We all want Wisconsinites to live in a beautiful, safe and clean state. We know that climate change is real and the communities that are most impacted are communities of color. Over the past few years, members of WISDOM have joined together to fight for climate justice initiatives that have helped slow down the environmental collapse we know is coming if we don’t change what we are doing today. We believe that environmental justice is directly connected to racial and economic justice: they are not unrelated.
We are fighting locally for the creation of green jobs, Rights of Nature, investment in the Focus on Energy program, and implementation of land and water resource conservation. Affiliates such as JOSHUA have rallied to stop unsafe pipelines carrying toxic tar sands oil under our Great Lakes.
We are particularly excited about the creation of an Office of Environmental Justice within the Department of Administration. We look forward to the opportunity for environmental justice advocates, communities of color, tribal nations, and low-income communities to engage with state agencies in designing policies that help to minimize the adverse consequences of climate change. The pandemic of this past year has taught us that we are all vulnerable to the unknowns of our Living Planet.
