New UN Report Focuses On Climate Change, Again: Wisconsin To Build More Highways, Again.

Wisconsin's announcement Thursday of a fresh $1.9 billion to widen I-94 south of Milwaukee - - already badly timed to coincide with the Midwest governors' energy savings/global warming awareness summit - - is still in the news as the UN again, but with deep urgency, urges action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

And that's $1.9 billion, with more billions to come for other portions of the so-called freeway system, without a parallel plan, or dime of funding, for transit improvements.

Wisconsin needs to break free of the stranglehold that the road-builders have over the political process in this state.

Without a change in the political dynamic that finances campaigns, Wisconsin will never move towards something resembling balanced transportation and coherent, climate change solutions.

Alternative energy usage and power generation is important, as the governors indicated at their meeting.

Without a similar approach to transportation, Wisconsin will make no contribution to cleaner air, and climate change solutions.

Without a sense of urgency and commitment that mirrors, or at a minimum reflects the scientific and political approach pushed by the UN, Wisconsin is dooming itself to irrelevancy, with legacies for its current leaders to match.