Do Your Part

When I attended my first Climate Change conference in Door County in 2014 I knew virtually nothing about the scope of it other than that the polar icecaps were melting causing rising sea levels and endangering the lives of polar bears. That first conference alerted me to so many other plights caused by climate change. In the year between that first conference and this year’s second one, I continued to read, hear talks, see movies and learn even more on the subject.

The 2015 conference introduced me to the impact of climate change on birds. Many birds are already having to fly farther north to find habitat and food as climate change disrupts their previous locales. This news was bad enough for me as a lifetime bird lover, observer and feeder but then I learned that, if climate change continues unchecked at its present rate, we Wisconsinites would ultimately lose all our loons to more northern locations! To me, and I suspect, to many others, loons are an iconic, beloved part of Wisconsin’s northern lakes. My fondest memories of being “up north” on cabin vacations are falling asleep and awakening to loons calling on the lake. Watching them up close in our canoe was another joy.

Therefore, I was so glad to see Matt Reetz’s article (“A Birder’s Eye View”) last week in the Peninsula Pulse. I am not a scientist but have a great passion for our beautiful, natural world. The scientists have convinced me that climate change is real and that we must act now to save this “green garden floating in space” for our children, our grandchildren and the generations to come. Please educate yourself on the many changes already occurring and what the future holds if we do not stem the tide before it is too late. Read the “Green Life” pages in the Peninsula Pulse, attend the next annual Climate Change Forum on May 7, 2016, attend the monthly, public, free talks and movies on this subject, and go to the internet and read the planned actions made during the U.N.’s Climate Change Summit in N.Y. in 2014. Please do your part to keep our planet cool, sustainable, beautiful and green!

Judy Mueller
Sturgeon Bay, Wis.
August 27th, 2015