April 26th 2022
Hi Folks
Our next climate meeting will be May 3rd at 10am in the Ely Senior Center. FYI the Tuesday Group meeting that day is “Meet New Elyites”.
There is a lot to share this month. I’ll start with the Minnesota Climate Action Framework. In 2019 Gov. Walz established a Climate Change Subcabinet. The MN Climate Action Framework is the plan they and other state agencies have developed. You can find details here: MN Climate Action Framework This web page gives you some background and links to download the material. The draft document includes summaries of how our climate has changed, our history of success and failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and proposals for actions. Comments on this plan are due by April 29th. My apologies for the short notice. We should have discussed this last month. This means we cannot respond as a group, but I plan to send comments personally and have attached my draft letter to this email. I encourage you to write your own letter or co-sign mine if you agree with it. Email your responses to climate.mn@state.mn.us
Next, the EPA has released an Environmental Justice Screening tool. You can find it here: EPA EJ mapping tool. If you launch the tool you get maps of many environmental, social and climate issues. To give you an example I have attached a map of the unemployment rate across the Twin Cities. If you love maps there is a lot to look at here.
Finally, we have been discussing inviting Rob Ecklund to a meeting. This is unlikely to happen before the end of this legislative session at the end of May, but still worth doing. I have made a summary of his background and interests and some lines of questioning we might use in a file attached. What would you want to discuss with him? His republican opponent for the November election is not yet decided but is likely either Roger Skraba or Bob Wolfe.
There is always more to discuss, so come to the meeting next week
Thanks
Barb
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