The line-up for Bob Fest VII is remarkable. Any one of the featured speakers would satisfy most progressives, but this package will, we predict, take us over the 10,000 mark. We are making a Call to Action!

Breakout sessions

Water Issues in a World of Scarcity and Competition

Wisconsin, unlike many parts of the world, is blessed with abundant water, but what we have is not infinite. Shortages of clean and potable water already threaten some communities as well as wildlife. Water is a product as well as a necessity. In the marketplace of resources, societies and people want to acquire water, and others want to make a profit on its sale. What does this market look like now, and what is its future? Should there be a “right” to water? How should it be allocated? Who should make the decisions, and how should they be made? This breakout session will look at these questions, integrating the issues groundwater depletion, the privatization of water, and access to the seemingly endless amount of water in the Great Lakes. All three are driven by scarcity of water in a landscape where it ironically appears abundant.

Participants: Robert Glennon, Alan Snitow and Peter McAvoy, and moderator Peter McKeever.

Location: Hoop Building

Fighting Bob’s Legacy: A Blueprint for Hope and Action

Bill Moyers notes, on the new paperback edition of Nancy C. Unger’s prize-winning Fighting Bob La Follette: The Righteous Reformer, “The ideas of La Follette and his fellow progressives are our best hope for countering the reactionary and destructive forces that threaten to dissolve this fragile experiment in self-government which has so much to offer and has so far yet to go.” In this breakout session, Nancy offers the reassuring message that current crises and struggles are not quite so unprecedented, or insurmountable, as we might think. Join in this celebration of Wisconsin’s original—and inspirational—progressive powerhouse, Robert M. La Follette. “America is not made,” said La Follette a century ago, “but is in the making. There is an unending struggle to make and keep government representative.” Join in the fun and empowerment of sharing your ideas on present-day applications of Fighting Bob’s successful efforts, in another time of economic turmoil and great global tension, to more equitably redistribute our nation’s wealth and power.

Participants: Nancy Unger

Location: Tent near Commercial Building

Justice in the Balance

Judges are not supposed to belong to anyone. They are supposed to be accountable only to the law and the constitution. But the last two Wisconsin Supreme Court elections have made it clear that wealthy special interests aim to take control of state courts and bend justice to serve their purposes. This breakout will focus both on exposing the deception that permeates this assault on fair and impartial courts as well as identifying a cure for what ails our judicial system.

Participants: Justice Louis Butler, Mike McCabe, and Ed Garvey.

Location: Progress Hall

WWFBE? – What would Fighting Bob Eat?

WWFBE? – What would Fighting Bob Eat? There is no telling what Fighting Bob might eat today but his legacy of work against the powerful few, standing up for the power of the many, is a welcome force in local and regional efforts to more closely link agricultural producers and consumers. This break-out session will feature people and organizations working on the ground in local food efforts. Participants will come together to discuss current opportunities and strategic action points to catalyze and enhance the social, ecological, and economic sustainability of local and regional food efforts.

Participants: Kat Becker and Tony Schultz, Stoney Acres CSA – Athens, WI; Jay Salinas, Wormfarm Institute and Growing Power; and moderator Sarah Lloyd

Location: Badger Hall

350.org: Taking on the Climate Crisis

Bill McKibben, together with a small team of youth from all over the world, is working to build a movement to stop global warming. Last year the team ran a campaign called “Step It Up 2007” that organized over 2,000 rallies in all 50 states, which was an inspiration for their current campaign “350.org”. 350 is the red line for human beings, the most important number on the planet. The most recent science tells us that unless we can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million, we will cause huge and irreversible damage to the earth. But solutions exist. All around the world, a movement is building to take on the climate crisis, to get humanity out of the danger zone and below 350. McKibben, author and environmentalist, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public, will lay out how you can take this inspiration and apply it in your own comunity to help spread 350 around Wisconsin. Jennifer Feyerherm, director of the Sierra Club’s Wisconsin Clean Energy Campaign, will then discuss the economic, health, and environmental benefits of moving away from Wisconsin's overdependence on dirty coal-fired power plants to energy efficiency and clean energy. The Clean Energy Campaign is also working with Clean Wisconsin to fight the proposed construction of ‘the most expensive coal plant in the country’ by Alliant Energy in Cassville. Ryan Schryver, Clean Wisconsin’s Grassroots Energy Organizer, will then address the issues surrounding this unnecessary and dirty project, which is taking Wisconsin in the wrong direction, away from a clean energy economy.

Participants: Bill McKibben; Jennifer Feyerherm, Sierra Club; and Ryan Schryver, Clean Wisconsin

Location: Main Stage