Unfortunately, I did not get into the November election. I received 314 votes and I appreciate your support very much but I came in only 7th out of 8. I think this has several reasons: first, many people did not know me despite my frequent appearances at environmental and social events and their reporting in the Daily Telegram, my Environmental Documentary Series at Siena Heights University, my organizing of the Issa Endowment Speaker Series at Siena Heights University, my Letters To The Editor of the Daily Telegram, and my campaigning. I admit, I could have hit the pavement more and show up at social events - and attract followers with incentives like free ice cream - but that is not the sole reason of my shortcoming. Unfortunately, the environment is still not on top of many people's radar despite the urgency to deal with Climate Change, Biological and Chemical Pollution, and Habitat Destruction, which will make everybody's lives very challenging in the not so far future. A third reason for my insufficient performance is the fact that I was not born and raised in Lenawee County, not even in Michigan or the US and some people perceived me as an outsider from another country. I think that this should have been an advantage as I could have contributed a different and new perspective to Adrian's challenges and path into the future - but the majority of the 1706 voters seemed to have preferred more of the same old...
I am not sure if I will run for a political office again but I will definitely not stop being an environmental activist and educator.
My single most important motivation to run for City Commissioner is environmental sustainability. The environment is at the basis of our wellbeing, both in our individual quality of life as well as in our economic success. Therefore, I chose the slogan:
We
cannot pollute and abuse the environment
without serious repercussions. We cannot take out brick for brick from
the
foundation on which we live and operate and build our castle in the sky
because
a weak foundation will bring this Tower
of Babel down.
Figure source: Dr.
Michael T. Barbour,
Center for Ecological Sciences, Tetra Tech, Inc.
You
might be on board with these
statements on a global scale but may ask what does this have to do with
Adrian’s City Government? My answer is a lot. To stay with the metaphor
of a
building, the global building of humanity rests on the foundation of
local
gatherings of people, villages, cities, counties… Real safeguarding of
humanity
must begin on the local scale – even in times of poor tax revenue and
poorly
recovering economies. This might be your second reservation to follow
my line
of thought. How can we afford the luxury to care about the environment
in these
times? Here George Heartwell, the retired Mayor of Grand Rapids, who
recently
gave a talk in Adrian, made a perfect point: All of our efforts to turn
things
around and create a healthy and vibrant economy in Adrian must start
with
environmental sustainability – this is again the basis and foundation
of our
wellbeing – not a luxury. He did just this with a failing economy in
Grand
Rapids and turned things around – making Grand Rapids a booming and
attractive
city to live.
I
know, Adrian is not Grand Rapids,
but the same principle that worked in Grand Rapids applies to our city
and
Lenawee County. Instead of steering our region repeatedly on the same
beaten
tracks that proved to be wrong, we have to build a new trajectory that
builds
upon our region’s unique strengths: education and agriculture. However,
we have
to develop these strengths into environmentally sustainable and
future-oriented
ways. For example, in a world that is dramatically transformed and
degraded by
man-made climate change, there is no place for new fossil fuel
infrastructure.
In addition, energy produced by solar and wind is now much cheaper than
fossil
fuels. Our region is blessed with a good supply of both, wind, and
sunshine –
therefore fighting fossil fuel projects in our area and shifting our
investments
to innovative clean renewable technologies would make perfect sense. In
addition, Adrian hosts three institutions of higher education that
could become
leaders in moving sleeping rural communities into the 21st
century.
We would live healthier, protect our natural heritage, and build a
reputation
as a leader in these fields.
Let’s
look at the other traditional
strength: our agriculture. Instead of producing healthy foods while
stewarding
our natural resources, our agriculture is dominated by industrial
operations
both in animal husbandry and crops. Giant Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations (CAFOs) with several thousands of cows and hogs confined in
buildings produce more manure per day than the City of Boston. The
farmers
fight to contain this amount of feces by spraying it on farmland or
storing it
in lagoons but almost every CAFO violated the acceptable limits of
runoff set
by the Michigan DEQ – many violated these limits even several times.
This
runoff pollutes our River Raisin with astronomically high levels of
fecal
coliform bacteria – and contributes to algal blooms in Lake Erie and
some of
our smaller inland lakes. I could not agree more that the River Raisin
is a
wonderful asset for our region but denying that industrial farming
severely
impacts it is dangerous negligence. It will take a little more effort
than
removing trash and cutting vegetation to cleanup this much more
concerning
pollution from our natural gem. A third huge problem with CAFO farms is
their massive
use of antibiotics, which allowed many pathogens to become resistant
and
rendered them useless for human medicine. – And frankly, treating
animals the way
they are treated in lifelong mass confinement is highly unethical!
On
the crop side, we are surrounded
by large scale corn and soybean operations that are based on
genetically
modified (GM) plants that are tolerant against Monsanto’s Roundup
herbicide, which
is used in large quantities throughout our area. Roundup is recognized
by the
World Health Organization (WHO) and recently by the State of California
as a
probable cancer-causing agent. Using such chemicals in big quantities
all
around our city and the county is not really a good idea. In addition,
fighting
weeds and pests with chemicals is only working for a short time because
we are
actually breeding weeds and pests to become resistant against these
chemicals –
and then we need new, possibly even more dangerous chemicals…
But
– there is a solution for both
agricultural problems and the solution would provide the farmers of our
region
better prices and allow them to be once more stewards of the land – it
is
environmentally sustainable organic agriculture. Again, we are located
very
well to supply cities with a high demand of organically produced food:
Ann Arbor,
Toledo, Detroit.
Every day-to day decision of our City Government has environmental impacts and can be guided through an “Environmental Sustainability First” approach. I would very much like to serve the City of Adrian to move towards environmental sustainability and direct our city towards a better future. Please spread the word and help my campaign! You can print the below campaign flyer double-sided and cut 3 flyers per one letter page. Thank you very much in advance!
If you have questions or suggestions, please send me an email to campaign@wassmer.org