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SPRING/SUMMER 2014
For alumni and friends of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Creating more
livable cities
PERSPECTIVES ON SUSTAINABILITY, FOOD ACCESS, HEALTH, ENERGY AND CLIMATE READINESS
Before the
end of the
century,
more than
75 percent
of us
worldwide
will live
in cities,
compared
to just over
half of us
now. This
revolution
means cities
simply can’t
be ignored.
”
In Common is published
by the Nelson Institute
for Environmental
Studies at the University
of Wisconsin–Madison.
Funding for production and distribution is
provided through the
generosity of our alumni
and friends. Contact us
at incommon@nelson.
wisc.edu.
Steve Pomplun
Executive editor
Meghan Lepisto
Managing editor
CHENGDU INSTITUTE OF BIOLOGY
“
Toward a more
livable urban world
For many people, nothing may seem less natural than a city.
Cities are full of people; they’re noisy, dirty, and everywhere
marked by artificial activities and materials. People who think
about nature often deliberately choose not to think about cities.
And yet…
And yet cities are constructed from nature: sand, water, metal
and stone. They typically teem with life, from insects and raccoons to coyotes and eagles. Most importantly, the creation of
cities always depends on the transformation of surrounding rural
areas, from which flow raw materials, food and energy. As writer Matthew Gandy famously noted in
his book Concrete and Clay, “the design, use, and meaning of urban space involve the transformation
of nature into a new synthesis.” In this sense, what could be more natural than a city?
More than this, cities can even be the key to sustainability. Urban living is far more energyefficient than life in sprawling suburbs or rural dwellings. The concentration of people allows
remarkable innovations in infrastructure and transport. Smart urban design lowers the human
footprint on the Earth, to say nothing of the cultural inflorescence and creativity made possible by
cosmopolitan life.
Finally, thinking about cities as environments is made all the more imperative by a simple reality.
Before the end of the century, more than 75 percent of us worldwide will live in cities, compared to
just over half of us now. This revolution means cities simply can’t be ignored.
Visiting Shanghai on behalf of the Institute in March of this year, however, I couldn’t help but
be concerned about what cities do to the environment and to the people who live there. Faced with
snarled traffic, filthy air, and miles and miles of construction made me wonder if people couldn’t do
a better job of crafting their urban environments.
Fortunately, folks associated with the Nelson Institute have been thinking about the “nature of
cities” for a long time, and we’re pleased to profile just a few of them in this issue of In Common. Our
research centers, and countless individual faculty members, are investigating urban energy systems,
air quality, food security, weather-readiness, health, social stability and other issues related to urban
sustainability.
The Nelson Institute, as an interdisciplinary engine of collaboration, is bringing together strengths
across campus to wrestle with the challenges of understanding urban ecosystems, designing and
building for extreme heat and rain events, and learning to live with the diverse species that share our
streets, parks, golf courses and sewers.
But we still have a long way to go. That’s why we’re prepared to double-down on urban ecology here at Nelson by organizing teams to apply for major funding in the area of urban ecosystem
science, supporting service learning capstones that provide students with encounters with urban
wildlife, and forging new partnerships with private industries and utilities at work in cities. The
future of the Earth rests in what we do in cities, whether we like it or not. The Nelson Institute is
ready to help answer the call of our inevitable, new urban natures.
CONTENTS
features
8
Livable cities
SUSTAINABILITY
10
A global view of urban growth
An interview with professor Harvey Jacobs
FOOD ACCESS
12
Growing food in forgotten spaces
14
Hungry for more
University-community partnership seeks healthy food for all
HEALTH
16
Movement as medicine
18
Clearing the air
12
Innovative research shows how critical activity is to health
Air quality research betters public health and policy
14
ENERGY
20
A livable city solution:
The powerful potential of microgrids
16
CLIMATE READINESS
22
Social networks boost heat wave resilience
23
Readying communities for rising seas
24
Extreme weather event powers simulation tool
25
Preparing for change
22
18
20
departments
2 Message from the director
4 Around the Nelson Institute
23
26
24
Donald Radcliffe
Writer
COVER PHOTO:
NAN PALMERO
10
Amanda Fuller sees unearthed potential in vacant city lots
Danielle Lamberson Philipp
Designer
Paul Robbins
Director, Nelson Institute
8
Nelson alumni offer thoughts on urban futures
25
Investing in Nelson
28
Gifts provide crucial source of student, program support
First person
30
Student Anna Meding has an energizing experience in Uganda
Alumni notes
Catching up with graduates; alumni awards recipients
Spring/Summer 2014 3
Around the Nelson Institute
Save the date for Neil deGrasse Tyson DAVID GAMBLE
Renowned astrophysicist and
author Neil deGrasse Tyson will
keynote the ninth annual Nelson
Institute Earth Day Conference in
Madison on April 20, 2015.
Tyson is director of the Hayden
Planetarium at the American
Museum of Natural History in
New York and host of the television series Cosmos: A Spacetime
Odyssey. He is an accomplished
communicator of science to general audiences and an outspoken
advocate for science education and research.
The conference will explore the intersection of science, society
and the environment, with registration opening in the fall. For more
information and updates: nelson.wisc.edu/earthday
Tales from Planet Earth travels to Stockholm
In its first trip overseas, the Tales from Planet Earth film festival
premiered in Stockholm in April with a series of films, lectures,
workshops and panel discussions.
The events were part of a longer-term collaboration between
the Nelson Institute Center for Culture, History and Environment,
the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the Royal
Institute of Technology in Sweden, and the Rachel Carson Center for
Environment and Society in Munich.
The festival will be followed by a three-day international
workshop, “The Anthropocene: Cabinet of Curiosities Slam,” at
UW-Madison Nov. 8-10 that will feature a keynote address by
Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the recent New York Times bestseller
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.
Adventures abroad
While studying abroad at the National University of Ireland, Galway,
English and environmental studies major Peyton Sweeney shared
eco-minded observations in a blog for the Nelson Institute. From a
stop at the last port of call for the ship Titanic to a wondrous hike
through the pristine Swiss Alps, you
can follow her experience at go.wisc.
edu/lassinclass.
Meanwhile, economics and
environmental studies major Paul
Davidson shared stunning snapshots
from his study abroad in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. To see a selection of his
photos: go.wisc.edu/paulstudyabroad
4 In Common
SNAPSHO TS
299
Research by Nelson affiliates shapes national
climate report
UW-Madison researchers, including many affiliated with the Nelson
Institute, contributed to the third U.S. National Climate Assessment
released by the White House in May.
The report details how climate change is affecting different regions
of the country and key sectors of the national economy, documenting
links between climate change and more frequent and intense extreme
weather events. Jonathan Patz, a professor of environmental studies and population health sciences and director of the UW-Madison Global Health
Institute, was a lead author on the Midwest section and his extensive
work is referenced throughout the report.
Work from the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research and
Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment is also cited,
as is the 2011 report of the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change
Impacts, a statewide project co-founded by the Nelson Institute and
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Other contributors
include a number of Nelson graduate students and alumni. To view
the full report: nca2014.globalchange.gov
Farmers’ markets are widely praised as a way to bring fresh,
locally grown food into urban communities. But what if you
start one and nobody comes? That’s one of several questions
Nelson Institute students tackled in the fall semester in South
Madison to help guide sustainable community food systems.
To learn more about their service-learning projects:
go.wisc.edu/EScapstone
Workshop yields conservation solutions
in China
New, collaborative strategies for maintaining China’s
rich biodiversity emerged from a workshop in March
hosted in Sichuan by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’
Chengdu Institute of Biology and the Nelson Institute.
The workshop was meant to build research collaboration between the institutes and to explore opportunities
to help train conservation managers through innovative
curriculum designs. Cooperative efforts between the
institutes extend back to the 1970s.
students earned
degrees and
certificates from
the Nelson Institute
in May, joining
the 6,400-strong
UW-Madison Class
of 2014.
Tribal youth media project yields movies
that matter
Hoping to spread Native American cultural practices within and
between tribes and to the outside world, Nelson affiliate Patty Loew
and her UW-Madison Life Sciences Communication colleague Don
Stanley co-founded the Tribal Youth Media Project.
Loew says the initiative aims to close the “digital divide” between
Native Americans and their non-native peers by empowering native
teens with the tools and skills to produce video stories. To learn more
and see one of the films: go.wisc.edu/tribalyouthmedia
A serendipitous meeting between Nelson
Institute graduate student Emmanuel Urey
and faculty affiliate Gregg Mitman has led the
pair on a stirring journey to reconnect Liberia’s
present with the past and share the story in a
forthcoming documentary. Urey, a child of Liberia’s civil war, journeyed from
a rural upbringing in the West African Republic of
Liberia to higher education at the Nelson Institute. In
a chance meeting with Mitman, he learned of a rare
cache of film shot in Liberia by a 1926 Harvard scientific expedition sponsored by Firestone Plantations
Company.
The unedited footage juxtaposes images of mythic
chiefs, village life and tribal customs with uncomfortable glimpses into forced labor, inequitable social
practices, and clear-cutting on traditional land.
Urey took the footage home, traveling the streets of
Monrovia and remote rural villages. Follow the adventure in an inspiring video: go.wisc.edu/afilmnevermade
”
-PROFESSOR BILL CRONON, ADDRESSING STUDENTS IN HIS AMERICAN
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY CLASS. SEE VIDEO OF THE SEMESTER-ENDING
LECTURE: GO.WISC.EDU/CRONONVIDEO
#2
3 MILLION INSECT
SAMPLES, FROM PARASITES THE
SIZE OF A PINHEAD TO
BRIGHT GREEN GOLIATH
BEETLES PROPORTIONED
LIKE FAT MICE, RESIDE
IN THE WORLD-CLASS
WISCONSIN INSECT
RESEARCH COLLECTION
DIRECTED BY NELSON INSTITUTE
AFFILIATE DAN YOUNG:
GO.WISC.EDU/INSECTCOLLECTION
is the ranking Wisconsin
received in a recent national
survey of the number of residents considered birders, bested
only by Vermont. With the help
of “Birding to Change the World,” the
Nelson Institute’s mentoring and outdoor
education partnership with Madison’s
Sherman Middle School, Wisconsin
could some day jump to the top spot–
the program’s become one of Sherman’s
most popular after-school activities.
40 BILLION TONS of carbon dioxide were emitted globally in 2013 from the burning of fossil
fuels, driving the atmospheric concentration to
a level not seen in human history and raising
the stakes for adaptation: go.wisc.edu/carbon “December was the third warmest, globally,
on record. January was the fourth warmest,
globally, on record. The fact that we here
in Wisconsin have been shivering for three
months shows what an outlier we’ve been in
the big picture.”
Liberia, Madison and ‘A Film
Never Made’
Nearly 800 participants from across the upper Midwest gathered
at the eighth annual Nelson Institute Earth Day Conference in April
to explore ideas and issues related to the Anthropocene — the
age of humans — a term many scientists are using to describe the
profound impact people are having on the global environment. To
view photos and videos from the event: go.wisc.edu/earthdayrecap
“
When you avail yourself of the power of
the bird’s eye view, you get a sense of how
the connections of the world work and the
ways that they do.
-SENIOR SCIENTIST STEVE VAVRUS, PUTTING INTO PERSPECTIVE THE
STATE’S BRUTALLY COLD WINTER: GO.WISC.EDU/VAVRUSWINTER
“
If you choose a career path and find it isn’t speaking
to who you are, I think you should do whatever you
need to do in terms of changing direction.
”
-SUE MONTGOMERY, WHO AFTER A 20-YEAR CAREER PRACTICING FAMILY MEDICINE REMOVED HER DOCTOR’S COAT TO INSTEAD WORK TO CREATE A HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENT, EARNING HER MASTER’S DEGREE
IN WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN MAY.
5
FIVE SEMI LOADS of Styrofoam have
been diverted from the waste stream,
thanks to the student-led campus
initiative Styrocycle. The pilot
Styrofoam recycling and reuse
network was recently awarded
a $90,000 EPA grant to expand
and prototype the program.
$30,000 was
awarded to Nelson
graduate student
Valerie Stull and her
teammate Rachel
Bergmans in April in
two student innovation competitions at
UW-Madison. Their
Mighty Mealworm
startup will produce
an edible mealworm
protein powder to
improve food security
in parts of sub-Saharan
Africa most affected by
drought and climate
change.
Spring/Summer 2014 5
Around the Nelson Institute
Assistant professor Dan Vimont joined
Wisconsin Public Radio in February to
discuss climate change in Wisconsin and how
human actions, innovation and adaptation
can help chart a new course forward.
go.wisc.edu/vimontWPR
ClimateWire turned to professor Jonathan
Patz for perspective on how the hallmarks
of a warming climate – heavier rains, more
severe droughts, rising sea levels and longer
growing seasons – are spreading pathogens
such as malaria, Lyme disease and cholera
throughout the world:
go.wisc.edu/climatesymptoms
UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
With the Madison community captivated by
a family of red foxes on campus, emeritus
professor Stanley Temple spoke about the
animals’ panache in urban environments:
go.wisc.edu/foxesWPR
Recent alumna Monica Nigon (ESC ‘14)
penned a column for The Capital Times about
mentoring Sherman Middle School nature
explorers in a Nelson capstone class. To save
the planet, she suggests, we should start close
to home: go.wisc.edu/nigon
In Nature, associate professor Tracey
Holloway shared her experience helping to
found a network for female researchers that
has grown into the 1,700-member Earth
Science Women’s Network.
6
In Common
go.wisc.edu/hollowaynature
Dozens of grant-supported projects are underway in the Nelson Institute
at any time. Below are a few examples of the broad spectrum of research
generated by our centers, faculty, staff and students.
Professor Jonathan Patz chaired a 20-nation joint meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
in November meant to build interdisciplinary bridges to address climate change in
Africa, and will continue to help build environmental health collaborations there.
Ahead of the meeting, he collaborated with the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic
Research (CCR) to review the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
report with a focus on the already vulnerable continent.
Research by CCR associate director Michael Notaro, utilizing high-resolution climate
projection data from fellow CCR climate scientist David Lorenz, is helping to better
illustrate what winters in the Midwest could look like later this century.
The snow model projects a reduction in annual snowfall in the late 21st century
by 24 percent (about 21 inches) for a low-carbon-emission scenario and 40 percent
(about 35 inches) for a high-carbon-emission scenario.Yet total winter precipitation
is expected to increase, with more rain as winters get warmer. And very heavy snowstorms in the region might also become more frequent.
Notaro also studied how lake-effect snow in the Great Lakes Basin will change. His
findings suggest the region will see a decrease in lake-effect snowstorms by the end of
the century. An increase in temperatures might signal a switch to lake-effect freezing
rain, creating unfavorable winter conditions and wetter, heavier snowpack. The industrial revolution is often cited as the trigger of human-caused climate change.
However, preindustrial people may have influenced the global temperature about
as much as their fossil-fuel burning successors, according to a study published in
Geophysical Research Letters by CCR scientists Feng He, Steve Vavrus and John
Kutzbach, in collaboration with researchers at the Universities of Virginia and Geneva.
The team employed a new climate model to simulate historical land cover changes
up to the year 1850. Before the first ounce of petroleum was ever burnt, deforestation
and agriculture had raised the global temperature about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit above
expected levels, their research shows.
CCR faculty associate Steve Vavrus has shown that strong Arctic cyclones are happening more frequently and becoming more intense, and he suspects that loss of sea ice is
to blame.
Vavrus studied more than a century’s worth of barometric pressure readings as an
indicator of increasing storms, and examined its relation to loss of sea ice. His findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters, show that as the record moved closer
to the present, more days with abnormally low barometric pressure occurred.
Sea ice reflects much more light energy than the dark open ocean, which captures
and stores heat energy. It also acts as an insulator, isolating the cold atmosphere from
the warmer ocean. Heat and moisture fuels storms and as sea ice retreats, a greater
area of relatively warm open water is being exposed to the cold atmosphere, with
more heat energy and moisture released into the system, Vavrus explains.
New knowledge of loggerhead sea turtles’ first years
of life, published in March
in Proceedings of the Royal
Society B, may provide better
protection for threatened and
endangered sea turtle species.
So little is known about what
happens between the ocean
escape of infant turtles and the
return, years later, of larger
juveniles, the period is often
called “the lost years.”
Zoologist Warren Porter was
part of a team that used satellite
transmitters to track the movements of 17 neonate turtles
across the Atlantic Ocean. The
research showed that turtles
choose a habitat of floating
mats of sargassum, a species of
seaweed. The tangles of sargassum are magnets for other small
sea creatures, too, providing
food for the turtles, and they
also offer concealment and a
blanket of warmth to supercharge the turtles’ growth.
In a paper published in May
in Science, Nelson Institute
associate professor Adrian
Treves and Ohio State
University’s Jeremy Bruskotter
provide insights to aid future
wildlife recovery and restoration
efforts. The analysis includes
research by former graduate
student Jamie Hogberg (M.S.
CBSD ‘14) and others affiliated
with the institute.
The authors challenge
the conventional view that
intolerance and intention to
kill wildlife predators result
primarily from perceived
threats to livelihoods, and
they recommend caution in
legalizing the killing of predators. Rather, they suggest that
experimentally manipulating
monetary and social incentives
would help conservationists
determine which factors influence poaching and intolerant
behavior toward predators, both
individually and across cultures.
Research led by assistant professor Erika Marin-Spiotta
suggests that deep soils formed
on the Earth’s surface thousands
of years ago can contain longburied stocks of organic carbon
that could, through erosion,
agriculture, deforestation, mining and other human activities,
contribute to global climate
change. The deep soil also serves
as a time capsule, providing a
snapshot of a past environment
undergoing significant change
due to a shifting climate.
Former Nelson graduate student Nina Chaopricha (M.S. ‘07,
Ph.D. ‘13 ER) also contributed
to the research, reported in May
in Nature Geoscience.
Professor Jack Kloppenburg
provided much of the guiding
vision for the UW-Madison-led
Open Source Seed Initiative
(OSSI) that in April released
a novel seed ownership agreement. The group’s new Open
Source Seed Pledge is designed
to keep seeds free for all people
to grow, breed and share for
perpetuity, with the goal of protecting plants from patents and
other restrictions down the line.
OSSI was established in
2011 around concern over the
decreasing availability of plant
seeds for public plant breeders
and farmers.
In a study published in
November in PLOS ONE,
a team of researchers used
modeling tools to explore how
switching land from growing
an annual corn crop to growing
perennial grasses for bioenergy
would impact farmer income,
energy production and environmental benefits.
Planting perennial crops
such as switchgrass near creeks
increased greenhouse gas mitigation, water quality, beneficial
insects and energy production
though it decreased total net
income of farms in the study
area by roughly $30 million. As follow-up, the team is developing a web-based tool anyone
can use to predict how land use
decisions will impact outcomes
including biofuel production,
farmer income and environmental services.
A new study from UW-Madison
researchers, including Steve
Carpenter, sheds light on what
climate change – specifically,
changing precipitation patterns
and more severe droughts –
could mean for life in lakes. The
team monitored a Wisconsin
lake from 2001 to 2009 – a
time when a prolonged drought
greatly reduced lake levels
throughout the region.
The researchers found that
under normal water-level situations, trees that have toppled
into a lake’s near shore waters
offer a refuge for fishes that
would otherwise be lunch, and
provide food for those fishes —
serving as structure for algae
and aquatic insects.
When water levels drop, however, species are forced to move
into what’s called the foraging
arena, where they’re directly
interacting with predators.
As a graduate student, Chris
Uejio (Ph.D. ’11 ER), now a faculty member at the University of
Florida, led a study showing that
when rainfall increased during
summer and fall, there was a
notable increase in gastrointestinal illness amongst children
in places with untreated water.
Municipalities with treated
water and private wells did
not see the same increase in
illnesses. In the results, published in
April in the American Journal
of Public Health, the researchers recommend that protecting
drinking water with treatment,
and with delivery infrastructure
in areas with untreated water,
may be important measures for
children’s health.
P
ossible futures for Wisconsin’s Yahara Watershed were unveiled
in May as part of the university’s Water Sustainability and
Climate project, a five-year, multimillion-dollar initiative funded by
the National Science Foundation. The initiative, called Yahara 2070, is a set of four scenarios –
fictional yet plausible stories
grounded in rigorous scientific
methodology – about the
watershed in the year 2070,
each based on varying social
and environmental trends.
Numerous Nelson Institute
affiliates and scientists are
involved, including Chris
Spring/Summer 2014 7
Kucharik as lead principal
investigator.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN MILLER
Despite record ice on the Great Lakes in
the winter of 2013, climate forecasts still
suggest the trend is warming and ice cover
is expected to decline over the coming years,
Val Bennington and Michael Notaro told
Wisconsin Public Radio in April:
go.wisc.edu/lakeice
Research partnerships, projections explore
environmental ‘what-ifs’
JIM ABERNETHY, NMFS PERMIT 1551
NELSON IN THE NEWS
W
Nelson
alumni offer
their thoughts
on urban
futures
hat will the cities of the future
be like? That question has
been explored for centuries. It
drives the plot in countless works of fiction and film, with visions ranging from
Ernest Callenbach’s optimistic Ecotopia
to the dark and dysfunctional Los
Angeles of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Entertainment aside, the matter of
our metropolitan future has grown in
urgency as the world rapidly urbanizes.
Researchers, planners, investors and
advocates face a difficult question: How
can we design and build interconnected
physical and social systems that enable
cities to provide clean air and water,
nutrition and health, quality housing,
access to nature, civic engagement,
and personal and economic security for
all citizens?
MARIA POWELL (M.S. ’00 PH.D. ’04 LR)
PRESIDENT, MIDWEST ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE ORGANIZATION
sustainability
In my imagined environmentally just city of the future, all people — regardless of race, gender, income or circumstances — live in an environment free
of toxic pollution and have enough food and a home. Land, air, water and
wildlife are healing from two centuries of abuse.
To get there, our current destructive culture has ceased. Instead, permaculture principles guide all decisions. All food, ENERGY and resources are from
this bioregion. Diverse government leaders prioritize human and environmental health over economic growth — honestly and transparently engaging
citizens. And educational institutions, embracing multicultural perspectives,
nurture diverse, healthy local communities and ecosystems.
As part of this special issue of In
Common, we asked several Nelson
Institute alumni to look 30 years down
the road and imagine more livable,
sustainable urban communities.
MICHAEL HEALY (M.S. ’09 ER)
PRINCIPAL ECOLOGIST,
ADAPTIVE RESTORATION LLC
Sustainable cities in thirty years will have several
notable features. First, metro areas will be more
polycentric, meaning that older, inner-ring
suburbs will develop walkable urban centers and
increased population densities to support them.
Second, sustainable cities will look quite different at a bird’s-eye view from current ones, as
communities cope with CHANGING CLIMATES
by painting rooftops white (or growing them
green), choosing renewable energy, and divesting
in costly automobile infrastructure.
Most importantly, cities will take an active role
in their broader surroundings, using and mimicking healthy ecosystems to revolutionize the waste
stream, stormwater runoff, and the urban food
system.
MATT COVERT (M.S. ’12 ER)
GREEN DOWNTOWN
PROGRAM MANAGER,
DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS
RELATIONS, DOWNTOWN AKRON
The livable city is comprised of vibrant, safe, diverse, HEALTHY neighborhoods close to employment centers and services. Neighbors have a variety
of opportunities to be sociable and supportive of each other. There are
ample green spaces where citizens can interact through physical activity
and community gatherings.
The center of the livable city is the downtown, which offers a variety of
business, retail, residential, and arts, culture and entertainment opportunities. The downtown is the living room of the community; a place where
the diversity of the community is displayed. Citizens believe in the city,
believe they are important factors in its success and believe the city has
something to offer them.
Politically stable societies have at least one thing
in common: adequate ACCESS TO FOOD. To
maintain this access in the face of climate change
and increased transportation costs, cities will have
to source most food from within or near their
boundaries. Farmers will have to focus on growing
soil (composting) and growing a diversity of crops,
particularly those that are drought resistant.
As more people find jobs as farmworkers and
food service workers, it will be essential for those
sectors to organize for better conditions. The
most important ingredient for a sustainable city
is a citizenry that stands together and is ready to
organize when things go wrong.
health
climate readiness
NINA MUKHERJI
(M.S. ’09 CBSD)
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS,
REAL FOOD CHALLENGE
I think every city needs places where people can experience
a little “country”: pocket parks, walking and biking trails,
community gardens, accessible and clean ponds and lakes;
all these amenities make cities livable. You don’t have to go
to a national park to appreciate nature; a one-acre vacant
lot transformed into a garden can achieve the same results. food access
BETSY HAM (M.S. ’87 LR)
DIRECTOR OF LAND PROTECTION,
MAINE COAST HERITAGE TRUST NAN PALMERO
1000 FRIENDS OF WISCONSIN
KIMBERLY BECKETT (ESC ’04)
As an ecologist and naturalist, when I think of livable,
SUSTAINABLE cities, the definition of habitat comes to mind.
Food, water, shelter and space, in
the right arrangement. I think cities of the future will
play a larger role in securing the
ecosystem services that sustain
them. A great example of this
is the New York City Watershed
Protection Program. By preserving the land, rivers and streams
around its reservoirs, the city
has avoided the cost of water
filtration.
energy
sustainability
Urbanization is one of the most profound trends reshaping the human presence
on the planet. More than half of the global population now lives in cities, a figure
expected to grow to at least 75 percent by the end of this century.
In the developing world – and especially its megacities – this migration and
growth poses enormous and interconnected social and environmental challenges,
according to Harvey Jacobs, a professor of urban and regional planning and environmental studies.
Jacobs is a widely recognized expert on property rights, land use and social conflict, and he is studying how these issues intersect and escalate. He has worked and
lectured on these topics in locations ranging from Albania to Italy to Zimbabwe, and
recently shared his thoughts on global urban sustainability.
RICARDO RVACAPINTA
A global view
of urban growth
INTERVIEW BY MEGHAN LEPISTO
WHAT DO YOU SEE AS KEYS
TO A LIVABLE CITY? AND
HOW MIGHT THAT CHANGE
AS YOU GO FROM A CITY LIKE
MADISON TO A MEGACITY OF
MILLIONS?
We’ve been urban in the
developed parts of the world
for roughly a century, so we
know how to think about what
it means to be predominantly
urban in the United States and
Western Europe, Australia, New
Zealand, Japan. But we really
don’t know what it means when
much of that urban population is in global megacities. On
top of that, a very significant
portion of that population is
living in slums or informal
settlements.
When I’m teaching, I show
my students videos and databases that estimate that more
than a million people a week
are migrating to cities in the
10
10 In Common
world. That’s four times the size
of Madison in a single week; it’s
hard for most of us to wrap our
heads around that notion.
The challenge to me is not
how do you make a city like
Madison sustainable, because
in many ways it’s easy when
you’ve got a city of 250,000 and
a very educated and involved
citizenry. What’s hard is what
you do when the world is dominated by the Mexico Cities, the
Johannesburgs, the Nairobis,
the Mumbais or the Bejings.
Urban sustainability is
really about figuring out how
to engage resources, people and
infrastructure in these megacities. What do you do when you
have high rates of poverty and
people struggling day to day
to be alive, who therefore have
less motivation to think about
or care about sustainability in
terms of a multigenerational
frame?
ARE YOU EXPLORING THESE
CHALLENGES?
I’m exploring one aspect of it:
the security of people in slums
and informal settlements. The
familiar images are the bulldozers that come in and destroy
shacks overnight, leaving tens
of thousands, if not hundreds of
thousands, of people homeless.
There’s a very rich global
discussion from the United
Nations, the World Bank and a
global network of scholars asking the question of, what do you
do? Do you give these people
ownership of land in some
fashion? And in giving them
ownership of land, will their
lives be improved? If their lives
are improved, will the sustainability of the city be improved?
Or, is giving them ownership of
land in some way not really an
answer?
There are multiple case
studies around the world that
seem to come out with different
answers and there are strong
advocates on both sides.
My part of it is, what do you
do with the millions of people
living in places like Nairobi,
Johannesburg and Mumbai who
have tremendous insecurity in
the day to day? People go to
work in the morning and don’t
know when they come home at
night if the place they call home
will be there. Even in the poorest of the poorest neighborhoods
of a city in the United States,
few people have to live in the
conditions these people live in.
I show my students a movie
about informal settlements in
India, which makes the point
that in one of these settlements
in Mumbai, there’s one working toilet for every 800 people.
Afterwards, you see the shock
on the students’ faces; they can’t
get their minds around this.
Harvey Jacobs
IN THINKING ABOUT THE
MANY PLACES YOU’VE
TRAVELED, IS THERE ONE
AREA THAT STICKS OUT AS
GETTING IT PARTICULARLY
RIGHT WITH REGARD TO
FOSTERING SUSTAINABLE
CITIES?
People from all over the world
go to the Netherlands to look at
how the Dutch do what they do.
Issues of water, transportation
and energy use are three of the
elements the Dutch have long
paid attention to.
However, is the Dutch model
a good one for Mumbai or
Nairobi? The Netherlands is
a developed country with a
multicentury history of social
cooperation in the management
of land and natural resources;
they’re a very small nation,
much of which is technically
below sea level; and they developed a set of ways of thinking
about and acting on what we
today would call sustainability. These elements are deeply
ingrained in Dutch culture.
One of the themes a lot of
us are grappling with globally
is this question of how do you
create a consciousness, a culture
and modes of interaction which
will lead people both to be
happy with their own lives, but
to also gather to create environments which work for everyone,
including their children and
their grandchildren. For me, the
bottom line issue of environmental studies, no matter where
you are in the spectrum, is
that we all think about several
generations into the future. The
challenge is how we begin to
move people in that direction.
I’ll go back to the poverty
issue. It’s very difficult when
people are struggling on a dayto-day basis. It’s not impossible;
we have wonderful examples
that pop up of people living in
circumstances of great poverty who yet somehow begin
to act and motivate others to
understand that sustainability
isn’t just about someone else,
that it can be about me, and
it can help me. But unfortunately, those can be quite the
exception.
HOW DOES CLIMATE
CHANGE FACTOR INTO OR
COMPLICATE THESE ISSUES,
FOR EXAMPLE IN A COASTAL
LOCATION LIKE BANGLADESH
WHERE PEOPLE ARE
HAVING TO MIGRATE DUE
TO EXTREME WEATHER AND
RISING WATERS?
It factors into it very directly
and it complicates it tremendously. I regularly interact with
ministry officials from a variety
of countries, including many of
the Pacific Islands, who say that
in 20 years their country won’t
exist.
There are multiple questions
that flow from that. Where do
they go? Whose responsibility is
it that they have to go, and who
bears the burden of the transition? Some of the people in the
Bangladesh parts of the world
are beginning to say, “This is not
our fault this happened; why do
we have to bear this burden?”
Right away we bump up
against culture and very old
social prejudices. This is where
we need a global conversation,
but we don’t have global institutions that have the authority
to make decisions about this.
They can air the issues and get
us talking with each other, but
when you have a nation like
the United States who says we
won’t sign the Kyoto Protocol,
and in fact you have a media
conversation in the United
States that says climate change
isn’t real, it further complicates
this.
For me it’s fascinating to be
in other parts of the world and
have people look at me and
say “Are there really people
in the U.S. who think climate
change isn’t real?” They just
can’t believe that the scientific
evidence isn’t compelling and
that there may be hundreds of
thousands of people who from
their point of view are like
ostriches sticking their heads
in the sand. That’s just going to
further complicate the problem,
because it delays until later and
later the ability to act. And at
some point it really will be too
late.
If you look back in history,
these kinds of very significant
climate changes have led to
major national and international conflict and we see
everything moving in that direction, whether it’s about poverty,
assigning of blame, or about
where refugees will go – there
are big issues staring at us.
AS YOU LOOK TO THE
GLOBAL URBAN FUTURE,
IS THERE ONE IDEA OR
SOLUTION THAT YOU THINK
COULD BE IMPLEMENTED
ALMOST ANYWHERE TO HELP
MAKE A MODERN CITY MORE
LIVABLE OR SUSTAINABLE?
There is actually a lot of global
discussion about urban food
systems and the fact that,
regardless of the size, density or
tenure situation of the city, there
are often places where food
could be grown. And there’s
often high motivation for people
to want to grow food.
A second important part of it,
but a much more difficult one, is
transportation. Transportation
is a very big contributor to
non-sustainability. The issue in
China with the growth in the
number of cars, smog, and the
consumption of oil and gas…
there’s an obvious solution
and it’s about mass transit. It
doesn’t have to be investment in
trains, which can be wonderful
if done right; it can be investment in bus systems and other
forms of public transit.
If you’re going to have cities
and they’re going to work,
people have to get around
them. Nobody likes sitting in
a traffic jam. And who suffers
the most when transportation
doesn’t work? The poorest of
the poor. They tend to live the
farthest from work and spend
the most time in transportation,
in uncomfortable and unsafe
scenarios.
Then an issue which comes
right back to urban planning, which has been a much
harder one to implement, is the
question of where job opportunities are and where people
live, and trying to think about
the growth, development and
management of the city so those
two things – where people live
and where they work – are not
so separated.
In Madison, what do we
like to do? We like to get on
our bicycles or the bus and it’s
very easy to get around and
do what we need to do. People
everywhere would like that
opportunity.
Spring/Summer 2014 11
food access
growing
FOOD IN FORGOTTEN SPACES
AMANDA FULLER SEES UNEARTHED POTENTIAL IN VACANT CITY LOTS
MEGHAN LEPISTO
W
hat can $50 buy you
these days?
In Louisville, Kentucky, five
parcels of land and a world of
opportunity.
After learning of a 16-page city inventory
of foreclosed vacant property that in some
cases was being released for free or at low
cost, Amanda Fuller jumped at the chance to
farm one small portion.
In 2013, she and her friend and colleague
Peter Thiong founded Lots of Food, purchasing five adjoining lots from Louisville’s Land
Bank Authority and becoming the first to do
so for the purpose of growing food.
Fuller says she drew inspiration for the idea
from fellow Nelson Institute alumna Janet
Parker, a driving force behind the grassroots effort Madison Fruits and Nuts, which
encourages the planting and harvesting of
edible plants in public spaces (the two were
graduate school classmates, both receiving master’s degrees in Land Resources in
2002).
Lots of Food has since established a
market garden and almond and hazelnut
orchard on their third of an acre, raised
nearly $7,000 from 132 supporters through
the online funding platform Kickstarter, and
established links to distribute their produce
to local restaurants, farmers’ markets, grocers
and food-insecure neighborhoods.
“Where others see overgrown lots, we see
fertile soil, and we say, ‘farm it!’” their website reads.
Shortly after an open house where friends,
neighbors and supporters helped to plant 13
of the 26 nut trees on the property, Fuller
shared more about this new venture.
Inspired to try your hand at urban agriculture?
Visit Amanda’s “You Can Do It” page at
louisvillelotsoffood.com for how-to tips on researching
land, growing food or developing a business plan, as
well as links to other urban farming efforts.
12 In Common
The first almond tree is planted
on the vacant lots, which today
house an orchard and market
garden.
Friends and
colleagues
Peter
Thiong and
Amanda
Fuller
founded
Lots of Food
in 2013.
IN COMMON: WHAT INSPIRED THIS
EFFORT?
FULLER: One of the first things I noticed
when I moved to Louisville was how much
vacant land there is in the city. It’s like a
lot of other cities in this region; there are
questions of underutilized urban property.
There have been city committees and task
forces to bring more attention to solutions
to the issue, and I was keenly aware of
that.
Then when my employer, Breaking New
Grounds, shut its doors, Peter [Thiong]
and I wanted to continue working together.
We had spent the last three years looking
across the street at parcels of land that
were exactly emblematic of the kinds of
problems we were aware of in the city with
vacant and abandoned properties. That
put in our heads the idea that people really
should be putting those parcels to productive use.
The city had put vague calls out over
and over again about needing citizens to
help solve this problem and buy some of
the properties for redevelopment. Peter
and I, having the knowledge and expertise
to grow food, thought, well, we don’t have
a million dollars to start a business or
build a building, but we can buy land and
grow food on it.
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR GOALS
WITH LOTS OF FOOD; WHAT DID
YOU SET OUT TO ACCOMPLISH?
One of our major goals was to bring
attention to the issue and show one simple
effort – like an off-the-shelf solution – that
anybody can potentially pursue. To learn
about and go through it and share what
we learned, so other people could do
similar things.
By our own initiative, by giving presentations and through other mechanisms in
the city, and through our networks, we’ve
brought that to light and made the Land
Bank more aware of and open to these
kinds of proposals. We’ve cracked that
door open and made more people aware
of this inventory and aware of
the possibility of alternative
kinds of redevelopment. At the
time, really nobody that I talked
to even knew it was available.
Another goal was to beautify and improve some small
parcel in the only way that we
know how, which is to grow
things, make good soil, and
share a little bit of that with the
neighbors – to make one small,
visible impact in a neighborhood that needs a little TLC.
WHAT HAS THE RESPONSE
BEEN LIKE SO FAR?
The neighbors have been very
friendly. The neighbor across
the street is fixing up an old
building and the very first day
he saw me working here, he
was so excited he ran across the
street and said “I’ve been wanting to start a garden there ever
since I bought this building; I’m
so excited you’re doing this.”
The neighbors next door are
letting us catch rainwater off
their roof for our irrigation, so
we don’t have to install water
systems. The neighborhood
association actually wrote a
letter of support to the Land
Bank Authority when we
were requesting this property,
and there’s a local museum
down the street that is very
supportive.
Not too many people give
much of an objection to somebody wanting to start a garden
on a vacant lot; it’s not the kind
of thing people can really complain about.
We are definitely trying to
be good neighbors and we’re
placing some things in the front,
outside of our fence, like flowers and berries, specifically for
neighbors to share.
DO YOU SEE YOURSELF
EXPANDING BEYOND THIS
AREA?
Well, we’re still sufficiently
busy with this third of an acre.
There’s all sorts of space, so our
heads are full of things that we
could grow.
I have my own vegetable
gardens and job [Fuller serves
as executive director of the
Kentucky Academy of Science],
and Peter has a job, so we aren’t
necessarily planning to buy
more property. But we’re hoping
that other people take the cue
and think about doing something similar.
The city has now seen us go
through this process and we’ve
had great support from city
government, so our hope is that
other people will now be looking at vacant lots and thinking
about what they can do.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD
YOU SHARE WITH OTHERS
WHO MIGHT LIKE TO DO
SOMETHING SIMILAR?
A lot of cities have a land
bank of some kind. Different
cities have different jurisdictions that handle properties, but
there may be similar kinds of
inventories.
Buying a property outright
is one way to do it, but last
year as a preliminary effort
we approached neighbors who
owned side lots and vacant lots,
asking, “What are you doing with
that vacant lot? Do you think I
could grow some food on it?”
I got a variety of responses,
but eventually found a neighbor
who let me plant a garden on
his lot next to his business and
I shared some of the produce
back with him.You know, a lot
of property owners would rather
not mow their side lots and they
would be happy to let somebody
else do something on it if it
meant it was reduced maintenance for them.
There are many different
models. I think we just need
to be creative and think about
where there are spaces that could
be adopted and put to better use.
And think about your allies –
who in your community would
have an interest in doing these
things?
There are lots of ways to
make an impact, from guerilla
gardening to being an owner of a
property to things in between.
ARE THERE OTHER
BENEFITS TO THE
COMMUNITY BESIDES
THE PRODUCTION OF
FRESH FOOD?
more trees for air quality, and
climate mitigation. It’s helped
me frame the way I’m thinking
about my stewardship of this
property, too.
For me it’s not just taking a
vacant lot, growing some food
and feeding some people, but
it’s really about thinking about
all the different ecosystem
functions. I’m trying to model
some ways on this tiny property
that we can actually put some
of those functions back, in the
middle of downtown, so we can
have birds and pollinators and
cleaner air and water.
It’s really been interesting to
think about how this fits in with
the bigger picture of what’s happening around me. My training
is in ecological restoration, so
it’s nice to come back around
to that.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF
AMANDA FULLER.
Since
we
started
this, our
city has
undertaken
a broad
sustainability planning
initiative that
includes things
like storm water
infiltration, planting
Spring/Summer 2014 13
COMMUNITY AND REGIONAL FOOD SYSTEMS PROJECT
food access
tion’s urban agricultural initiatives have not
only helped build community self-reliance
and activity around local food security;
they’ve also drawn visitors from across the
country and the world as an environmental
and agricultural tourism destination.
“Urban agriculture is a way in which
communities are intervening in the food
system and coming up with very creative
ways to do so,” says White. “This cuts across
race, class, age and ability. The Detroit
model says those who can afford healthy
food should not be the only ones to have it.”
In Detroit, large portions of the population lack access to healthy food due to
either geographic or economic boundaries, with African American, Hispanic and
impoverished communities disproportionately affected. These communities tend to
purchase food from so-called fringe markets
– stores that draw the majority of their sales
from lottery tickets, alcohol and tobacco,
and offer little by way of fresh food.
“They sell the types of food which we
know have typically been associated with
diet-related illnesses,” says White. “If you’re
talking about people who do not have
access to transportation, or limited access,
and these are the places where they access
food, this is scary. How do you feed your
family in a place where these are the options
closest to you?”
hungry for more
university-community partnership seeks healthy food for all
14 In Common
ND
RE
G
Alfonso Morales, who is working on a
forthcoming book on urban agriculture,
says this lack of access to nutritious food
options –
ROJECT
MS P
S TE
SY
and a
D
O
YA
“So often, the question is, if we believe
that access to healthy food is a human right,
whose responsibility is it?” says Monica
White, a professor of environmental justice
with a shared appointment in the Nelson
Institute and Department of Community
and Environmental Sociology. “Some might
argue it’s the market, some might argue it’s
politicians, and some might argue it’s the
community.”
White is specifically interested in the
food insecure
NI T
change agents
community aspect of the equation, studying
the creative approaches grassroots organizations and communities of color have
adopted in response to issues of hunger and
food inaccessibility. Her past research has
focused on African American resistance to
food insecurity and on documenting the
history of black farmers’ collectives, cooperatives and experiences in the American
Midwest and South. “My interests are the novel, creative ideas
that people engage in order to increase
access to healthy foods,”White explains.
“Citizens of Detroit are not sitting around
waiting to see what’s going to happen.
They’ve done a number of things to engage
and challenge the food system.”
Take, for example, the Peaches & Greens
mobile produce market, a converted ice
cream truck that delivers fresh fruits and
vegetables – some of it grown on community farms with volunteer assistance – to
residents of inner city Detroit who wouldn’t
otherwise have access to such items.
In addition to her teaching and research
at UW-Madison, White serves as president
of the board of directors of the Detroit Black
Community Food Security Network. From
mini-farms to market gardens, the organiza-
MU
The majority of food consumed in American
cities is transported from at least 1,500
miles away.
And yet, in urban areas like Detroit, more
than half of the population is out of reach of
fresh food, shopping for meals at the corner
liquor store or convenience mart.
As you digest such numbers, it quickly
becomes clear: in meeting the nation’s food
needs, our performance is wanting, with
implications for nutrition and health, community stability, and local economies.
An interdisciplinary team of
UW-Madison scientists is working toward
solutions, supported by a $5 million grant
from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
They’ve teamed with UW-Extension, the
nonprofit organization Growing Power,
Wayne State University, Michael Fields
Agricultural Institute and a range of
community-based organizations to study
ways to boost the availability and consumption of healthy food in urban communities.
“This is an exciting project that brings
together the research and educational
capacity of the university with on-theground knowledge of community groups
such as Growing Power,” Steve Ventura,
the project’s co-leader and a professor of
environmental studies and soil science, said
at the time of the project’s launch.
Efforts are focused initially on
Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit, three
cities where food insecurity is considered
extensive.
“The overall goal is to integrate research,
outreach, education and advocacy,”Ventura
explains, “leading to improved understanding of how to build and maintain successful
community and regional food systems, and
enhance implementation in communities at
risk.”
COM
BY MEGHAN LEPISTO
N
IO
AL
FO
correlated increase in obesity, type 2
diabetes and a range of other public health
concerns – crept into urban American communities in the 1970s.
“In the 70s, there were two trends: One,
middle class folks started going to farmers’
markets, and two, grocers started seeing
increased costs of doing business in low
income communities and communities of
color,” says Morales, a professor of urban
and regional planning and a participant
in the food systems project. “They started
abandoning those communities, basically redlining them in the same way that
neighborhoods got redlined for real estate
purposes. That leaves behind few options
for food.”
Applying an ecological metaphor,
Morales says a strong food system requires
speciation, or the creation of new “species” of food distribution, incorporating
everything from street vendors and
pushcart vendors to food delivery services
such as Peapod and Schwan’s, and from
street markets, farmers’ markets and
typical storefront retail to gardens and self
production.
“A robust food system that produces
food security is one where there’s not a reliance on a single approach to food access,”
he explains. “We have to be willing to make
available regulatory and economic incentives to permit the repopulation of our food
retail environment.”
However, he says, efforts can’t stop at
simply making fresh food available to
consumers. For example, marketplaces
that incorporate the option of nutrition
assistance program payments can improve
access for low- and no-income populations,
but a person may not know how to – or
have the equipment necessary to – prepare
the market items.
“One of the problems is a lot of the folks
we target have diminished their capacity to
process that food in their homes,” Morales
explains. “Their capacity to cook it, to
store it, to serve it has all been eroded.”
“Because of this generational absence
of grocery stores from their communities,
because of the proliferation of fast food and
microwave food, and because of poverty,
where they just can’t pay their bills to have
refrigeration, or their refrigerator breaks
and they don’t have the money to replace
it, they live literally hand to mouth,” he
continues.
White says organizations in Detroit are
leading a series of conversations around
similar issues: “Once you grow food, how
do people access it, and then once people
access it, what do they do with it?”
She’s seen that community dinners and
local cooking demonstrations, especially
those connected to a community’s cultural
heritage, can provide a springboard for
action.
“Food preparation and preservation is
an important element of the work we do,
making sure it’s not just that I have access
to healthy food, but also that my neighbors
have access to healthy food.”
Ventura points to a successful community engagement project on the south side
of Milwaukee that enlisted local grocers to
sponsor cooking classes and feature healthy
new products appropriate for the predominantly Latino community. Now, two local
community-based organizations continue
these activities.
Morales says such skills are being revived
in youth, as well, for example through onceabandoned home economics courses or
Future Farmers of America activities. “These
kinds of clubs and classes are making a
comeback in response in part to the public
health disaster we invited on ourselves, and
in part in a proactive way, to enrich people’s
lives and to revalue that knowledge and
those abilities,” he says.
growing interest
Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing
Power and co-director with Steve Ventura
of the food systems research project, says
in addition to engaging and empowering
at-risk communities, a sustainable food
continued on page 26
Spring/Summer 2014 15
health
MOVEMENT AS MEDICINE
T
Innovative research ties urban design to better health
BY DONALD RADCLIFFE
“
The more you move, the healthier you’ll be.
Jeff Sledge, a faculty associate of the Nelson
Institute, lives by that code. He studies how
people move around the cities in which they
live, and how that affects their health.
“Going to a gym to get exercise is one
option for some people. But for many they
don’t have the opportunity, they are busy
with work and family, or they feel their
time is best spent elsewhere,” says Sledge.
“Regardless, the healthiest thing you can
do is to arrange your life so you have the
energy expenditures you need to preserve
good health. It becomes a part of who you
are.”
Sledge studies movement and health in
urban settings. He outfits people with GPS
trackers, accelerometers and various health
monitors. These provide data on where people travel, how much energy they expend,
and other information that is downloaded
into a digital map. The data reveals patterns
of movement and whether a person was
walking, running, cycling or driving.
Sledge was introduced to the power of
subject for more than a decade. “This is a
conversation in mid-stride.”
In his current research, Sledge uses
real-time assessments to study how chemotherapy, radiation or hormonal therapy
impact breast cancer patients’ ability to
produce energy and engage in daily activities and exercise. He is working as part of
a team led by Dr. Kathy Miller of Indiana
University’s Bren Simon Cancer Center
and professor Steve Ventura of the Nelson
Institute.
Using a stationary bicycle made by Saris
Cycle with a special protocol built into its
computer, the researchers monitor and
record a patient’s energy expenditures,
heart rate and pedaling cadence at precise
intervals. Study participants are measured
on the bike before they begin cancer
treatment to assess their energy output
and fitness level, and again six, 12 and 18
months down the road. When outside the
lab, the women wear GPS trackers and
accelerometers to document how much
energy they expend and where.
Sledge says one surprise
finding is an order-ofmagnitude loss of energy
production for women as
they receive cancer therapy.
For example, a patient
who was previously able to
sustain 200 watts of energy
on the bicycle might only
be able to sustain 20 watts
six months following treatment.
“That has dramatic consequences for
how you think about where you’re going
to live and how you’re going to be able to
engage in an active life,” Sledge explains.
Sledge and his collaborators plan to
use their findings to help breast cancer
survivors plan lifestyles that mitigate the
negative effects of therapy and improve
their health and quality of life. The more
active a breast cancer survivor is, the more
energy production capacity she can rebuild,
he says. And survivors with higher energy
The healthiest thing you can
do is to arrange your life so you
have the energy expenditures you
need to preserve good health. It
becomes a part of who you are.
dynamic GPS data as a graduate student in
the Nelson Institute, earning his doctorate
in Environment and Resources in 2011. As
he began to explore the interface between
urban environments and public health, he
arrived at a novel idea: Could researchers
find ways to use the environment people
live in to help treat disease? And could
health practitioners use environments to
increase a patient’s energy expenditures
and help them reach desired outcomes?
“The answer is hypothetically yes, but it
depends,” says Sledge, who has studied the
”
levels are thought
to have a smaller
chance of relapse.
“If we understand
how much energy a
woman was normally expending,
the deficit caused by
Jeff Sledge
her therapy, and her
patterns of movement at home and work,
we now look at our data differently. This
has the capability to become a tool of direct,
individualized intervention.” he says.
The team’s second phase of research,with
support from the Breast Cancer Research
Foundation, will focus on building patientcentered tools. The goal is to create custom
exercise plans to help women recover to
their pre-treatment fitness or better while
hopefully reducing the number of breast
cancer recurrences.
“We want to provide physicians, recovery nursing teams and physical therapy
teams with the tools to help breast cancer
survivors more fully re-engage in their environments with an improved quality of life,”
Sledge says.
Equipped with such data during regular
checkups, breast cancer survivors could
review with their doctors their movement
patterns and discuss strategies to increase
daily energy use.
Caloric imbalance
Certain genes that protect health are
switched off by inactivity, Sledge explains,
but they can be switched back on by the
right kinds of movement. This “epigenetic”
effect compounds the benefits of exercise,
and the cumulative effect can be strong.
In separate studies, Sledge has been
trying to understand how much energy a
person must expend to make health transitions, specifically for metabolic diseases
such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, which
today overwhelm all other diseases in the
United States.
“With metabolic diseases, the primary
common threat is taking in too many
calories for how you live and where you
live,” he says. “These are diseases of energyrich environments. They are diseases of
place – of industrialized countries and
urbanization.”
Sledge and a team of UW-Madison
researchers studied the health and energy
expenditures of school-aged children in
a Milwaukee community, examining how
food systems, social structures, transportation and access to exercise might influence
the rate of metabolic disease.
“This environment had a terrific culture
and terrific people that were incredibly
supportive and concerned about the health
of their children,” says Sledge, but for a
variety of reasons the children, who wore
monitors during the study to track their
physical activity, weren’t getting the minimum amount of recommended exercise.
Among the factors limiting their activity:
Parents worried about the safety of their
neighborhoods and about having their children walk or bike to school. Parks, open
spaces and pathways weren’t being used.
The biggest surprise came when the GPS
data revealed a clustering of student families in locations distant from school. The
families, primarily of Hispanic heritage, felt
strongly about the quality of their school
and the cultural values instilled there, and
would drive the students considerable
distances to attend.
“Here there were cultural overlays,
issues of health and security, and socioeconomic conditions that weren’t our focus
at first.” Sledge explains. “But as we
became sensitive to the community,
they emerged.”
So Sledge changed tactics. His team
began to teach an eighth-grade science
course that deviated from the typical
textbook-style approach to instead
teach research methods first-hand.
“We said to the kids, ‘We want
you to approach some of these issues
of health in the built environment,
and we want you to be the primary
organizers of the research, the data
collection and the analysis,” Sledge
recalls.
The children responded with enthusiasm, designing and executing experiments
in how to increase daily energy use. Their
physical activity increased and there were
additional benefits: In standardized science
tests, the students who participated in the
citizen-science model of inquiry improved a
full grade level across the board.
Reducing convenience
“
If I were to design a city
today, from scratch, I would
want to have a place that
invites relatively high
constant energy demand – a
place that has impact to it.
The potential applications of this
research go beyond understanding the
health of children and cancer survivors.
“Any time you can change habituated
patterns of movement, you will impact
health,” says Sledge. “As a society, we’ve
done everything we can to make life
comfortable – from the shoes you walk
in to the chairs you sit on, to our reliance on motorized transportation and
the growing amount of ‘screen time’
in our lives. That’s really detrimental, so
removing a little convenience goes a long
way to improve health.”
“The idea is to eventually have a cultural
sea change in the way we design our built
environments, how we interact with the
greater biosphere through invitations to
nature, and what we are willing to accept in
the way that we live,” he continues.
Sledge says this will involve designing
urban environments around a range of
human energy outputs. For example, the
layout of city centers and sidewalks, the
location of parking structures, and the
orienting of urban development around
accessible public transit can all contribute
”
to more exercise.
“If I were to design a city today, from
scratch, I would want to have a place that
invites relatively high constant energy
demand – a place that has impact to it, that
makes you expend energy,” Sledge says. But,
he emphasizes, accommodations in design
must also be understood and considered for
those people who are going through disease
processes and who have disabilities.
“The problems and challenges are far
reaching, but they are not out of reach,” he
concludes.
Donald Radcliffe is a forest science and life
sciences communication double major pursuing the environmental studies certificate.
RICARDO VILLAR
16 In Common
health
CLEARING
the
AIR
A
BY DONALD RADCLIFFE
NAN PALMERO
18 In Common
JUSTIN KNIGHT
Air quality research betters public health and policy
ir pollutants have concerned
scientists and politicians since
1881, when the cities of Chicago
and Cincinnati passed the first laws
aimed at reducing smoke pollution caused
by the proliferation of coal power. Since then, air quality has generally
been improving due to policy decisions and
improvements in energy efficiency. Progress
largely began with the Clean Air Act of
1970, which gave the federal government
power to regulate air pollution from cars
and industries.
“In some ways, air quality in the United
States is a real success story,” says Holloway.
“Since the 1970s, we have made reductions
in most pollutants that damage human
health, and even over the past five years, we
have seen improvements.”
But there’s still a lot of work to do.
Moreover, efforts to improve air quality
often have unintended consequences.
As the United States moves to regulate
carbon dioxide along with traditional air
pollutants, some control strategies may
change. For example, scrubbers – devices
placed in the stacks of coal-fired power
plants to remove gases or particulates –
reduce the emission of sulfur dioxide, a
byproduct of burning coal that can cause
lung disease and acid rain. However, Holloway says that these
scrubbers require a lot of energy to operate.
So a power plant running scrubbers needs
to generate more energy, thus emitting
more carbon dioxide and contributing to
global climate change.
But there are also win-win solutions,
Holloway says. Switching from coal to
natural gas improves power plant efficiency
by moving to a fuel that emits less carbon
dioxide and fewer pollutants harmful to
humans. The same holds true when conserving energy, or replacing fossil fuels with
renewable energy alternatives.
Because of the multiple options for
improving air quality, policy makers need
to be able to determine where to concentrate limited resources and political capital.
Modeling developed by Holloway and other
researchers can help set priorities.
“We want to know, from an air quality
perspective, where you get the most figura-
tive ‘bang for your buck,’” says Holloway,
who also serves as deputy leader of the
NASA Air Quality Applied Sciences Team,
which works to connect science data and
tools with policy needs for air quality
control.
“For example, coal and diesel are both
relatively dirty fuels,” she continues. “Coal is
dirtier, but power plant emissions are often
happening far from where people are living,
whereas diesel trucks are driving through
the cities, so there is direct exposure.”
Holloway’s team is investigating changes
in emission levels when power plants and
trucks are converted to natural gas, and the
resulting impact on air quality. Policy makers can use this information to make the
most effective decisions.
Tropospheric NO2 Column Density
BRYAN DUNCAN / NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
About half of the U.S. population lives in
counties that are failing air quality standards set by the Environmental Protection
Agency. And globally, air pollution has
been identified as the world’s biggest
environmental health risk. It causes 7 million deaths per year, according to a recent
World Health Organization report.
“Even though air pollution is getting
better, it is still posing major health risks,
even within the United States,” says Tracey
Holloway, an associate professor of environmental studies at UW-Madison and
faculty affiliate of the Nelson Institute
Center for Sustainability and the Global
Environment.
Holloway studies air quality, not only
because of its critical impacts on global
health, but because it offers a dynamic perspective of various sustainability factors.
“Because air quality cuts across energy,
transportation, land use, weather and
climate, it’s a nice lens to see how all the
pieces fit together,” she says. “I enjoy that
part of the problem solving.”
2005
2011
0
5
>10
(x 105 molecules/cm2)
These images show nitrogen dioxide (NO2)
2005
across the United States, as seen from the
NASA Aura satellite in 2005 and 2010. NO2 is
emitted through fossil fuel burning and poses
direct risks to human health. Major reductions
in NO2 over the U.S. have occurred since
2005 due to regulations on transportation and
electricity emissions.
When planning a cleaner future, though,
Holloway says the biggest challenges are
2011artifacts of the past.
often
“There are a lot of different parameters
that can be adjusted if we’re thinking about
how to build a city that has healthy communities, healthy air and other desirables,”
says Holloway. “But sometimes it’s hard to
go back in time.”
Cities like Los Angeles were built in the
era of the automobile, so they are spread
out and residents must do a lot of driving
to get anywhere. Salt Lake City was built
in a basin, which often traps pollutants.
Cities like Madison are hot in the summer,
creating issues with ozone, a chemical that
results from reactions between automobile
or industrial pollutants, such as nitrogen
oxides and volatile organic compounds, and
sunlight.
Holloway says these challenges are difficult but they can be addressed, not only by
policy makers but by everyone.
“Individuals play a big role here when
thinking about how they use electricity, how
they heat and cool their home, how they
get around town, and even paying attention to when there are dirty air days and
clean air days,” she explains. “If it’s a bad
air day in your community, you can take
steps like trying to drive less, or avoiding
mowing your lawn in the middle of the day,
and avoiding using cleaning products with
volatile compounds.”
Because of policies such as the Clean
Air Act as well as growing awareness,
Americans have made great strides in
improving air quality. For example, when
Holloway first arrived at UW-Madison in
2003, every Wisconsin county along the
Lake Michigan coast violated the federal
ozone standard. Today, every Wisconsin
county but one now complies with that
standard, even though it has toughened.
These changes not only improve air
quality; they also save money. Studies
have shown that for every dollar spent on
improving air quality, $2 to $22 is saved on
health care. And clean air means more than
just savings.
“I would say that, as citizens, we’ve
decided that we value clean air. It means
that we can walk out of our door and not be
coughing, and not have to wear masks,” says
Holloway.
Spring/Summer 2014 19
energy
A livable city solution
the powerful potential of microgrids
A MAJORITY OF THE WORLD’S
POPULATION NOW LIVES IN CITIES,
WHICH CONSUME 75 PERCENT OF
THE WORLD’S RESOURCES AND EMIT
MOST OF ITS GREENHOUSE GASES. The
United Nations estimates that by 2050, an
additional three billion people will move
into these dense, resource-intense urban
environments.
“Projecting from current trends, you
realize that we should have a plan for how
this change unfolds,” says Mike Corradini,
director of the Wisconsin Energy Institute
and professor of engineering physics.
As urban growth increases stress on
global systems, Corradini is among a team
of UW-Madison researchers working to
develop solutions that contribute to the
livability of future cities. When it comes
to urban energy – and its ever-increasing
consumption – Corradini believes resiliency,
reliability and accessibility will be critical
factors in ensuring a sustainable supply.
“When you’re talking about a livable
city, you’re not just talking about energy
or energy use,” he says. “It’s a combination
of how we use water, create food, construct buildings, and transport people or
goods. These are all largely connected and
interdependent.”
Of course, different cities have different
energy needs, which means that livable city
solutions tend to vary according to local
need.
In the United States, for example, where
infrastructure and utility support have
made access to electricity nearly ubiquitous,
plans for the future tend to focus on creating energy systems with greater efficiency
and reliability. The focus in cities like
New York or New Orleans is on building
infrastructure to make cities more resilient
when faced with extreme weather or natural
disasters – by providing backup power
during outages, as well as helping to ease
systems back online as outages end.
20 In Common
MATT WISNIEWSKI
BY ERIC ANDERSON
Professor Tom Jahns works in the Wisconsin Energy Institute’s high-bay lab. Machines in the facility can emulate renewable sources, storage capabilities and energy consumption patterns, giving
researchers a better understanding of how microgrid systems will interact with the grid.
In developing countries, however,
electrification systems are often weak
or nonexistent and the focus tends to lie
elsewhere. In Uganda, where less than nine
percent of the population has access to
electricity, communities prioritize the development of individual off-grid solutions that
have the flexibility to grow and meet future
needs.
What’s certain is that worldwide growth
of urban centers will continue to pose
energy challenges. And these challenges
carry with them an opportunity to amplify
the impact of livable-solutions planning
and policy. By improving the places people
already reside and preparing early for where
they will live in the future, we can improve
how we interact with the environment on a
very large scale.
Microgrid researchers in the UW-Madison
College of Engineering and the Wisconsin
Energy Institute are taking up this challenge
by developing an energy solution with the
potential to strengthen all three critical
factors of energy in a livable city: resiliency,
reliability and accessibility. The microgrid,
in other words, may offer a powerful, versatile and wide-ranging solution to a variety
of energy challenges at different scales and
under a range of conditions.
resiliency
A microgrid is a small, self-contained
electric-power system with the capability
to seamlessly connect to and disconnect
from the traditional grid, the network of
power lines that move electricity from
generating stations to users. It includes all
of the components of the traditional energy
infrastructure (generation, distribution and
consumption) consolidated to accommodate smaller consumer base loads such as
individual buildings, hospitals or campuses.
Many cities consume their energy
predominantly from fossil fuel sources
distributed through centralized generation
systems. But this type of expansive infrastructure also comes with some risk.
“It’s unlikely that, particularly in the
United States, we’ll completely replace the
bulk power system,” says Paul Meier, a
Wisconsin Energy Institute scientist and
Nelson Institute alumnus (Ph.D. Land
Resources and Energy Analysis and Policy
‘02). “It’s a vast infrastructure and, right
now, there is little in the way of incentives to
change it.”
“But, there are opportunities to improve
how the system operates or where our
energy comes from that could benefit cities,”
adds Meier, whose research focuses on the
economic feasibility and impacts of resource
planning models.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates
that power outages and grid failures cost
American businesses $100 billion annually. But when these interruptions occur,
microgrid consumers can switch to electricity generated or stored locally, creating a
more resilient and stable energy supply. In
the case of hospitals, where the system can
be designed to be even more robust and
self-sustaining, key health services can be
maintained throughout an outage.
Microgrids also create the flexibility to
integrate energy from rooftop solar installations, nearby wind turbines or other
distributed sources. These small-scale
renewables have struggled to become costcompetitive with energy-dense fossil fuels
at a utility scale. The microgrid can thus
serve as a more immediate conduit between
alternative energy resources and consumers.
reliability
In India, rolling blackouts – an intentional shutdown of electricity distribution in
certain areas to avoid overstressing the grid
and creating a total system blackout – affect
both rural and urban populations. In 2012,
India experienced a massive electricity
outage that affected more than 600 million
people for many days. The outage crippled
much of the country, bringing trains to a
halt and leaving hospitals in the dark.
“At night you might see the factories
shut down, so that power plants can divert
electricity to people’s homes. They’re trying
to be as equitable as possible,” says Giri
Venkataramanan, a UW-Madison professor
of electrical and computer engineering. “For
example, during irrigation season, more
power will be transmitted to rural regions
for pumping water out of the ground for the
crops. At those times cities suffer, but people
have adapted.”
In many Indian cities where households
or businesses have grid access but are
forced to live “off-grid” throughout the day,
a home energy system combining their own
generation and storage capacity fills in for
“When you’re talking
about a livable city,
you’re not just talking
about energy or energy
use. It’s a combination of
how we use water, create
food, construct buildings,
and transport people
or goods. These are all
largely connected and
interdependent.”
- Mike Corradini
the prescheduled gaps. This system is essentially an incomplete microgrid, and provides
a particularly possibility-rich opportunity
for improvement in the future.
“Currently there is no interconnectivity among these makeshift microgrids,”
Venkataramanan says. “We know it can be
done. The challenge is in figuring out how
to use the assets that people have already
invested in to help the grid during peak
demand times.”
accessibility
Microgrids can complement a grid system
by providing backup power for planned or
unplanned outages. But in rural communi-
ties throughout the developing world, where
there is neither a grid system nor a backup
plan, microgrids provide an opportunity for
people to develop energy systems structured
to their own needs.
In Uganda, a team of UW–Madison
researchers hopes to help curb reliance
on traditional energy sources that can be
harmful to human health and the environment by developing a system that
Venkataramanan describes as a wireless
microgrid.
The project brings together collaborators
from the Nelson Institute and the College of
Engineering to expand from existing biogas
systems and create electricity in a way that
is accessible and useful for community
members. Their system captures and uses
biogas from an anaerobic digester to fuel a
generator that charges batteries. The batteries can then be used to power lights and
charge cellphones in homes throughout the
community, without a grid.
The problems associated with growing
cities will challenge how we build, plan,
support and improve this uniquely human
environment. The study of microgrids
and other micro-scale energy systems is
just one part of a broadening spectrum of
UW-Madison research meant to help urban
populations adjust and react with solutions
right for them.
Eric Anderson is a writer for the Wisconsin
Energy Institute.
Experts from around the world will gather
to discuss developing issues and possible
solutions surrounding energy, urbanization
and growth at the Wisconsin Energy
Institute’s Global Energy Outlook Summit
on October 29, 2014. To learn more about
this event, go.wisc.edu/energyoutlook.
Spring/Summer 2014 21
BY DONALD RADCLIFFE
22 In Common
BY DONALD RADCLIFFE
isolation dramatically increases the danger
for the elderly, poor, or mentally or physically disabled.
Of those groups, the elderly are the most
at risk, according to Keller. People become
less able to regulate body heat as they grow
older and thus are less resilient under heat
stress. Their sensory systems don’t work as
well; older people often don’t feel as thirsty
as they should, and they might feel cold
when they are truly too hot. These factors
are particularly dangerous because seniors
often live alone.
NEIGHBORHOOD NETWORKS
One morning in Paris, at a local café,
Keller saw an example of a social safety
net in action as an older neighbor stepped
through the door.
“He walked into the cafe and checked
in with the bartender, then handed the
bartender something and leaned over,”
says Keller. “The bartender put eye drops
in the man’s eyes and helped him take
his medication. That suggested to me that
the elderly man was plugged into a social
network.”
At the time, Keller was comparing two
neighborhoods – one that was older, and
one that had been renovated in the 1970s.
The older neighborhood was full of
traditional cafes and bakeries, mainstays
of Parisian social life. The newer neighborhood consisted of high-rise apartment
buildings, and the traditional cafes hadn’t
“
There tends to be very
little awareness about the
dangers of extreme heat.
It’s the sort of thing that
we often think of as an
inconvenience rather than
a true danger.
”
-Richard Keller
been rebuilt after they were bulldozed.
And there were distinct demographic
differences. The people in the traditional
neighborhood were more financially secure,
suggesting they would be less vulnerable
to heat waves. But they were also generally older, which would make them more
vulnerable.
When the heat wave of 2003 hit, people
in the newer neighborhood – who were
younger on average — died at much higher
rates than people in the older neighborhood.
Why? Keller suspects that the breakdown of
social infrastructure may be at fault.
“The loss of neighborhood, through the
loss of the social networks that are embedded in bakeries and cafes, indicates to me
a powerful degree of vulnerability,” says
Keller. “There is something lost in the transition to modern housing.”
While it can be a challenge to manufacture a sense of community, Keller suggests
that neighborhoods can be designed with
sociability in mind.
The best solutions increase faceto-face encounters with neighbors, he
says. That includes simple things like
sidewalks, retail stores within neighborhoods, or more cafes. Limiting
parking can even increase sociability,
because it forces people to spend time
outside of their cars.
The bottom line: Finding ways
to enable social networks through
community planning may save lives.
When extreme events such as heat
waves occur, neighborhoods with
more social interaction are likely to
be more resilient.
RICHARD KELLER
Heat waves are the most deadly form of
natural disaster, taking far more human
lives than dramatic events such as hurricanes and floods.
“There tends to be very little awareness
about the dangers of extreme heat,” says
Richard Keller, a medical historian and
affiliate of the Nelson Institute Center for
Culture, History and Environment. “It’s the
sort of thing that we often think of as an
inconvenience rather than a true danger.”
Such ambivalence can be fatal. When a
heat wave struck Europe in the summer of
2003, 70,000 people died. By comparison,
Hurricane Katrina – one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United
States – caused 1,836 deaths in 2005.
Keller set out to learn more about those
lost in the European heat wave, to determine who had died and why. After reading
every document he could access from his
computer in Madison, he traveled to Paris,
where more than 1,000 people had perished
during the 2003 event. He dug through
French archives, and then he hit the streets.
Keller interviewed the neighbors of a group known as the
“forgotten bodies” of the heat
wave – people whose remains had
not been claimed and were subsequently buried by the government
– by tracking down the addresses
of these victims.
He was interested in these
“forgotten” people because social
isolation correlates with heat
wave mortality. People living
alone don’t have anyone to check
on them, to tell them if they are
looking unwell, or to call an
ambulance if they collapse. This
READYING COMMUNITIES FOR RISING SEAS
DAWN ELLNER
SOCIAL
NETWORKS
BOOST
HEAT WAVE
RESILIENCE
climate readiness
G
lobal sea levels have risen almost
nine inches since 1870, driven by
the thermal expansion of ocean
water and the melting of glaciers as the
planet warms. According to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
this climate-related trend is accelerating,
with enormous implications for coastal
communities.
Much of the research on this subject has
focused on broad patterns, such as how
much land and how many people are at risk
of being flooded out. These analyses typically focus on regional, national or global
scales.
“When you examine large geographic
scales, you are masking a lot of important
heterogeneity in the population,” says
Katherine Curtis, an associate professor of
community and environmental sociology.
“Social, economic and political vulnerability
are masked.”
Curtis teamed with Annemarie Schneider,
an associate professor of environmental
studies and fellow scientist in the Nelson
Institute Center for Sustainability and the
Global Environment, to model sea level rise
and population dynamics at a county scale.
That allowed them to consider demographic
factors such as age, sex and racial composition of communities.
“We know that some populations,
because of political, social, economic and
environmental conditions, have greater
vulnerability than others,” Curtis explains.
Their study highlighted four areas:
southern Florida, coastal South Carolina,
northern New Jersey and the Sacramento
Valley of California. They looked at the
social dynamics of these places, including
who was moving where, because past disasters had shown these to be critical factors.
For example, Hurricane Katrina highlighted the social inequalities of disaster
prevention and recovery. Affluent people
could afford to evacuate and later rebuild;
poorer people could not. The researchers
are trying to predict where similar problems
will occur with rising waters.
“People who are vulnerable and displaced tend to move to equally vulnerable
places,” says Curtis. “Think about it: What is
affordable and what is accessible? And what
determines affordability and accessibility?”
Affordable neighborhoods are often
potentially in harm’s way, she explains.
So it may be a challenge for these climate
refugees to afford housing outside the reach
of future sea level rise.
But wherever these climate refugees end
up, whether temporarily or permanently,
more problems are likely to follow.
“The thing that is most interesting to me
is migration,” says Curtis. “What happens
in one place doesn’t just affect that loca-
tion. Migration moves us into a conversation
about not just the places that are hit, but
how environmental events affect society at
large.”
Southern Florida is one of the areas
expected to be most socially and environmentally vulnerable to sea level rise. Today,
when people leave the Miami area, many
of them move to either New York or Los
Angeles. Based on those patterns, New York
and Los Angeles can expect a big influx of
people as rising seas encroach on Miami.
That can overwhelm labor markets in
their new locations, driving down wages.
Housing, food supplies and education
might be strained, along with other urban
resources, for people who are already going
through a very rough time.
“These are people that are likely to be
exposed to traumatic losses,” says Curtis,
“not only of property, but of friends and
family. So you’re dealing with mental health
issues and vulnerability. Then, if you’re
talking about people that are economically
disadvantaged, you’re putting trauma on top
of distress.”
Such factors are only made worse if
people aren’t accepted into their new communities, so Curtis is also studying how
hospitable these destinations may be to new
residents.
“The worst-case scenario is an unprepared community receiving a new
population that is unlike them and perceived as a threat,” she says. “Then there’s
the potential for a lot of inequality, tension
and turmoil.”
Curtis’s ultimate goal is to identify and
communicate these potential challenges and
provide cities with the data they need to
create contingency plans before sea level rise
brings these problems.
“You want to know where your geography
is in relation to other geographies and their
vulnerability,” says Curtis. “Communities
can be planning, so they don’t get caught off
guard and become a bed of turmoil, social
injustice and social vulnerability.”
Spring/Summer 2014 23
A flood damaged aerial view
of downtown Gays Mills,
Wisconsin in 2008.
Helping communities
prepare for change
climate readiness
BY DONALD RADCLIFFE
O
ver the last several decades,
Wisconsin has seen an
increase in extreme weather
and variability, and these
conditions are likely to
become more common in the years ahead.
Scientists in the Nelson Institute Center for
Climatic Research (CCR) project a sharp
rise in average annual temperatures in
coming decades – somewhere between 4
and 9 degrees Fahrenheit – spawning more
frequent and intense storms, droughts and
heat waves.
These trends will challenge cities
throughout the state. Sally Kefer, a land use
specialist with the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources (DNR), is helping
Wisconsin communities adapt.
“Climate change adaptation is really
about sustainability and building community resiliency,” says Kefer, a member of
the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change
Impacts (WICCI), a collaborative effort
between DNR, the Nelson Institute and a
number of affiliate organizations. “We’ve
already seen extreme weather changes
cause damage to expensive infrastructure
and homes.”
A few communities have moved forward
with adaptation efforts. One example is
La Crosse, where Kefer led a recent study
funded by the Association of State and
Territorial Health Officials.
The project began in 2012, when more
than 50 La Crosse community leaders met
with CCR scientists and WICCI staff for
a daylong workshop to discuss climate
change science, potential changes and risks
associated with climate change, and strategies to prepare for those changes.
“We asked people to share their experiences of extreme weather events,” says
Extreme weather event powers simulation tool
BY MEG GORDON
Record-shattering rainstorms that hit west-central Wisconsin in
June 2008 caused catastrophic damage, including the televised
failure of an earthen dam containing Lake Delton. The week-long
rain barrage flooded 810 square miles, swamped sewage treatment plants and contaminated wells.
These events prompted UW-Madison researchers to ask: What if
that same downpour had happened in Eau Claire, Madison, or any
other location?
Answering that question becomes more crucial each year. Heavy
rainstorms are on the rise in Wisconsin, according to scientists at
the Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research.
To enable communities to understand their vulnerabilities,
Kenneth Potter, a UW-Madison professor of civil and environmental engineering and affiliate of the Nelson Institute, and David
Liebl, a stormwater specialist with UW Cooperative Extension,
have developed a new tool to help local decision makers see how
their stormwater management systems would handle an enormous
rain event. The computer simulation program can be used in con-
U.S. ARMY
24 In Common
junction with hydrologic models to determine what would happen
if the 2008 storm had been centered over any region.
Potter and Liebl, who co-chair a stormwater working group for
the Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts, say this exercise can help infrastructure designers and managers understand
the increasing risk of extreme events in a changing climate. It can
also help update design and management tools, which currently
rely on rainfall scenarios that do not account for rising temperatures, seasonal shifts and amounts of rainfall, and impacts to
ecosystems and property.
The innovative program allows local municipalities to test their
stormwater management systems and infrastructure through simulation, using the real numbers of the Baraboo storm system.
“Being able to test our infrastructure against known damaging
storms is very beneficial, especially since we can move the most
intense point wherever we want to test,” says Jeremy Balousek,
an engineer with Dane County’s Land and Water Resources
Conservation Department, which is using the program.
Kefer. “I think that’s very effective for
helping a community to think through
the impacts. It shows that we aren’t only
projecting fancy models.”
La Crosse is a city of 50,000 people
sandwiched between a series of bluffs and
the Mississippi River. Its geography makes
it vulnerable to flooding, so more and larger
storm events, combined with a projected
increase in winter rainfall, means that La
Crosse will see increasing risk as the climate
warms. The community has already experienced flooding in new areas.
At the 2012 workshop, Kefer and her
team directed the conversation toward how
“Climate change
adaptation is really about
sustainability and building
community resiliency.”
-Sally Kefer
to proactively address flooding risks, rather
than dealing with destruction of property
and infrastructure after the fact. Due to
limitations in the city’s stormwater system,
the cheapest option appeared to be increasing infiltration of rainwater.
Because cities are so heavily paved, the
rate at which water can trickle into the
soil is limited. Planners use small planted
areas (called bioretention cells), openings
for trees, rain gardens, and boulevard-style
green strips between road lanes to help
absorb stormwater.
Permeable pavement is another solution
that can be used in parking lots, alleyways
and residential streets to boost infiltration
and reduce runoff. The Environmental
Protection Agency ran a model of perme-
able pavement use in La Crosse and showed
that installation in key locations could mean
the difference between a post-storm disaster,
with three weeks of standing water in the
streets, and an inconvenience, with a few
inches of standing water remaining for less
than two days.
Flooding isn’t the only issue brought on
by climate change. Kefer says adaptation
involves a number of infrastructure decisions, including which street trees to plant.
The tree species that thrive today won’t
necessarily survive 50 years from now.
The spread of the emerald ash borer, an
invasive insect expected to wipe out most of
La Crosse’s ash trees, makes this a pressing issue. As foresters plan to replace the
ash trees, they’ll need to consider climate
change.
“Ecologically, we’ll start looking more like
Tennessee and Kentucky,” Kefer explains,
noting that tulip poplar and other warmerclimate trees are likely to be more common
in Wisconsin’s future.
As extreme weather events and the
resulting risks to public health increase, city
leaders will also need to map out their most
vulnerable populations and make constituents aware of locations that can serve as
tornado shelters or heat refuges.
After the WICCI workshop in La Crosse,
community leaders have been following
through. The city has implemented more
green infrastructure and a green streets
ordinance that calls for more boulevardtype roadways, newly planted trees and
shaded bike lanes, more places for people to
gather, and, as a result, increased safety.
Kefer hopes LaCrosse and other
Wisconsin communities will continue
implementing climate change adaptation
measures, providing safety and stability for
residents across the state.
Spring/Summer 2014 25
Investing in Nelson
continued from page 15
system must build the infrastructure for
future generations of entrepreneurs and
agriculturalists.
His farm and community food center,
based in Milwaukee, has become the largest
urban agriculture organization in the world,
with 300 acres of outside production, 25
acres of greenhouses and a large-scale aquaponics system. His team recently completed
the largest farm-to-school procurement in
USDA history, selling 40,000 pounds of carrots to schools in Chicago and Wisconsin.
“I didn’t set out to be [the world’s largest];
along the continuum it just happened,” Allen
says. “And part of that was to prove that this
can be done. To prove that you can change
the dynamics of a city by being able to grow
enough food like we do.”
But organizations alone can’t solve the
world’s challenges, he says. He sees his role
as bolstering the next generation with the
skills and drive required.
“Are nonprofits going to build the food
system that we need? No,” he says. “This will
be done by entrepreneurs that we train and
help to develop. We have to grow a lot of
farmers.”
Ventura readily admits that we will never
grow enough food within cities to feed the
entire urban population, but he contends
that “building just and sustainable food
systems that include local production will
benefit consumers and communities. And
universities can help identify and enhance
these benefits.”
Research is needed on land access,
production methods, food preparation and
processing, distribution and marketing,
waste recycling, and the policies and economics that surround the food supply chain.
“This challenge, worthy of a great land
grant university, can be met through collaboration with community organizations,”
he concludes.
26 In Common
COMMUNITY AND REGIONAL FOOD SYSTEMS PROJECT
Wodder joins board of visitors; Nelson transitions
to emeritus member
Nelson Institute alumna and conservation leader Rebecca
Wodder has joined the institute’s Board of Visitors, the
10-member board that advises and assists the director in
accomplishing the institute’s mission and vision.
In 2010, Wodder was recognized as one of the Top 25
Outstanding Conservationists by Outdoor Life Magazine.
She most recently served as senior advisor to the Secretary
of the U.S. Department of Interior, leading a major river
initiative for President Obama’s signature conservation
program, America’s Great Outdoors, and advising Interior
Secretary Ken Salazar on matters related to river restoration, recreation and accessibility, and large-scale watershed
protection.
For 16 years prior, Wodder was president and chief
Rebecca Wodder
executive officer of American Rivers, the nation’s oldest
and most respected river conservation organization. During her tenure, Wodder led efforts to
help dozens of communities restore the health of their rivers through innovative conservation
measures. She also led collaborations with federal, state, tribal and local governments, business and industry, and grassroots groups.
She has also served in several capacities at The Wilderness Society and was a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson on environmental and energy issues from
1978-1980. “I am honored to join the Nelson Institute Board of Visitors,” says Wodder, who
attended the institute as a graduate student, earning a master’s degree in Water Resources
Management in 1978. “Senator Nelson has been a lifelong inspiration to me, beginning with
the first Earth Day in 1970, through to this upcoming 44th Earth Day as I
begin my service to the institute. I hope to make a meaningful contribution
in my time on the board.”
In April, John Nelson, past chair of the Board of Visitors and managing
director of Global Infrastructure Asset Management LLC, was awarded the
title of Emeritus Board Member in honor of his years of dedicated service
to and on behalf of the Nelson Institute. He is the second person to hold
this honorary title, joining inaugural recipient Jay Carlson.
John Nelson
Gift to support political ecology student research
A new Nelson Institute fellowship to support graduate students whose research focuses on
political ecology was established in March with a $250,000 gift from an anonymous graduate
of the institute. The fellowship will fund students working at the intersection of policy, politics
and the environment in the United States and Canada.
Political ecology, which connects politics and economics to problems of environmental
control and ecological change, is a major area of study for Nelson Institute Director Paul
Robbins. As a researcher and educator, he specializes in the politics of natural resource
management and is author of the foundational textbook on the burgeoning field, Political
Ecology: A Critical Introduction.
Additional matching gifts to this fellowship fund and others will allow for more frequent
and long-term awards for graduate students. To discuss opportunities to support Nelson
Institute student funding, or for more information about the political ecology fellowship,
please contact Robbins at [email protected] or (608) 265-5296.
THANK YOU TO ALL WHO SUPPORT
THE NELSON INSTITUTE
We extend deep thanks to the hundreds of individuals, families and organizations that have made financial contributions to the
Nelson Institute. These gracious alumni, friends and program sponsors contributed between Nov. 14, 2013 and June 11, 2014.
Bradshaw Knight
Fund for the Center
for Culture, History
and Environment
James A. Knight
Cal DeWitt
Scholarship Fund
William A. and Jacqueline S.
Buehring
Cornelia A. Burr
Abby L. Hickcox
Melissa A. Hornung
Bethany K. Laursen
Jennifer C. Lynes
Vanessa I. B. Machen
Tina A. Murua
Daniel J. O’Leary
Stephen C. Rozga
Brent A. Sieling
Center for Culture,
History and
Environment Forward
Fund
Noah W. Theriault
2014 Earth Day
Conference Fund
Alliant Energy
American Family Insurance
Company
American Transmission
Company
Clean Lakes Alliance Inc.
Laurie Carlson Progressive
Ideas Forum/Jay & Carlyn
Carlson
Dan and Pat Cornwell
Laurie K. Elwell
Global Health Institute
Group Health Cooperative
International Crane Foundation
Lands’ End Inc.
Madison Gas & Electric Co.
Morgridge Center for Public
Service
Nelson Institute Center for
Climatic Research
Nelson Institute Center for
Sustainability and the Global
Environment
Douglas A. and Jeanan Y. Moe
Office of Sustainability
Karen O. Pope
Susan D. Rotter
Sal A. and Judith L. Troia
Wisconsin Energy Institute
Gaylord A. Nelson
Distinguished Chair
Roman and Svetlana Kanivetsky
Robert H. and Vivian E. Miller
David L. Morell
Gaylord Nelson
Institute for
Environmental Studies
Fund
Marian B. Ashman
Craig H. Benson
Steven J. Berkowitz
Thomas Bickford
Lynn Broaddus and Marc
Gorelick
Jason E. Broehm
Kenneth M. Brown
Warren J. Buchanan, Jr.
William A. and Jacqueline S.
Buehring
Cornelia A. Burr
William P. and Judith A.
Colby-George
Brenda A. Cole
Mathias J. Collins and Jennifer
Mallette
Chad M. and Jennifer L. Cook
William J. Cronon
Allan R. Czecholinski
Molly R. Dubow
Sonnet C. and Christopher S.
Edmonds
Denise D. Edmunds
Roxanne K. Eigenbrod-Zak and
Michael J. Zak
Michael J. Enders
Cynthia C. and Charles M. France
John H. Francis
Paul H. Gobster and Kathleen
E. Dickhut
Jon D. and Sara Goldstein
John M. and Robin M. Greenler
David A. Hart
Richard F. Hasselman
Carol A. Hassemer
William D. Helsabeck, Jr.
Thomas C. and Nancy D. N.
Hunt
Thomas W. Hutchison
Gregory P. and Karen Jackson
Monica A. Jaehnig
Gary M. Kaszynski
James M. Kendell
James F. and Liesa L. Kerler
Stephen M. and Nancy Kidwell
Barbara A. Klos
Martha H. Kohler
Carl and Krista Korfmacher
John E. and Gisela Kutzbach
Donald G. Last
Nadine Lymn
Matthew D. McKearn
William H. Meadows and Sally
Brooks Meadows
Tim W. Meikle
Curt D. Meine
Gregg A. Mitman
Susan A. and Charles Munkwitz,
Sr.
Doris K. Nagel
Carrie L. Nelson
John S. and Linda L. Nelson
Tia L. Nelson
Elizabeth G. Nevers
Erin L. O’Brien
Burke O’Neal
David M. Olszyk
Gari-Anne Patzwald
John E. Peck
Lewis A., Jr. and Vicki M.
Posekany
Laura K. Pugh
Paul F. Robbins & Sarah A.
Moore
Jean A. Robinson
Marc Rosen
Brent A. Sieling
Jayne M. Somers
Sherman Stock
Benjamin J. Swartzendruber
Elizabeth C. Treacy
Linda D. VanDyne
Stephen J. Ventura and Margaret
L. Krome
Mary F. Whiteford-Verrilli
Donald B. Wichert
Rebecca Wodder
Paul H. and Joy B. Zedler
David T. Ziemann
Nancy R. and Michael J. Zolidis
Jordahl Lecture Fund
Harald E. Jordahl
Patricia A. Prime and Richard
W. Linster
Natural Resources Foundation
of Wisconsin
Kutzbach Climate
Research Fund
David H. Bromwich
Gerald J. Dittberner
Thomas R. Knutson
Gisela Kutzbach
John J. Magnuson
Jon T. Scott
John A. Young
Land Tenure Center
Fund
Jane A. Dennis
Margaret L. Krome and Stephen
J. Ventura
Nelson Institute
Academic Programs
Fund
Evjue Foundation Inc.
Carol B. Oberdorfer
Kristin M. Russo
Nathan D. Schulfer
Gail L. Wurtzler
Nelson Institute
Graduate Student
Award Fund
Dennis M. and Marise A.
Hussey
Nelson Institute
Research Fund
Dorothy J. Klinefelter
Mareda R. Weiss
Nelson Institute
Student Experience
Fund
Joy Altwies
Daniel Aragon
Travis Blomberg
Peter Boger
Ruth Browar
Emma Burton
Allie Cardiel
Scott Cardiff
Alison Coulson
Paul Davidson
Sean DuBois
Francis Eanes
Marie Faust
Korin Franklin
Laura Frye-Levine
Jeremy Jones
Najoua Jovini
Alex Karambelas
Aaron Lamb
Tyler Lark
Vijay Limaye
Zheng-Yu Liu
Brady Loomis
Ramona Lowery
Diana Macias
Eli Mandel
Diane Mayerfeld
Gloria McCutcheon
Cathy Middlecamp
Jim Miller
Gregg Mitman
Tara Mohan
Sue Montgomery
Melissa Motew
Breana Nehls
Cynthia Novak
Meghan O’Callaghan
Hayley Parsons
Kim Huong Pham
Zach Pickett
Jessica Price
Jewelryana J. Rose
Alexis Santiago
Nathan Schulfer
Valerie Stull
Ann & Craig Swenson
Kaity Taylor
Jennifer Tirella
Vaishnavi Tripuraneni
Kelsi Wallander
Matt Yohay
Hangjian Zhao
Reid A. Bryson
Program Fund
D. and T. Webb Fund
Reid Bryson Climate
Scholarship Fund
Gerald J. Dittberner
John A. Dutton
Jeanne S. Garnett
Stefan Hastenrath
Dimitry Smirnov and Kathleen
D. Holman
John E. and Gisela Kutzbach
Kelly T. Redmond
Jon T. Scott
Ronald Stewart
Tales from Planet
Earth Fund
Anonymous
John S. and Linda L. Nelson
The Nelson Institute
Fund for Urgent
Student Needs
Barbara L. Borns
Water Resources
Management Fund
Steven B. Gelb
Lee M. Brown and Pixie A. B.
Newman
Roland W. Wang
Spring/Summer 2014 27
First person
“
Energized
in Uganda
A winter break of building and learning across the world
BY ANNA MEDING
January 9, 2014
EDITOR’S NOTE: Anna Meding, a junior majoring in
environmental studies and German, was among a team
of UW-Madison students who traveled to Uganda in
January, helping to construct a biogas system at the
Lweza Primary School.
Their trip, funded by the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin
Wisconsin Idea Endowment, was an extension of an
undergraduate environmental studies service-learning
course examining domestic and international dimensions of renewable energy technologies.
UW students partnered with peers from Uganda’s
Makerere University to design and build a biogas system that will convert a mixture of latrine, food and
animal wastes into a clean-burning source of cooking
fuel and organic fertilizer – providing the school’s 700
children and 20 teachers with improved public hygiene
and a reliable source of renewable energy.
Drawing on her experiences, Meding prepared this
journal report.
28 In Common
“Keep Up!” Dorothy calls over her
shoulder. I am briskly walking through
the stalls of the main market in
Kampala, Uganda, each space crowded
with clothing, jewelry, electronics, and
most of all, people. Due to lost luggage,
I am still in my sweaty travel clothing
and am drawing countless stares from
market-goers. Dorothy ducks into a
small store and I follow.
My head lifts and my eyes travel
around the small room. It is stacked
so high with jeans that I do not notice
the store owner standing right in front
of me. Surprised, I break my upward
stare. He is short and stylish, wearing
jeans, a printed T-shirt, and a thin gold
chain around his neck. I feel his eyes
appraising me as I look questioningly
at Dorothy. In that instant, numerous
pairs of jeans begin to be stacked in my
hands without having said a word. I try
them on and they fit perfectly. I walk
out of the dressing room in a formfitting pair of skinny jeans and Dorothy
declares in her Ugandan accent, “You
are getting those.” I had only met
Dorothy that morning at breakfast, my
first breakfast in Uganda.
Four other UW-Madison undergraduates and I had arrived in Uganda
the previous evening. Four months
earlier, my travel companions had been
unknown faces in a Nelson Institute
environmental studies capstone class on
anaerobic digestion, a renewable energy
technology. The class was instructed by
two Nelson Institute Ph.D. students,
Aleia McCord and Sarah Stefanos, who
conduct most of their research on smallscale anaerobic digestion in Uganda.
Together they had received the Baldwin
grant and selected five Nelson undergraduate students from the capstone to
accompany them on their research trip
over winter break.
Walking into the class on that first
day, I knew very little about anaerobic digestion. Academic articles, field
trips and guest lectures guided our
studies as we learned the process of
placing organic matter, such as cow
manure, human waste and food waste,
into oxygen-free conditions, allowing
microorganisms to digest it, and creating biogas, a gas largely composed of
methane.
We researched the differences in
the technology across the world, from
systems that take the manure of thousands of cows in the United States and
produce electricity with the biogas, to
small-scale systems in the developing
world, where the biogas is typically used
for cooking or lighting.
This type of micro-scale system is
what we were working on in Uganda. It was being
installed at Lweza Primary School in Mukono, Uganda,
to replace their pit latrines, which would eliminate the
need to repeatedly build new latrines when they become
full, as well as provide methane gas instead of firewood
for cooking school lunches.
A few weeks before departure, each of the
UW-Madison undergraduates were given a task for
completion on the trip and partnered with a Ugandan
undergraduate student. I was partnered with Gideon
Monday, who already had been working with the Lweza
school for a number of months. Gideon and I were
assigned to create an educational workshop for the
students, so they could learn how to care for their new
digester.
January 16, 2014
My body feels lighter knowing I have completed the
educational biogas workshop. In the hot Ugandan sun,
I have a chain of children grasping my hands as I try to
move over to a bench. We had spent the past hour dancing
in the courtyard of Lweza, and I honestly just need to sit
down and rest. I find a seat along the side of the school
and instantly have young girls on either side of me and
one in my lap. They chatter away, mostly in Luganda, of
which I understand none. Their speech and their continuous smiles keep me more than preoccupied.
The past week and a half had been spent planning
presentations, creating visual games, encouraging our
fellow university students to participate in skits, compiling
a packet of information for the Lweza teachers, and organizing a fantastic lunch. During the course of the same
week, my undergraduate colleagues worked on multiple
projects that brought other aspects of our semester-long
capstone to life, from engineering a solid and liquid sepa-
ration technology for use in the digester, to performing
interviews and waste audits around the community.
When the sunny day of our workshop finally arrives, we
all crowd into the white van and traverse the bumpy roads
to Lweza. Attendees begin arriving slowly; by the time the
workshop begins, the main hall contained a few hundred
pairs of eager eyes watching and learning about their new
anaerobic digester.
The first presentation by Gideon explained what biogas
was and how it would be used for cooking at their school;
next came the skits where American undergraduates
performed tasks that would be made easier with biogas,
such as no longer needing to carry firewood, then finally
came a game where we displayed images of different waste
types and asked the children if those materials could enter
an anaerobic digestion system. The children shouted out
the answers, and it was great to hear a few hundred voices
loudly cheering “biogas!”
I would never
have believed
that one class
could take me
so far beyond
the borders
of the
classroom,
so greatly
influence
the areas
in which
I hope to
continue my
education,
and create
such a strong
network
of global
connections.
”
January 25, 2014
I am sitting in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery,
completing homework. I decide to take an email break,
and I find a message from my Ugandan partner in this
project, Gideon. We have kept in close contact since
my return to Madison. His email says that the Lweza
digester construction will soon be completed and they
hope to have their first gas generated within the month.
Gideon is now working on another feasibility study for
an anaerobic digester, just as the UW-Madison students
continue to work on independent study projects with
Sarah and Aleia concerning anaerobic digestion.
I lean back in my comfy red chair and reflect on my
entire Ugandan experience. I would never have believed
that one class could take me so far beyond the borders of
the classroom, so greatly influence the areas in which I
hope to continue my education, and create such a strong
network of global connections. I found all that and more
in my Nelson Institute capstone.
I read the last line of Gideon’s email: “…otherwise,
you can’t imagine how I am missing you Anna! Send my
regards to Mammy and Dad. Blessed weekend.Yours,
Gideon.” And then I contentedly return to my homework.
What do you say?
In Common welcomes engaging first-person essays from Nelson Institute alumni on topics related to your lives, professions or perspectives.
The tone can range from serious to humorous, from sad to uplifting. Any alumnus or alumna may send an idea for an essay, or a draft to be
Spring/Summer 2014 29
considered for publication, to [email protected].
Alumni Notes
What’s new in your career and life?
Write us at [email protected] or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and share an update there.
Kat Friedrich (M.S. LR ‘06) now
serves as editor of the Clean
Energy Finance Forum, an
online publication sponsored by
the Yale Center for Business and
the Environment.
In March the Nelson Institute named the recipients of two new
annual alumni awards, recently established to spotlight some of
the accomplishments of the nearly 4,000 alumni of the institute’s
graduate and undergraduate degree and certificate programs. Norma Gallegos-Valles (ES
’13) and George Reistad (ES
’11) are featured in a series
of bilingual videos produced
as part of the New Green
Challenge, a Madison Gas and
Electric-sponsored initiative
that encourages members of
Madison’s African American
and Latino communities to live
greener lives by saving energy,
eating well, reducing waste, conserving water and driving less.
View the videos on YouTube:
go.wisc.edu/newgreenchallenge
Steve Hopkins (M.S. LR
‘88) recently completed
the Iowa Certified Public
Manager Program through
the State of Iowa and Drake
University. He is the Nonpoint
Source Program coordinator for
the Iowa Department of Natural
Resources in Des Moines.
In search of a winning chili recipe? Try the creations of grad student
champs at the 2014 Nelson Institute chili cook-off. As students, faculty, staff and alumni sampled from the competing crocks, a panel of
judges deemed Stubb’s chili, prepared by Chris Bocast, and Desi chili,
a preparation with an Indian twist from Vaishnavi Tripuraneni and Amulya
Vishweshwer, to be the best. Get cooking: go.wisc.edu/chilirecipes
Alumni-authored books on cooperative conservation, stream life
Nelson Institute alumni have penned two new books from University of Wisconsin Press.
In Living a Land Ethic, Steve Laubach (M.S. CBSD ’00, Ph.D. CHE
‘13) chronicles the formation of the 1,600-acre reserve surrounding
the Leopold Shack near Baraboo, Wisconsin.
When the Leopold Memorial Reserve was founded in 1967, five
neighboring families signed an innovative agreement to jointly care
for their properties in ways that honored Aldo Leopold’s legacy.
In the ensuing years, the Sand County
Foundation and Aldo Leopold Foundation
were formed to carry on this tradition.
Laubach, a watershed education and
outreach specialist for the UW-Madison
Arboretum Earth Partnership for Schools
program and a lecturer at Edgewood
College, draws from the archives of both
organizations to share the Reserve’s
untold history and its important place in
the American conservation movement.
30 In Common
Ron Dolen (M.S. WRM ‘09), Katie Songer (M.S. ER ’09) and Michael
Miller, in collaboration with dozens of biologists and ecologists, have
prepared Field Guide to Wisconsin Streams, a unique compendium of
the plants and animals known to inhabit Wisconsin’s 84,000 miles of
streams.
The guide includes more than 1,000 images
illustrating plant, fish, invertebrate, amphibian and reptile species, along with detailed
ecological and taxonomic notes, descriptions of
look-alike species, and distribution maps.
Dolen is an environmental scientist and
educator who has conducted watershed
studies and trained citizen volunteer stream
monitors at the Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources; Songer is an environmental scientist, educator and writer who has
worked with AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps
and the Wisconsin DNR. LYNN HOBBIE, who earned a master’s degree in Land
Resources with a certificate in Energy Analysis and Policy in
1984, received the Distinguished Alumni Award.
Hobbie is senior vice president of Madison
Gas and Electric, where she has worked
for 28 years in a variety of roles. She
currently oversees corporate communications, customer energy efficiency and
renewable energy programs, energy products and services, economic development,
residential and community services, business
marketing, web services and social media. She has been deeply involved in numerous community
organizations and serves on several boards and committees.
She has participated in and provided support for numerous
Nelson Institute events, and she has offered professional development advice for students in the Nelson Institute Community
Environmental Scholars Program. MATT DANNENBERG is the first recipient of the Early
Career Alumni Award. Matt is the central Wisconsin organizer
with the League of Conservation Voters, working to recruit
new voters concerned about conservation,
develop leaders, and engage activists on
conservation issues. He also oversees the
organization’s Madison-based volunteer
and internship programs and the statewide Native Vote program.
Dannenberg joined the organization
in 2010 after earning a bachelor’s degree
in political science with a certificate in environmental studies from UW-Madison. He has mentored dozens of
conservation advocates, gives guest lectures at colleges, universities and other events, and regularly writes opinion columns on
the politics of conservation.
The 2014 alumni awards were presented at the Nelson Institute
Earth Day Conference in April. For more information about criteria and nomination, visit nelson.wisc.edu/alumni/awards.
Ezra Meyer (M.S. WRM ‘03)
serves as a water resources
specialist with Clean Wisconsin,
assisting in the design and
implementation of the organization’s water program.
president of advancement. The
organization celebrates its 20th
anniversary in 2014. To read the
interview: go.wisc.edu/zanoni
Justin Mog (M.S. LR ’99,
Ph.D. LR ’03) is assistant to
the provost for sustainability
initiatives at the University of
Louisville, leading efforts to
help the campus become more
environmentally and socially
responsible. Initiatives include
reduced energy use, singlestream recycling, increased use
of local food, environmentally
responsible building design,
green purchasing policies and
better accessibility for bicycle
riders.
Camille Zanoni (ESC ’99) was
profiled by the Wisconsin State
Journal in April, discussing the
growth and future goals of the
Aldo Leopold Nature Center,
where she serves as interim
executive director and vice
DEVILS LAKE CLIMBING GUIDES
Peter Allen (M.S. CBSD ‘09)
and his wife Maureen have
founded Mastodon Valley
Farm, a small family farm and
ecological restoration project in
the Kickapoo River watershed
in southwestern Wisconsin’s
Driftless area. Their mission is
to restore the landscape’s native
oak savanna ecosystems while
producing healthy and nutritious foods for the community.
Allen also teaches courses and
provides consulting services
on how to design, establish
and manage perennial savanna
agro-ecosystems through his
company Savanna Gardens,
LLC. Hobbie and Dannenberg honored with
alumni awards
After six years operating a
guide service at Zion Adventure
Company near Zion National
Park in Utah, Nick Wilkes
(ESC ’00) has returned to
Madison and started three
small businesses: Nick Wilkes
Photography, Isthmus Design
and Devils Lake Climbing
Guides, offering rock climbing
trips and courses at Devil’s Lake
State Park.
Locate other alumni and help us reach you
The Wisconsin Alumni Association offers an online service to
help you locate other UW-Madison graduates. Visit uwalumni.
com and log in to the Alumni Directory. Please use the “Update
Profile” page to keep your own listing and mailing address current. This helps ensure that you continue to receive In Common.
Networking online
Nelson Institute alumni can find opportunities for social networking on Facebook and Twitter, for professional networking on
LinkedIn, and see snapshots from campus and student life on the
photo-sharing site Instagram.
facebook.com/NelsonInstitute
twitter.com/NelsonInstitute
instagram.com/NelsonInstitute
ES denotes environmental studies undergraduate major; ESC, environmental studies
undergraduate certificate. Graduate programs: CBSD, Conservation Biology and
Sustainable Development; EAP, Energy Analysis and Policy certificate; EM, environmental
Monitoring (through 2005); ER, environment and Resources (after 2007); LR, Land
Resources (through 2007); and WRM, Water Resources Management.
We encourage our students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of
the Nelson Institute to connect in our LinkedIn group. To join
the group: go.wisc.edu/NelsonLinkedIn
Spring/Summer 2014 31
40 Science Hall
550 North Park Street
Madison, WI 53706
NELSON INSTITUTE ALUMNI
FRIDAY
SEPTEMBER 12
5:00-7:00 PM
TRIPP DECK
MEMORIAL UNION
NELSON.WISC.EDU/ALUMNI
nelson.wisc.edu/jordahl
PUBLIC LANDS
LECTURE
UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Rendezvous
on the
Terrace
JORDAHL
featuring William
Cronon
Cronon’s remarks will explore the meaning of the Wilderness Act
upon its 50th anniversary.
Tuesday, October 21 7:00 PM Shannon Hall Memorial Union
800 Langdon St, Madison, WI