4pm June 11 2024 Climate Meeting at Ely Field Naturalists Resource Center
This is a summary of the ideas presented. We had a lot of interactive discussion making it hard to attribute ideas to individuals except for a couple of instances.
Intro from Barb: It’s nice to see everybody here. The May meetings went well, congratulations everybody.
Present by zoom: Doug Lande, Max Dann, Jodi Chaffin, Anne Stewart Uehling. Present in person: Celia Domich, Mary Louise Eisenhower, Angela Campbell, Frederica Musgrave, Cathy Vanderboom, Brian Dahlin, Catie Clark, Elton Brown, Andrea Pike, Betsy Flaten, John Flaten, Kess Ebbs, Bill Tefft, Abby Dare, Hudson Kingston, Barb Jones.
On the table there are print copies of materials you may find of interest:
- There are 3 items from Grand Marais, their Community Vision Plan, Climate Action Plan and Appendices with lots of technical detail.
- We also have the Morris strategic plan that they put together in 2018. It is useful to know what items they thought were important early in their work.
- There are 2 printouts from Climate Generation who generate first class resources for teaching climate issues in K-12 schools. One copy is “Becoming a Climate Educator” and is aimed at teachers who don’t think of themselves as climate experts and who haven’t taught this material before. “How do you do it? How do you start?” Another is a curriculum for grades K-2 and deals with “Where does our food come from. What’s on my plate that gets grown around here? How do we support sustainable food in our school?” These are 2 of many files of curriculum materials at all grade levels. All the Climate Gen material is available online, you have to register with the site but then it’s all free to download. Climate Gen was created by Will Steger.
We all know how important it is to have students involved. In Grand Marais a couple of student activists petitioned the city council which got their sustainability movement started. This topic generates plans to contact our K-12 Ely school, details below.
At the May 29th “Open Conversations” meeting we were also tasked to write a paragraph of your ideas of how to proceed. This is Anne’s contribution:
Ask City Council to create an ad hoc committee tied to the City Plan Update group to explore sustainability
It should include:
-faculty/staff/student representative from VCC
-faculty/staff/student from Ely Public school
-city council members
-housing authority member
-township/county level representation
-members from area organizations: CURE, CC group, arts, business
The charge should be look at ways to enhance livability of our community, look at costs and savings of switching city vehicles to electric, encouraging more energy efficient building and reducing waste. They should also research what grants would be available.
-Involve high school students in planning a sustainability event like the annual EARTH DAY with help of the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability
Several positive comments were made on Anne’s text including the need to specifically mention the importance of Earth Day types of events, the environment, and plant and animal habitats. Thanks Anne, it is good to have this in writing.
Looking at how the Morris effort was started, they set a couple of big goals and a lot of specific actions. Their big goals were:
- Produce 80% of the energy consumed in the county by 2030
- Reduce energy consumption 30% by 2030
- No land-filling of waste generated within the county by 2025
Here in Ely we cannot produce a lot of energy, that goal is not relevant to us. But we can aim to reduce energy consumption and waste generation. We have not yet decided what our Big Goals will be. We need to do that.
We can also look at the individual projects they attacked in the start back in 2014 and 2015, some of these can give us ideas. This list of what they accomplished was made in 2017:
The first comment on this list was “We remember Troy said don’t use the word climate, but here they are using it.” It seems that we have to be careful about where and when we use the term.
Here are comments on specific items:
#1 is “Rural Climate Dialogue” in 2014. This is a partnership with IATP (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy). Hudson offered to ask their climate person to talk with us. They specialize in adaptation, e.g. dealing with storm water surge and flooding which would be relevant to us in Ely.
#2, Extreme Weather is also relevant. We get derechos and winter storms, ice storms, hail etc. that can cause damage. We need to be resilient to these events as well as to heat, drought and fire.
#3 Community Education showing the video “Chasing Ice”. Troy described how they recruited a city leader to talk before the film about sustainability issues and followed the video with a general discussion. It opens up the discussion to a wider community.
#4 By 2016 Morris has a grant from the MPCA. It likely takes about a year to decide where/how to apply, write the grant and wait for the award.
#5 Also 2016, they started the “Morris Model” website. ECG does not have a website, but we have a blog and a YouTube channel. Should we upgrade?
#6 Morris creates a financing plan and gets another grant. This time from CERTS (Clean Energy Resource Teams – part of UMN extension).
#7 LED lights are installed on Main Street
#8 Already Morris is linked with Saerbeck Germany, that was fast. We know Jessica Hellmann at UM’s Institute on the Environment (IonE) who organizes such collaborations. We need to get something rolling in Ely before taking this route. Any application would have to come from the City of Ely.
#9 in 2017 Morris shows another video “Beyond the Flood” (Note there is later discussion about how/where to show videos in Ely, we can do this too).
#10 Outreach to schools was a natural in Morris as they have a teacher education program. Our group recognized the importance of this and the topic was picked up again later.
Another aspect of the Morris initiative is the huge amount of outreach. They have small meetings with subgroups but their large meetings have 30 or more participants from all parts of the community.
The table shows attendance at a 2018 retreat. It includes the Mayor of Morris, the City Manager, County Commissioners, School Board members, attorneys, UM Morris faculty and staff, Otter Tail Power Company representative, CERTS, GreenCorps member, retired scientists and community members. This is the result of a lot of consultation and team building. Anne spent several years at UMN in Morris, she comments that they have reached out to create committees that had specific goals from the start of the program.
The rest of our meeting went into details of how to make our own effort to reach out to communities in Ely who we hope would be supportive of local sustainability efforts.
The major areas covered were
- Showing films/videos at the State Theater or at MN College North, Vermilion Campus (Vermilion for short)
- Finding staff/student collaborators at Vermilion
- Finding staff/student collaborators in the K-12 school system
- Exploring the process and structures setup in Grand Marais
Subgroups with connections or particular interest volunteered to take the lead to make contacts and report to the larger group before the next meeting on July 9th.
Film/Video group: Hudson, Jodi and Frederica (and others?) will explore what videos are inspiring and relevant. They will also advise on how and where to show them, advertise, and recruit local speakers to discuss how Ely is involved.
Working with Vermilion: Kess, Bill and Hudson will contact their friends and colleagues to invite them to participate in our work and find out how we can work together. What student orgs may be relevant?
Finding Collaborators in K-12 schools: Adam and Frederica will contact teachers and staff with offers to help with curriculum materials, summer courses, and strengthening climate education as best we can. Should we also contact Vermilion Country School? Frederica will contact the MN Science Teachers Assoc.
Grand Marais: Angela and Barb (and others?) will contact both the City and Schools in GM. Betsy has a link to the school superintendent. If possible they will visit to talk directly, otherwise zoom. Should we ask a GM representative to come talk with us directly?
Many names of potential contacts and collaborators were mentioned both in the K-12 system and at the college. Since these people have not yet agreed to work with us (although we hope they will) their names are not copied here.
There are many important items not yet addressed. These include how to involve the hospital and clinic. They are big employers, large energy users and a critical part of the community. Several potential contacts were mentioned but I did not note who (if anyone) volunteered to talk to them.
We should also have outreach to the local camps, guides and outfitters? Many camps offer serious environmental and wilderness training from day trips to advanced technical explorations. Abby suggested this idea. Thank you, we should move on this soon.
We also have an obligation to let our City Manager – Harold Langowski – know what we are planning. As an engineer he appreciates detailed plans and we must work to formulate them. He is one of the most important and influential people with knowledge of the practical aspects of any changes that our group might recommend.
Our group members should consider getting involved with any open positions on city commissions. Some of these slots require Ely residency and some do not. In particular, when there is a rewrite of the City’s long term plan we should contribute.
Doug (Lake County District 2 Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor) suggested that we try to get a Federal Climate Corps intern. He also reports that the Soil and Water Conservation District (SWDC) are in the process of incorporating climate change wording into their documents. That is good news. Note that SWDC was active helping the Morris effort.
Here are some useful web links:
Google “City of Grand Marais” to get their general website. On the left hand side bar look at the tabs for “Sustainability” and “Community Vision Plan”
https://www.ci.grand-marais.mn.us/
Google “Climate Generation” to reach https://climategen.org/ Go to the “Educators” tab then to “Resource Library” to see some of the variety of their materials. There is a lot on this website, including their summer courses.
Troy’s talk in Ely on May 19th is on YouTube with 2 versions. On YouTube search for “Ely Climate Group” to find our channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFYEXa0qx5p9Nb25QBXhgbg
Or search for CUREMN to get the CURE version https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=curemn
The Q&A is available in text form at https://elyminnesota.com/elyclimate/ and in video format on the CUREMN YouTube channel.
The City of Ely’s website is here: https://www.ely.mn.us/
Commissions and Boards are under the “Government” tab which includes OPEN positions available to residents and non-residents.
The Comprehensive Plan is on the EEDA website (Ely Economic Development Authority”
https://eeda.ely.mn.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Ely_Land_Use_Comprehensive_Plan_2016.pdf
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