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It was Wednesday morning, Nov. 6. Spending some time with my older son and his family in Louisville, Kentucky, I grabbed a cup of coffee and started catching up on the results for the presidential race and different  congressional battles around the country. 

It was difficult watching Kentucky being put in the win column for Trump soon after the voting booths closed in the bluegrass state. 

Listening to the news of his election to a second term made me see red. I was feeling frustrated and angry because it appeared that most of the voters didn’t consider or appreciate the climate emergency that we’re all facing at this moment.

The country had elected someone to be president who had made it very clear that he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement (again), challenge many of the environmental and climate initiatives from the past four years, and open public lands to oil and gas developments. 

Trump was elected by the majority of voters in this country who seemed to be denying or at least not seeing the growing impact of climate change on everyone in our society. We were blindly becoming the vulnerable populations in this climate-change world. 

During the past week, the climate news from around the world has included flash floods in the Lafayette parish of New Orleans, Toronto reaching the wettest year on record, Sweden’s glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate, droughts and floods have triggered a 30-40% loss with all crops on the Lombardy region of Italy, and a report from the COP29 summit warns leaders that the planet is on course to warm up by 2.7 degrees Celsius. 

And yet, our country elects a climate-denying reality show celebrity. And back here in Duluth we re-elect a congressman who fully supports this celebrity who plans to dismantle if not destroy any progress the country has tried to make in addressing climate change. 
I have to wonder if we are really paying attention to what’s happening right outside our doors and windows. 

Do we not see the growing number of droughts, warmer temperatures and the significant losses to various species in our region? 

Do we not see what many of our political and business leaders are doing by trying to hide the truth and ultimately distract us?

In 1988, Bruce Hornsby released a song called “Look Out Any Window.” This song explored the themes of corporate greed and environmental degradation. Also, Hornsby wanted to highlight the urgent need for a greater awareness and sense of responsibility in a world where too many people were turning a blind eye to the issues that surround us.

“Far away the men too busy getting rich to care. Close their eyes and let it all out into the air.
“Far away they bend the rules so secretly. Close their eyes and let it all out into the sea.
“Look out, look out for the fat cat builder man. Turning this into a wasteland.”

Trump, the people whom he’s selecting for his cabinet and many of the members of Congress are the same people Hornsby talks about in this song. It’s also Congressman Stauber and many of our designated leaders in Duluth who are being complicit if not just mentally and emotionally disconnected from our climate reality

But it’s not only our leaders who have closed their windows and closed their minds. It’s so many of us. 
Will we pull the shades up and look out our own windows? 

Will we take an honest look and clearly see how climate change has already and will for the foreseeable future impact our city and all of our lives?

In his book Good Thinking, David Robert Grimes wrote, “The crux of the problem is that unwillingness to yield to facts condemns us to terrible paths. Twisting reality to amplify one’s convictions only serves to kill any possibility of rational discussion, leaving us more divided and less informed. We cannot find pragmatic solutions to our problems if we refuse to be guided by the light of evidence.”

In Duluth, everyone needs to open their windows. We need to see the rising temperatures and CO2 levels, the growing number of droughts and less available water in the ground, the microplastics and algae blooms in Lake Superior, and all the other extreme weather events. 

We need to face and yield to the facts about climate change if we want our city to have a rational discussion and find pragmatic solutions. If we don’t, it will be like pulling the blinds or shades down over our windows and living in the dark. 

If Duluth chooses to live in the dark, I can only wonder and worry about where we will be the next four years.