Wisconsin Public Radio Promotes Fossil Fuel Burning

Although I listen regularly to Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR)’s news and talk shows, and I just renewed my annual membership with them (with a $120.00 donation), I told them with my renewal that I was not interested in entering their vacation trip sweepstakes, to travel to France, take a cruise ship in Alaska, or travel Germany and France by way of the Rhine River this December. WPR regularly sponsors vacation trips (through travel agencies) for listeners to fly to various resorts around the world, presumably as fundraiser events.

I have told them in more than one email message and by phone during last month’s call-in show with their news director that I don’t support their promoting and coordinating travel by people from Wisconsin taking long distance vacations by jet airplane to exotic places because of the tremendous volumes of fossil fuel burned by jet airplanes flying thousands of miles, to and from foreign vacation resorts. It would be far better for everyone, here, if Wisconsin vacationers stayed closer to home, spending their vacation money within their home state, and thus benefiting Wisconsin’s economy and sparing the atmosphere from receiving huge quantities of planet warming greenhouse gases.

Following is a copy of a recent message I sent them:

“Thank you for taking my comments about the long term global warming effects from the abundant amount of greenhouse gases from people taking WPR sponsored flying/vacation trips. As I said before, flying by jet airplane is the worst thing an individual can do for the future of our planet. The impending global warming catastrophe is right around the corner.”

“I’m surprised WPR continues to sponsor these trips in light of having a number of excellent guests and programs attesting to this. Even President Obama agrees the earth is warming, the ocean are warming and rising, and the cummulative effect of rising concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere and oceans is a grave threat to our world and especially children who will grow up in a far less hospitable world than the world that was passed onto us.”

When I called in and talked to the director, he said WPR’s contract with the travel agency requires passengers to “offset” their carbon emissions from the flight with sources that take an equal amount of carbon dioxide out of the air. See article on pros and cons of “justifying” flying by purchasing offsetting factors.

Below is a copy of another email I sent to WPR, sent 10-13-2014:

“Although I do love public radio, in particular the ideas network, I do NOT love WPR’s promotion of fossil fuel burning via it’s sponsoring and prize vacations at exotic locations thousands of miles from our home state. I do not believe buying into “tradeoff” C02 sequesters offset the extremely large volume of greenhouse gases that long distance vacations produce.”

Earth’s warming might be viewed of as a water glass, filled with water (the oceans), and ice (the polar ice caps and Earth’s mountainous glaciers). With a constant heat source (a stable “greenhouse effect”), the ice in the glass will remain roughly unchanged over time, the average temperature of the water in the glass will also remain unchanged (as did the Earth’s global average temperature). However, should the temperature surrounding the water and ice increase (i.e. due to an increase in the “greenhouse effect”, or global warming), the ice in the glass will gradually melt away, and once it melts, the temperature of the water in the glass will warm much faster, until equilibrium is reached, whatever temperature that might be, depending on the energy source, and the strength of the growing “greenhouse effect”.

WPR says it’s impartial on topics it chooses to air. When it come to preserving the livability of our planet, its actions are speaking louder than words because they sponsor these trips. WPR employees are state employees. State employees should be role models for people wanting to minimizing their global footprint. Promoting travel to exotic places is about the worst thing they could do. They should stop it. It’s morally not the right thing to do to save the planet. it’s more sustainable to take vacations in your home state and keep the local economy healthy the Earth from getting an even higher temperature/

Contact WPR’s Audience Service,..s at 1-800-747-7444 and listener@wpr.org and tell them to stop doing these trips.