Isthmus Green Day News

A tree falls in Madison
Livable cities need healthy trees. Are we doing enough to protect ours?
Katherine Esposito on Friday 10/02/2009
I imagine a sniper in the sky, picking them off, one by one. Ping! There goes a tree on Waubesa Street, chopped down without warning during construction. Boom! Down comes a maple on Talmadge, felled due to a neighbor's wish to build a new driveway. Bam! There goes an oak in Olin Park, victim of a fungal disease known as oak wilt. >More

Cool tin roofs: Metal roofing will last for centuries
Aluminum shingles are a good -- and green -- bet to cut overhead costs
Josh Wimmer on Thursday 09/17/2009
As eco-friendly materials go, aluminum is generally not what first springs to mind. But if your home's roof needs repair, and you want to do it in an earth-healthy way, metal may well be the way to go. >More

Recycling, not banning plastic bags
Bill Lueders on Thursday 09/10/2009
George Dreckmann, the city of Madison's recycling conquistador, concedes that the bag program will likely "not pay for itself" either through money from revenues from bags or savings in landfill tipping fees. But he argues that the environmental gains make the program worthwhile. >More

A review of Nature's Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm, by Steven Apfelbaum
Linda Falkenstein on Wednesday 09/02/2009 3:30 pm, (1) Recommendation
Although Steven Apfelbaum is today a professional ecological restoration consultant who owns and operates Applied Ecological Services in Brodhead, Nature's Second Chance is not a tech-y treatise or a step-by-step guide to prairie restoration. It's a memoir of how he rehabbed his farmland and how that process helped him to step away from his more scientific obsessions and learn to live. >More

The fight against factory farms in Wisconsin
Large-scale operations become focal points of community opposition
Roger Bybee on Friday 08/14/2009, (3) Recommendations
John Peck, only half-joking, suggests Wisconsin's longtime slogan, "America's Dairyland," may need to be updated. The new slogan: "The Land of 10,000 Animal-Waste Lagoons." He also offers this nightmare scenario: "Can you imagine tourists driving up to Door County," asks Peck, executive director of Family Farm Defenders, a national organization based in Madison, "and having to endure the stench from manure lagoons produced by factory farms?" >More

Where are the buses in the northeast Madison 'car-light' neighborhood plan?
Joe Tarr on Thursday 08/13/2009
Some fear Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's plan for a model green Northeast Neighborhood is too car-dependent, lacking concrete provisions for transit from the start. >More

Car-light gemutlichkeit (audio slideshow)
Rick Berg on Sunday 07/26/2009, (1) Comment
Rick Berg took a lot of photos while he visited Freiburg, Madison's German sister city, particularly of the car-light Vauban neighborhood. >More

Dane County officials gushing over new manure digester
Going from brown to green
Jessica Slicer on Thursday 07/16/2009, (1) Comment, (4) Recommendations
Moo-ve over, polluting energy sources of the past, there's a new powerhouse in town. Cow power. Environmentalists and scientists have searched high (wind power) and low (hydropower) for alternative sources of energy, but in Wisconsin, the answer may be lying in the fields. >More

Proposed waterfront rules for Dane County draw fire
Some fear new standards will prove onerous to homeowners
Joe Tarr on Thursday 07/02/2009, (1) Recommendation
Dane County is scaring people. Its Lakes and Watershed Commission has been developing the Dane County Waterbody Classification Project, which some fear will bring draconian regulations. >More

Back to nature at the UW Arboretum
For 75 years, it has pursued an audacious agenda of ecological restoration
Curt Meine on Friday 05/29/2009, (6) Recommendations
My port of entry to Madison was a frozen field of tallgrass, an echelon of dark pines and a patch of oak woods. As my brother and I drove into town along the south Beltline, searching for the Seminole Highway exit, I looked around and marveled: Hey, this is all right.... There's a forest in the middle of the city! >More

Is the answer blowin' in the wind?
Turbines are greener, but can be deadly to birds
Brian McCombie on Thursday 05/07/2009, (3) Comments
A proposed bill to streamline regulations for small to mid-size wind energy developments is backed by clean energy advocates but questioned by groups seeking to ensure the safety of wildlife. >More

Isthmus Green Day 2009 schedule of events
on Thursday 04/23/2009 6:00 pm
Here's your complete schedule of events for Isthmus Green Day on Saturday, April 25, opening at 9 a.m. and running through 6 p.m. at Monona Terrace. >More

Isthmus Green Day 2009: Smart choices, simple changes
on Thursday 04/23/2009 6:00 pm
The second annual Isthmus Green Day will be held at Monona Terrace on Saturday, April 25. It is designed to help every person, no matter what his or her circumstances, become a little greener and have fun doing it. >More

How they stack up
Our admittedly unscientific rating of burger options
Linda Falkenstein on Friday 04/24/2009, (2) Recommendations
This patty, standing in here for all fast-food burgers, is a good argument for switching to a veggie burger. The meat doesn't really taste like anything other than its fixings -- ketchup, mustard, pickles and onions. What difference would it make if it were not actually made of meat? >More

Rebuilding the burger
Tastes great, more sustainable
Linda Falkenstein on Friday 04/24/2009, (3) Recommendations
The hamburger may be destroying life as we know it. That's not as outlandish as it sounds. Several recent studies have confirmed that CO2 emissions from the production of red meat and dairy have a significant impact on global warming, larger than other segments of food production -- even chicken and pork. >More

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