How a Changing Climate Is Changing Our Wisconsin Way of Life

For this panel discussion hosted by Patty Loew, author and former co-host of In Wisconsin, three panelists provide perspective on how climate change is changing Wisconsin life and culture. In addition to addressing questions from the audience, panelists explore strategies for cultivating resilience in the face of rapid change, from shoring up food systems to conserving habitats that support vulnerable species. Panelists include:

• Michelle Miller: Associate Director, Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, UW–Madison. Miller discusses changes in agriculture, with stories of orcharders, growers, and grazers whose multi-generational cultivation of crops such as cherries, apples, and cranberries are faced with increasingly extreme weather and other climate-related challenges.
• Jim St. Arnold: Program Director/Traditional Ecological Knowledge Coordinator, Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission. St. Arnold shares the story of the challenges the Ojibwe face in continuing traditions of gathering wild rice, harvesting birch bark, and making maple syrup that are central to their culture, food sources, spiritual practice, and economic stability.
• Stanley Temple: Beers-Bascom Professor Emeritus in Conservation, UW–Madison, and Senior Fellow, Aldo Leopold Foundation. Temple frames the discussion with a description of what climate change adaptation and mitigation looks like through the lens of ecology, ethics, and economics, including how hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation is affected by a changing climate.

Video provided courtesy of Wisconsin Public Television.