Ninety-Fourth Regular Session

The Assembly met in the Assembly Chamber located in the State Capitol.

Speaker Jensen in the chair.

Representative Owens led the membership in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

The roll was taken.

The result follows:

Pursuant to the unanimous consent request made by Representative Freese today, the remarks made by The Honorable Gaylord Nelson to the members of the Assembly follow:

"In 1992 and 1994, the United Nations sponsored world conferences revolving around the issues of population and sustainability. The settings were in Rio in 1992 and Cairo in 1994. These conferences involved the largest gatherings of world leaders, environmentally concerned citizens and scientists ever brought together in one place -they numbered around two or three thousand. Both the citizens, representing a host of Non-Government Organizations (NGO's), and the scientists had an extensive understanding of the emerging environmental crises in all parts of the globe. They were unanimous in the view that the environmental challenge must be addressed at all levels from the local to the international.

In contrast, the extraordinary assemblage of heads of state showed up at Rio because they were politicians and they finally sensed the growing rumblings at the grassroots. They knew it represented something politically important that could not be ignored, but what? Except for Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, and perhaps a handful of others, the rest of the world leaders had little interest in environmental matters. These issues weren't on their political agendas because they didn't understand either its political or ecological significance. That now is rapidly changing as new generations come forward who do understand. Within the next two or three decades, dramatic changes will be well underway. Those changes will revolutionize the viewpoints and conduct of the political, social and economic establishments that set the standards and goals for society.

By then, it will be broadly understood that forging a society that is environmentally sustainable outweighs any other goal. And, at the same time, it will be understood that any society that is not environmentally sustainable will not be economically sustainable either.

In short, forging and maintaining a sustainable society is the single most important challenge for this and all generations to come. In responding to that challenge, population will be one of the key factors in determining whether we succeed or fail. That is what the Rio and Cairo conferences were all about.

At this point in history, no nation has managed, either by design or accident, to evolve into an environmentally sustainable society, which can be described as "one that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." At present, all nations are pursuing a self-destructive course of fueling their economies by consuming their capital - that is to say, by degrading and depleting the resource base - and counting it on the income side of the ledger. That, obviously, is not a sustainable situation over the long term. The hard fact is that while the population is booming here and around the world, the resource base that sustains the economy is dwindling. It is not just a problem in faraway lands, it is an urgent, indeed, a critical problems here at home right now. We are talking about overpopulation, deforestation, aquifer depletion, air pollution, water pollution, depletion of fisheries, urbanization of farmland, soil erosion and much more. All of this is happening here and now.

Intellectually, we have finally come to understand that the wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity. Take this resource base away and all that is left is a wasteland.

In short, that's all there is. That's the whole economy. That's where all the economic activity and all the jobs come from. These biological systems contain the sustaining wealth of the world. All around the planet, these systems are under varying degrees of stress and degradation in almost all places including the United States. As we continue to degrade them, we are consuming our capital. And, in the process, we erode living standards and compromise the quality of our habitat. It is a dangerous path to follow. The bottom line is this: We are not just toying with nature, we are compromising the capacity of natural systems to do what they need to do to preserve a livable world. We can, and I trust we will forge a sustainable society but it will take more and better leaders and followers than what is available just now.

The encouraging thing is that increasing numbers of committed citizens are arriving on the scene and are at work changing attitudes and policies. Nonetheless, we are still short of that critical mass of leaders and followers necessary to actually reverse our direction and move on a path to sustainability.

In a dramatic and sobering joint statement (1992), the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London, two of the world's leading scientific bodies, addressed the state of the planet in the following words:

"If current predictions of population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity on the planet remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able to prevent either irreversible degradation of the environment or continued poverty for much of the world...."

Is there any other single issue even a fraction as important as this-? Yet, the leaders of both political parties went through the last campaign in silence about sustainability and the disastrous consequences of continued exponential population growth.

A236 If our political system is unable to engage in an honest, forthright discussion of the major challenge of our time, is it any wonder there is widespread disillusionment with the system? It is somehow incongruous that we must go to a communist country to find another head of state as concerned about the state of the environment as Prime Minister Brundtland. "The most important issue of the 21st century is the environment." These were the words of Mikhail Gorbachev several years ago.

The President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future published its five-volume report 27 years ago in 1972. The Commission was headed by John D. Rockefeller III. The bottom line conclusion was that the Commission could not identify a single value in American life that would be enhanced by any further population growth. In addition, the report condemned our unrestrained pro-growth philosophy and recommended that we move vigorously to stabilize our population of 200 million as rapidly as possible. Seventy million more people and 27 years later, we have yet to begin a serious discussion of the critical issues raised by the Commission. The reason is simple enough. The Commission tread into sensitive territory and raised controversial population issues. Their recommendation that we stabilize our population cannot be achieved without reducing our immigration rate below the more modest levels of the period 1950 to 1970. Though the immigration rate has been dramatically increased in recent years, any suggestion that the rate be decreased to some previously acceptable level is met with charges of "nativism" "racism" or worse. The real issue is simply numbers of people and the implications for freedom of choice and sustainability as our numbers here at home continue to expand. The United States could stabilize its population, as urgently recommended by the 1972 Rockefeller Report, and assist other nations to stabilize their populations if the political parties had the kind of courageous and enlightened leadership that is the entitlement of great nations.

All of this relates to Wisconsin and its future. Are we going to address those critical challenges that confront us here and now in Wisconsin or are we going to hover on the fringes and watch things evolve in some haphazard fashion?

The numbers give us some idea of the problem. In the past eight decades, the population of the United States has increased by about two and one half and Wisconsin has roughly doubled. At current rates, the populations of each will about double again during the next 75-90 years - within the lifespan of children already born.

This will pose multiple knotty problems, many which can be resolved but only if action is timely.

To gain some appreciation of the problem, we need to consider what Wisconsin will look like and be like with twice as many people. A doubling of the population will, for example, require that the whole current state infrastructure be approximately doubled within the next eight decades or thereabouts.

A Few Examples of Wisconsin
With a Population of 10 Million

1. Twice as many cars, trucks, parking lots, streets and freeways. Indeed, highway miles traveled in the U.S. have more than doubled since 1970 and the number of vehicles has risen by 90% - all that in just 28 years. With double the population, what will be the highway scene then?

2. Twice as many traffic jams.

3. Twice as many houses and apartment buildings.

4. Twice as many hospitals and nursing homes.

5. Twice as many prisons, halfway houses and juvenile facilities.

6. Twice as many grad schools, high schools, colleges and trade schools.