In mid-2012 the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters initiated a project to examine Wisconsin’s climate and energy future. The Wisconsin Academy has a significant history of gathering thoughtful leaders from multiple perspectives to provide insight and shared wisdom on major challenges that affect our state and the world.
Global climate change, driven by increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, is one of the most serious social, economic, and environmental challenges of our time; it is intimately coupled with the challenge of attaining clean and sustainable energy sources that minimize the release of carbon dioxide. These are global, national, and Wisconsin challenges. Given Wisconsin’s wealth of scientific and technical capacity in these areas, its rich conservation heritage, and the anticipated impacts of climate change on Wisconsin life, we wanted to stimulate more public dialogue on this topic and spark innovative solutions.
To this end, we developed a new tool to provide an assessment of where we are today and a practical vision for how we can build on Wisconsin values and our citizens’ creativity and imagination to shape a future that is good for the environment, our economy, and all life on the planet. This tool is a report called Climate Forward: A New Road Map for Wisconsin’s Climate and Energy Future. In the Climate Forward report we examine many facets of solutions for reducing both emissions and reliance on fossil fuels. These solutions focus on energy efficiency and conservation, renewable energy, improving transportation systems, carbon storage, and developing sustainable business models.