The Nelson Institute Blog

That is the rough estimate of the Nelson Institute’s carbon footprint calculated by EAP capstone students Jeannette LeBoyer and Damon Clark. Roughly 2/3s of that is steam, a bit less than 1/3 is electricity and the remainder is travel. As I said these numbers are rough and there are large uncertainties associated with especially the steam number; but we now have a starting point for thinking about our own contributions to ghg emissions.

Pete Nowak has calls our attention to the following:

Colleagues:
I think we all recognize that the complexity and dynamic nature of the environmental issues we study often requires an interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary approach. Experience has taught us that while this approach may be difficult, it is also very rewarding. However, professional opportunities to learn from others who have also taken on these same environmental challenges has been limited up to now.

I am excited to announce the formation of a new professional society that will help us in this line of scholarship, the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS). Membership ($30 per year for professional membership) information can be found at: http://aess.info

I encourage you to join and then help make this professional association consistent with the level of environmental scholarship found on the UW-Madison campus. Moreover, I am working to host the AESS meetings here in Madison during October of 2009 which will give you a chance to showcase this scholarship. Please give membership some thought, and if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at your convenience.

Thank you

At our recent staff meeting we returned once more to our objectives for the semester. Our progress is summarized in the diagram below. We did fairly well this semester. Some of the items that are marked in progress or un-started will still be attended to and some will remain for attention over the summer and in subsequent semesters. I am now in the process of thinking about goals for the summer and will report on those shortly.

We are pleased to welcome Jean Touchette to the Academic Programs Office. Over the last few weeks Jean has been transitioning from the School of Social Work to her new home at the Nelson Institute. Please stop in to introduce yourself and begin directing all of the questions that you used to send Sue Fafard to Jean (jtouchett@wisc.edu). Same timely, high-quality service!

The Business, Environment and Social Responsibility (BESR) certificate in the Business School has been approved by the Graduate Faculty Executive Committee (GFEC). This certificate has been specifically designed for Nelson Institute students who want exposure to concepts of sustainable businesses.

Bill Bland and I met with the Letters and Science APC recently to continue our work toward establishing a framework for undergraduate majors in the environment. We were joined by Molly Jahn, Bob Ray and Steve Ventura. The discussion was lively and clear in its acknowledgment of the important role the L&S will play as we develop a portfolio of majors that will prepare our students for the breadth and complexity of the environmental challenges we will face in the decades to come.

In a few days I will join the leadership of the University on the stage in the Kohl Center for our Spring commencement exercises. These ceremonies celebrate the accomplishments of our students and honor one of our most important missions. In the Nelson Institute we will recognize our graduating students with a reception on Saturday. Congratulations and good luck to all of our graduating students.

The Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development (CBSD) M.S. program is in the early stages of its ten-year review. This is a great opportunity to build on the program’s strengths and improve what needs attention. Professor Nancy Langston (Nelson Institute, Forest Ecology & Management and History) has graciously agreed to serve as the chair of the review. As we move forward in the process, we will actively seek your participation and input. If you have any questions about the time line or process, please contact Sara Lorence (email or 262-9206). Thank you in advance for your help!

You’re ready to invest in an alternative-fuel vehicle to cut your greenhouse gas emissions and perhaps even save money at the pump. But where, exactly, do you find the right kind of pump?

Ask Kavi Turnbull. He hopes to launch a Web-based service to make locating any of more than 7,000 alternative-fuel stations across the United States as easy as looking up phone numbers.

Turnbull’s idea earned him the Nelson Institute’s Green Entrepreneurial Venture Recognition Award at the 11th annual G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition in April, sponsored by the University of Wisconsin School of Business. He received a $1,000 cash prize provided by an anonymous donor.

A hint of what Turnbill plans appears on DriveAlternatives.com, where one eventually will be able to search the country for fueling stations serving hybrid, biodiesel, ethanol 85, electric, compressed natural gas, hydrogen, and propane vehicles. He also expects to supplement the database with recommendations for more than 100 new models of green vehicles based on fuel availability and driving preferences.

A first-year MBA student, Turnbull is a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and a veteran of two startup businesses.

Initiated in 1998, the Burrill competition encourages UW-Madison students to develop and present technology-based business plans. Seventeen plans were entered and six cash prizes were awarded in this year’s competition.

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M.B.A. student Kavi Turnbull (right) discusses his business idea during a break at the 11th annual G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition.

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buy viagraA while back I announced a competition for the Journey of Facilitation workshop. Today I am pleased to announce the winners of that competition:

• Julia Caldwell will be awarded a full scholarship; and
• Catilin Littlefield will be awarded a half scholarship.

There were a number of strong memos written, and the winners were selected based on the extent to which they addressed the charge to make “an argument for why such a scholarship will be a good expenditure of Institute funds”.

Thanks to all who participated and best wishes to the winners for a productive workshop.

A huge congratulations to David Zaks (PhD in ER with Jon Foley) who just won the Laurel Clark Memorial Graduate Fellowship, named in honor of astronaut Dr. Laurel Clark, a Wisconsin native, who perished in the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster.

The fellowship recognizes exceptional graduate students from Wisconsin in the field of environmental or life sciences, who show strong leadership qualities, intellectual balance and commitment to improving the human condition.comprar levitra
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The International Bear Association recently awarded Becky Zug (CBSD MS with Adrian Treves) a Research and Conservation Grant for her research on Andean (spectacled) bears in Ecuador. Becky will partner with Fundación Cordillera Tropical, an Ecuadorian NGO, to carry out a 7-month camera trap study aimed at collecting baseline ecological data, identifying individual bears and estimating bear population density in this area. The results of this study will help to determine how Andean bears are using private lands within and adjacent to Sangay National Park and will support wildlife conservation plans on private properties.

The International Bear Association’s Research and Conservation Grants are awarded to help support bear conservation, education projects, and research. Emphasis is given to projects that demonstrate significant positive effects for bear species, populations, and areas of the world with the highest conservation needs.

Congratulations to Amy Singler (WRM) and Jill Baumgartner (ER/Population Health PhD). Both Amy and Jill were recently nominated and selected to receive a Graduate Student Mentor Awards through the Graduate School Collaborative and the Multicultural Graduate Network. They were recognized as someone who has demonstrated outstanding mentorship qualities while in Graduate School.

Also, CBSD MS alumna Sarah Stackpoole received an award through Horticulture.

We would like to extend our congratulations to Liz Pleuss, a Finalist in the 2008 Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) Program. This program was established by Executive Order in 1977 to attract to the Federal service outstanding men and women from a variety of academic disciplines and career paths who have a clear interest in, and commitment to, excellence in the leadership and management of public policies and programs. Each fall, graduate students who expect to complete their degrees within the year are invited to apply for nomination by their graduate degree programs.  Only a limited number survive the three stages of review. For this year’s Class of 2008, the PMF Program selected 754 Finalists from the nation-wide pool of nominees.

As a Finalist, Liz will be participating in this spring’s PMF Job Fair, which is one of the primary mechanisms for linking PMF Finalists with appointments in the Federal government. We wish Liz our best as she explores the upcoming opportunities!

For more information about this fellowship, see the full PMF announcement.

Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin in 1969 conceived the idea of a national teach-in to bring about public awareness of the rampant environmental problems of the times. On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day was observed, and an estimated 20 million Americans participated.

Thirty-eight years later, the Wisconsin Historical Society has completed the first phase of processing papers and related files from Gaylord Nelson’s Senate and his post-Senate careers. In celebration of both the project and Nelson’s Earth Day legacy, the society has posted a selection of photos of Nelson on line.

Read more about the Nelson archiving project and visit the Nelson photo gallery.

And was it late or early? and on what time frame?

It seems that while I was in Washington DC smiling at the cherry blossoms, which were nearly at their peak, the ice on Mendota was giving up the ghost.  This year opening was more than a week later than recent averages. In fact, it was later than the average over the entire record, but I don’t know whether that difference is significant (the averages, though not the variances, are posted on the LTER ice page).

Upon my return to the now ice-free, although not freezing rain-free, mid-west, I attended the Graduate Faculty Executive Committee meeting with Nancy Langston. The occasion was the consideration of the CHE certificate and “option A” Ph.D. minor. The committee was very interested in the effort and I am happy to report that the proposal was unanimously approved for students beginning in Fall 2008. Susan Cook in the Graduate School was a tremendous help in ensuring that the committee had the proper materials and that the purpose of the proposal was well understood. Thanks Susan! And CONGRATULATIONS to the CHE community for the great progress we have made in elevating the role of the humanities in understanding the relationship between humans and our environments.

The reality of the phase of the semester was brought home over the weekend when I got an email from Bill Cronon announcing the final installment of the Environmental Breakfast Seminar (with Mayor Dave).  Indeed the semester is drawing to a close and our final Governance Faculty meeting will take place next Monday on 21 April at 330p.  There are many things to address, but in particular I hope that we can have a discussion about Environmental Monitoring.  In particular I need a sense from the faculty regarding the priority and scope of such an endeavor.  An earlier post elicited on a minor response - I hope that we can answer the questions posed there next Monday…

We did not present our undergrad major permission to plan proposal at the last UAPC meeting, but hope to do so at the next and final meeting of the year.  It is my sense that we are farther along in that effort than we have ever been and I hope to keep the momentum moving forward.  We have reached a good working relationship with CALS regarding our two proposals; Geography is a strong ally in moving the effort forward.  While there is much careful work to be done, we are converging on a framework that could provide the credentials that undergraduates and employers are seeking, while at the same time clearly representing the breadth of “Environment” as we currently understand it.

Wednesday will be spent at the 2nd Annual Gaylord Nelson Earth Day Forum - Sustaining Wisconsin’s Environment & Economy: Responding to Climate Change. The response to this year’s program has been quite gratifying and I look forward to reporting on the conference in a future post.

Other events on my agenda include:

• The Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies Climate is Local event.  This is the first of their Science and the Public events and it will explore how scientific knowledge of climate is manifested locally and how the public comes to understand (or not understand) science.
• Participation in the Climate Change Briefing for the DNR Natural Resources Board.  Jack Sullivan and I will give an overview of the WICCI project and its accomplishments and goals.

I met recently with the student reps and we had a good discussion in particular about how to evolve student involvement in the governance of the institute.  My notes regarding this aspect of the meeting include the following points:

• Direct democracy is not likely to work
• Representation is important
• A self-perpetuating board might be a good compromise option
• Action: continue to explore a “chartered” student board that would have governance and social responsibilities

One final indicator that warm weather will soon be with us is the Chili Cook-off, once again implemented by our hard working student reps.  This year’s event will be at the Tenney Park Shelter on 27 April from 11-3.  Tickets are available in 70 Science Hall and yours truly is honored to once again be a judge.