More ticks. More mosquitos. Less snowmobiling and ice fishing.
Those are just a few of the climate impacts facing Midwestern states in the coming decades, according to the just-released Fifth National Climate Assessment.
Climate change
As tribes establish their own water quality standards and permitting programs, some experts believe they could play a critical role in fighting pollution and ensuring that the resources they depend on for subsistence and cultural values are preserved.
Students, lawmakers and environmental activists from across the state gathered Tuesday on the Capitol steps, calling for climate action, environmental justice and clean energy policy.
Skyridge Church of the Brethren in Kalamazoo will be celebrating Earth Day this Saturday by hosting “One Earth, One Chance;” a workshop and discussion on environmental sustainability and social justice in the surrounding communities. The event will be led by grassroots activist David Radcliff of the Virginia-based New Community Project (NCP), and will be held April 22 from 1-3 p.m.
The coalition wants the state to build on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Healthy Climate Plan, which was developed in 2022 with stakeholders from across the state. Among other priorities, it calls for achieving 100% economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2050.
Conner McBride, a senior at Loy Norris High School in Kalamazoo and a Voices of Youth correspondent, examines what Kalamazoo is doing to protect the environment, and how teens can get involved.
Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the president of NextGen America, was in Ann Arbor for one of nine national stops with MoveOn and the progressive former presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to get out the vote in Michigan and four other key states.
Perhaps one of the most tangible, albeit lesser-mentioned differences between the candidates for governor and attorney general is their contrasting positions on Line 5, the long-embattled oil pipeline in the Great Lakes that has been a flashpoint of environmental and economic debate for the past decade.
As lawmakers begin envisioning the next farm bill, some U.S. House Republicans are wary of making climate change a priority for farmers and ranchers.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warns an increase in extreme rainfall could be on the horizon. NOAA recently released its 2022 state climate summaries that provide a state-by-state look of historical data and a projected outlook of climate conditions.
New polling has found that a majority of Michigan voters support President Joe Biden’s recently signed federal law that will pour $750 billion into priorities like climate and health care, while even more residents would support Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer securing those funds for energy projects in Michigan.
Some Michigan residents and officials are encouraged about an effort that is expected to coordinate train service connecting the southeastern and northern regions of the state.
Democrats blamed the oil industry, Republicans blamed President Joe Biden and oil executives blamed global market forces at a U.S. House hearing Wednesday on how to reverse a dramatic increase in gas prices.
Watershed Voice’s Deborah Haak-Frost recently spoke with Three Rivers Park Manager/Zookeeper Britney Wendzel about her role with the City of Three Rivers, Wendzel’s take on Three Rivers’ new Parks and Recreation Master Plan, climate change, and her hopes for the city’s parks, zoo, and other recreational areas.
WSV columnist Deborah Haak-Frost writes, “In this list, I share my top five Sow Good Seeds columns of 2021. My hope is that they may invite you to see yourself more deeply in the context of this planet, to consider a perspective you may not have had previously, to plant some seeds in your mind about how our lives are so intricately interwoven with the natural world.”
WSV’s Dan Robinson writes, “There’s nothing like a good question. A good question can send us down paths of discovery, or surprise us with an answer out of left field, or point the way to a different future. As I discovered during my recent conversation with Seamus Norgaard, the Host and Director of Tara’s Meadow Retreat and Education Center on Beaver Island, a good question played a role in his own spiritual journey.”
George Ochenski writes, “For years now we’ve been subjected to an endless stream of nonsense from those who deny the inescapable reality that our planet is overheating due to human-caused pollution in the atmosphere. It’s now apparent that the cascading effects of global baking — and the concurrent lack of action by our politicians and lawmakers — are creating enormous societal, economic and environmental problems and threatening our very existence.”
WSV’s Dan Robinson writes about innovation, sacrifice, and spirituality in the face of climate change. “We have the needed resources to mitigate climate change, if those of us with more than we need have the political will – and spiritual will – to share some of it, to live more simply, so that others may have the innovation they need to simply live.”