anybody from a warmer yet still beautiful area of the country (nudge, nudge--I love the mountains of the Southeast) want to hire me before winter returns? I'll bring you cheese.

Our forests

I've always been a lover of forests--well, at least since I can remember. I remember being taken up to Wisconsin when I was a kid, on vacations to escape the weird sprawl of Suburbia, Chicago. Of course, my parents had no real problems with suburbia: they had lived there forever, aside from a few short departures. So, when I say escape, I mean that leaving suburbia was to become an escape for me. I remember being awed at the forested landscape, at the smells of the pines, at the wild prairie flowers. What was an escape eventually became sustenance. I would learn to focus most of my vocational efforts on saving up enough money to take frequent trips into "natural" areas.

Now I live in Wisconsin, a heavily forested state, relatively. The first county I lived in here was Adams. It is one of the poorest counties in the state, sparsely populated and filled with lots of interesting forest lands. The county I live in now, Portage, has a university and several decent-sized towns. It is less forested than Adams, but it still has lots of natural beauty. Stevens Point is quite an amazing city from several different angles, but I'm gonna focus on the forests here.

Though Stevens Point is the largest city in Portage County, with about 25,000 people, you'd be hard pressed to find a more forested city of its size. And I'm talking about forest in the city proper. Not only do we have a wonderful nature preserve attached to the college and a sprawling Green Circle Trail, with 30 miles or so of beautiful trails that meander next to rivers and through pine stands, but we also have acres of private forestland hidden away in various corners of the city that are open to exploration (not sure if its legal, per se, but the lack of those "no trespassing" signs tells me I'm allowed). According to the WI Dept. of Natural Resources, urban areas in Portage County average about 35% tree canopy cover, whereas the state average for urban areas is 32%. Pretty impressive, in my opinion. I can't even tell you how much I love the Green Circle Trail; I use it to ride my bike to work--it accounts for about half my ride.

But there's a troubling trend in Portage County: We're literally losing our forests. Back in 1984, long before I got here, 34% of the county's land was forested. Same percentage in 1996. But, in 2004 only 30% of the land was forested. That's a loss of nearly 24,000 acres of forestland in only eight years. Numbers aren't available for 2007, but I can only imagine the downward trend continues. At the same time, though, most of the counties surrounding Portage have steady or increasing levels of forestland, and Wisconsin as a whole is showing an upward trend.

I'm not sure what the deal is here. I suspect that the recent influx of national chain stores has something to do with it. Where there was nothing but land just a few short years ago, there now exists Walmart, Best Buy, Lowe's, Kohl's, McDonalds, some buffet chain, a couple regional restaurants, Starbucks, US Cellular, MC Sports, Cousin's Subs, Petsmart, and Michael's craft store. Hmm... I'm probably forgetting a couple. But, damn, that's a lot of stores--and that's all in one area. Don't even get me started on the rest of the city.

Portage County is definitely growing, and businesses are pouring in. But it's the same old business model that is the product of a failed, unsustainable era of city and land planning. Most of these chains don't know what local means. So, as they set up shop on the outskirts of our city, take up our land and resources and suck up our money, most of the wealth is diverted to some corporate headquarters where it will no doubt be invested in another duplicate building somewhere else in some small city that is ripe for plundering.

I don't know. I see a lot of subdivisions and same-old neighborhoods going up around here, especially in the neighboring towns of Plover, Hull and Whiting. In fact, it seems to me that these towns are some kind of weirdo upcoming suburbs of Stevens Point. It's kind of a sick thought. As once-forested lots are bought up by developers, trees are just mowed down to make room for cookie-cutter houses. I just don't understand that model of development. I do, however, understand that population is growing and people need to put up houses. But can't we lessen our footprint? Haven't we learned something?

Whether one wants to admit it or not, all evidence points to the fact that the earth needs its forests. Truly healthy forests are places of biodiversity, places of sustenance and renewal. We rely on the life processes that are protected and nourished by our forests. Yet, when business comes along, we forget that. One only needs to look at the recent decline of the honey bee--just the latest in a line of collapsing life processes--to realize that when we harshly encroach on the natural order without any forethought, we risk causing serious problems with major repercussions. Ah, the "hidden" costs. When will we start factoring those into the equation?

Back in college, my environmental ethics professor, a Leopold scholar, had an elegant theory of wilderness usurpation. It went something like this:

Draw a square on a piece of paper; this square represents our wilderness. Now, shade half of it; this is the part of the land we agree to turn over for development. Now, shade a quarter of what's left; this is the part of the land we compromise on and turn over for more "needed" development. Now, shade an eigth of what's left; once again, compromise has brought us to give up our land for more "needed" development. And so on, until not much of the land is left to its own devices. Those who refuse to compromise what's left of the land (because they know better) are smeared politically and marginalized as radicals; though, in reality, they are the true conservatives when it comes to this issue.

While certain parts of the country may not be operating under this exact model (as is evidenced by the actual increase in forestland in Wisconsin), many places are struggling to hold on to what's left of their wilderness. And it's literally a struggle, because some people still can't see how the land is important on so many levels.

Fortunately, Wisconsin has a rich tradition of conservation and preservation. We fostered movement giants like Muir and Leopold. I have faith that Wisconsin will go in the right direction, even if my county falters a bit. And I know that other parts of the country have their inspiration as well.

Seeing as how I got my environmental ethics degree under the tutelage of the aforementioned Leopold scholar, I carry a lot of Leopold's Land Ethic with me. His thoughts just rang true with what I already knew. And if there's anything Leopold expressed that we need to remember today, it's this: humans are merely plain members of the land community. Our days of domination are effectively over, and the sooner we come to terms with this situation, the better we'll be in the long run.

We're a populous species, and we will likely require more space on this planet. But I think we can live in harmony with the land. For me, the forests are not supposed to be separate from us; I think, with commonsense development, we can safely take our places in the heart of the community, just as we have most of our history on this planet.