Great Lakes Echo (https://greatlakesecho.org/tag/commentary/page/18/)
Opinion and commentary about Great Lakes issues.
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin recently came out against issuing a permit to keep the S.S. Badger operating on Lake Michigan. That’s an easy call seeing as the old coal-fired ferry doesn’t provide jobs in his state.
A journey to visit Martha, the last of her species – passenger pigeons.
Martha and other endlings reside in museums from Washington D.C. to Nukus, serving as humbling reminders of human impacts on biodiversity.
It’s the time of year for wishes.
And I hope you receive yours – Santa and the economy willing.
But let’s not get too comfy with the frivolity and joy of the season.
Here’s my Great Lakes wish list for 2012.
We need to encourage water conservation and support its treatment and distribution.
Elected officials don’t see a political future in telling constituents to use less and pay more for it.
It’s one thing to advocate support for the tough decisions that are required to mitigate climate change. And it’s quite another to make those decisions consistently across the board.
Here is an opportunity for Congress to show some Great Lakes leadership.
But the proposal’s deadline is 20 years away and it lacks funding for critical infrastructure.
Does Chicago have too much influence over the Great Lakes given its minimal geographical footprint? The Asian carp’s advance toward Lake Michigan highlights the impact the city has on 20 percent of the world’s fresh surface water.
One of the first things Michigan Gov.-elect Rick Snyder noted in his victory speech Tuesday is the need to restore his state’s central cities. That’s hardly news. And it’s hardly the first time a politician highlighted the need. Who could oppose such a thing? But who can make it happen? Better yet, who is making it happen now?
by Jane Elder
Ah, July in the Great Lakes region, kicking off with Canada Day/Fête du Canada, followed by a quick segue into Independence Day, and then a blur of festivals, picnics, barbecues, mosquitoes, raspberry and cherry season, county fairs, beaches and boats, lemonade, and maybe baseball on the radio. We squeeze a lot into these rare weeks of precious Midwestern summer, which is why carving out time to get substantive comments into the US-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement negotiating team by July 9 seems even harder than a deadline in say, January. If you are feeling as busy as I am, maybe you’d appreciate a quick guide to saying something meaningful on binational.net before the parades (4th of July and otherwise) pass you by. So here is my extremely truncated guide to comments on the GLWQA. 1.
Commentary
By Jane Elder
I promised to talk about substance this time, but there’s so much substance on the table it is difficult to know where to start, but I’ll wade into the waters of governance. Governance is a clunky word — a noun constructed to carry the weight of how two nations will actually govern, or manage their commitments to protect the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Great Lakes. Let me gently suggest that the status quo is not working terribly well, and this invites opportunities to re-imagine cooperation across friendly borders on behalf of the lakes. Some of us remember what worked well through the IJC and the Agreement process prior to the 1987 changes in governance. While nostalgia for days past isn’t sufficient to build a new structure, there’s a fair amount of agreement on what we old timers miss.