Earth Day Kicks Off with Parade That's Part Party, Part Warning

Earth Day activities kicked off in Wauwatosa with a parade right in the middle of rush hour on Friday evening.

If you didn't get stopped in traffic, it's because the marchers were safely off the streets and not burning a drop of fossil fuel, inside the Riverview Room at the Muellner Building at .

Sponsored by the Sierra Club's local Great Waters Group, the Earth Day Celebration was as much a warning as it was a party.

The parade, which wound its way through the audience to the strains of "This Land Is Your Land," not only promoted the sustainability of solar energy and bicycling, among other things, it condemned overhead power lines and invasive species.

Puppets representing Mother Earth and Sister Moon stepped side-by-side with a big bicycle, but an invasive big-eye carp and an endangered bat were also in line.

And in their midst was a dark representation of power lines proposed to be built along – opposition to which was a principal theme of the evening.

That was followed by prayers to and for the Earth from texts from Ojibwe, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths and cultures, and the singing of "America The Beautiful" by all.

Mayor Kathy Ehley introduced featured speaker Eddee Daniel, writer and photographer, who talked about the concept of "urban wilderness," also the title of his 2008 book.

Daniel ran a slide show of his photographs as he spoke about his explorations of streams and natural areas in metropolitan Milwaukee and especially Wauwatosa.

He defined the urban wilderness as those places and corridors where the natural environment intersects and intertwines with the our lives "without being maintained."

How we interact with, and either enjoy and protect, or ignore and neglect, those areas of urban wilderness, to some extent defines us, Daniel said.

Daniel's eye and camera are, in keeping with the theme of the evening, both celebratory and unforgiving. He seeks out and records the surprising resilience and stubborn persistence of nature in our midst, and also our insults and affronts to it.

His new book, The Milwaukee County Grounds: Island of Hope, explores our use and misuse of the largest tract of remaining natural area in the metropolis and offers a vision for "a healthy and sustainable future" – if we learn to appreciate it.

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