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Dear Editor;
For some of us the time of Covid has been the time to change our routine and experience something new and different. A friend just bought a new car-a hybrid, with a heated steering wheel! My kids cooked bison and loved it! I read Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac. While arguably not a "new" book, I hoped it would help me understand why some sustainable energy can be controversial.
Although I gained both my engineering and agricultural credentials though marriage, I must lean heavily on Aldo Leopold for my conclusions on the land ethic. He explains that the "land ethic" simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals.
Aldo goes on to explain that a "land ethic" changes the role of men and women from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. He contends then that this "conservation is a state of harmony between men and land." While there have been attempts to put a land ethic into words, I believe that locally it could been developed and practiced by farmers who gathered at lunch counters and kitchen tables to sort out their plans for next year.
Perhaps one or two of them ventured to explain their version of "land ethic" in a letter to the editor.
Leopold contends that too often land ethic discussion is guided by economic values. Since I have yet to see monetary values attached to bluebirds, rainbows, and sand hill cranes, I haven't weighed in on the land use question. However, now that we can bring in the sun as an energy producer, and tourists as a value added by-product, I would like to comment on the land ethic issue, particularly as it relates to clean energy.
It was the ladies who reveled in hanging out their clothes to dry that prompted me to remember the incredible freshness that imbues sun-dried clothes and brings the outdoors into our living spaces. Doctors and scientists provide the documented proof of healthy vitamins from the sun and destructive particles in polluted air to confirm modern day arguments on the value of a robust and viable land ethic that will help us create a healthy and economically sustainable community environment.
Iowa County CLEA-N is a new community resource that fundamentally takes on the land ethic issue and calls for community involvement to reap the benefits of clean energy. Members of this new resource individually believe in the power of alternative energy sources for themselves and know that benefits can be experienced community wide at impressive savings in energy cost and clean production. Our community has already benefitted from the expertise of this resource.
CLEA-N's recent LED light bulb exchange / give-away distributed 7,500 LED bulbs in the Iowa County area. Those households expect to save $550,000 of estimated electrical costs over the lifetime of the bulbs while close to 200 metric tons of CO2 emissions will be eliminated annually.
If you know of (or dream of) a community project that could maybe benefit from clean energy, contact Chuck Tennessen at 608-930-3252.
Sincerely,
Anne Bachner
Dodgeville, WI