First Post from Stevens Point Contingency
The following text was jointly written by Anna Haines and Lynn Markham from the UW-Stevens Point Center for Land Use Education and Kelly Zagrzebski from Wisconsin Public Service Corporation.
Greetings from Stockholm!!! Based on the little we have seen, Stockholm is a beautiful city. The metro area has about 2 million of Sweden's 9 million people. There are many old buildings yet new ones also. We visited the City Hall, which by European standards, is quite new as construction was completed in 1923. The building is made of hand-made brick, 8 million of them. It sits on the water and is the site of the Nobel Laureate luncheon.The drive from the airport was familiar. After many hours on airplanes and little sleep, I had to shake myself as we drove in a taxi down a highway looking at what appeared to be the Central Wisconsin landscape.
Karl-Henrik Robert, the founder of the Natural Step, spoke to the group this morning. An engaging and charming former cancer researcher and doctor turned sustainability activist spoke about competent leadership in The Natural Step process.
The four principles The Natural Step provides for moving toward sustainability are reducing your dependence on:
* heavy metals and fossil fuels that dissipate into the environment
* persistent unnatural compounds like bromine-organic antiflammables or persistent pesticides
* wood and food from ecologically maltreated land and materials that require long-distance transportation
* wasting resources.
After lunch there were two speakers from the city who spoke about Stockholm\'s environmental program. While not as engaging as Dr. Robert, these speakers brought to the forefront the political and organizational context within which they struggle to create a framework, process and actions to fruition. Although Dr. Robert brought us inspiration, passion and commitment to an ideal, the speakers from city hall brought us the challenging reality. One major accomplishment in Stockholm is that 53% of people take the bus or subway to work because they are quicker, more convenient and less expensive than driving a car.
One amazing statistic for this city is that about 40% of the land area is parks and natural area. For a city of 771,000 and a density of over 1500 people per acre, this amount of open space creates places where people can recreate, play, skateboard, enjoy a sunset or quiet moment, and greenery for the eye. The Swedes also enjoy their many beautiful lakes by swimming in the harbors and eating lots of fish - even herring for breakfast!
Greetings from Stockholm!!! Based on the little we have seen, Stockholm is a beautiful city. The metro area has about 2 million of Sweden's 9 million people. There are many old buildings yet new ones also. We visited the City Hall, which by European standards, is quite new as construction was completed in 1923. The building is made of hand-made brick, 8 million of them. It sits on the water and is the site of the Nobel Laureate luncheon.The drive from the airport was familiar. After many hours on airplanes and little sleep, I had to shake myself as we drove in a taxi down a highway looking at what appeared to be the Central Wisconsin landscape.
Karl-Henrik Robert, the founder of the Natural Step, spoke to the group this morning. An engaging and charming former cancer researcher and doctor turned sustainability activist spoke about competent leadership in The Natural Step process.
The four principles The Natural Step provides for moving toward sustainability are reducing your dependence on:
* heavy metals and fossil fuels that dissipate into the environment
* persistent unnatural compounds like bromine-organic antiflammables or persistent pesticides
* wood and food from ecologically maltreated land and materials that require long-distance transportation
* wasting resources.
After lunch there were two speakers from the city who spoke about Stockholm\'s environmental program. While not as engaging as Dr. Robert, these speakers brought to the forefront the political and organizational context within which they struggle to create a framework, process and actions to fruition. Although Dr. Robert brought us inspiration, passion and commitment to an ideal, the speakers from city hall brought us the challenging reality. One major accomplishment in Stockholm is that 53% of people take the bus or subway to work because they are quicker, more convenient and less expensive than driving a car.
One amazing statistic for this city is that about 40% of the land area is parks and natural area. For a city of 771,000 and a density of over 1500 people per acre, this amount of open space creates places where people can recreate, play, skateboard, enjoy a sunset or quiet moment, and greenery for the eye. The Swedes also enjoy their many beautiful lakes by swimming in the harbors and eating lots of fish - even herring for breakfast!
posted by pinehurstpair at 4:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home