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Hi John,

Wisconsin teaches you to pay attention. Not in an abstract way, either. In a physical way, a lived way. Water over stone, wind across tall grass, ice crackling in the February freeze. A thousand familiar noises – frogs and loons, the howl of the wolf, the knock of the woodpecker.

The scent of wet earth after the rain. Pine needles warmed by the morning sun. Woodsmoke and ash. And its touch – winter wind, a river current, the stretch of muscles on a trail. It’s all instruction, really. Wisconsin asks you, again and again, to notice what you are part of.

Wisconsin conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote we should learn to “think like a mountain.” To see the land not as a collection of resources, but as a living system in balance, where every action echoes beyond what we can immediately see. I like that thought, and I agree with it.

As we honor Mother Earth today, I ask you to pay attention to Wisconsin. Pay attention to your role in it. You are an integral part of its existence, its health, and its future. Rather than just an advocate, think like a mountain. Understand that you are part of this environment. Just as a spring or lake or wildcat is, no piece of this world exists alone or without purpose.

You feel it in the rivers: everything upstream carries downstream. In the soil, where what was left behind becomes what grows next. And in water, which knits everything together: farms, towns, lakes, wetlands, families into one system, each part dependent on the other.

Water is us. It moves through our lives the way thoughts move through our minds. A constant shaping, an essential force. Caring for it isn’t charity. It’s an act of understanding our own place within it.
On the day we are called to think more deeply about our relationship to land and water, we are also watching, stunned, as the Trump administration weakens more protections. Disrupts systems meant to safeguard places like the Bad River, the great Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and countless other watersheds and ecosystems across the country. These are not distant losses. They are what happens when we forget to think like a mountain. So, this Earth Day is not only about celebration. It is about renewing commitment.

A commitment to the idea that we belong to these places, not the other way around.

A commitment to the truth that healthy land, clean water, and a stable climate are not extras, but the foundation of how we thrive.

And a commitment to democracy, because the choices that shape our air, water, and land are the choices we make together.

Leopold’s lesson was not just to observe nature, but to see ourselves as part of it. To understand that every choice we make is part of a larger story that will continue long after us.

For me, that is the meaning of Earth Day. To think like a mountain is to accept my responsibility across time. It is to recognize we are not outside the system we are trying to protect. We are inside it, always. And what we do, what we allow, what we prevent, what we choose becomes part of its future shape – forever.

If you feel that responsibility, too, I hope you’ll take the next step and support this work as a monthly member [[link removed]] . It’s one of the most direct ways to protect the places we love and build the future we all deserve.

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Happy Earth Day, conservation voters. Let’s keep going, together.

Ryan Billingham
Communications Director
Wisconsin Conservation Voters
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Wisconsin Conservation Voters
133 S. Butler Street Suite 320
Madison, WI 53703
United States
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