WISPIRG's Jennifer Giegerich (Jan Pelton)

When I was growing up, I used to love to run around my neighborhood in Cottage Grove playing with my friends. We could go for hours playing tag, hiking through the creek in Community Park, or riding our bikes around the two big blocks behind Northside Market. But when I’d get home and my mom wanted me to set the table, clean my room, or do my homework I always said I was too tired—I didn’t have the energy.

I think our decision-makers are like that sometimes. Despite the fact that Wisconsin already gets over 70 percent of its energy from coal plants, our state has been in overdrive for more dirty power. Five new coal plants have been proposed or are in the planning stages, and the Legislature is hurrying to adopt a set of bills that would make it easier for utilities to get their coal plants approved.

All this human energy is being expended for a source of electricity that we know has contaminated all our waters with mercury, pollutes our air with smog and soot, and contributes to our most serious environmental crisis: global warming.

What Wisconsin needs is for our decisionmakers to get behind renewable energy in a meaningful way. Our state has great wind potential and the economic advantages of investing in a resource that can create jobs and income for people in Wisconsin is a no-brainer. The environmental benefits are icing on the cake.

Our decision-makers can do the easy thing and stick with coal, or they can push for a greater renewable energy commitment that will have lasting advantages for our state.

Just as I’m glad that my mother won out in the end, I wish our decision-makers would stop playing games and get to work on securing a clean and sustainable energy future for Wisconsin.

We don’t have any more time or energy to waste.