Kate Hancock-Cooke and Jason Schulist were guests on Outside the Box with Ben Cominos.
Listen to the interview here (starting around 43:07).
- A thriving natural world means clean air, clean water, and land that is safe and healthy, plus regular chances for people to connect with nature (parks, rivers, trails, trees in neighborhoods).
- It includes environmental quality indicators such as: ozone and fine particulate levels, river and lake conditions, groundwater safety (including contaminants like PFAS) and land use (i.e., how much land is forest, farmland, wetland, or developed, and how much is protected or publicly accessible).
- Locally, this condition ties directly to flooding and stormwater management and access to trails, parks, rivers, and forests that people can safely enjoy.
- A thriving natural world is also critical to ensuring long-term economic resilience, since forests, water, and clean environments support tourism, quality of life, and population “climate migration” into the region.
- Good data to drive policy change is what made past environmental successes possible (like cleaning up the Fox River and recovering bald eagle populations), and similar data-driven policy will be needed for current issues such as PFAS.
- Community members can contribute to a thriving natural world by:
- Taking individual actions (recycling, walking/biking when possible, reducing waste)
- Engaging civically (contacting representatives, commenting on budgets, attending town halls)
- Using local data to advocate for clean air, water, and land.
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