News & Articles

On Nov. 30, the Duluth News Tribune had a front page article about the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), which reported in 2021 that ice coverage on Minnesota lakes has declined by an average of 10 to 14 days in the past 50 years, with ice-in dates occurring nine days later and ice-out dates happening four to five days earlier. Also, the article stated that Duluth has seen winter temperatures rise 6.4 degrees between 1970 and 2020. 

Reading that article took me back to the climate vulnerability assessment that was presented to the Duluth city government in the spring of 2018. It stated that our city has already experienced a 1.8 degree increase in the annual average temperature, a decrease of 8 days below 33 degrees, and an increase of extreme weather events by 58%. Also, the assessment predicted that by 2100 Duluth could expect an increase of 4 to 11 degrees in the annual average temperature. 

The news and information about climate change since the 2021 report by the MPCA continues to present new crises and greater challenges for everyone. It’s understandable why so many people are feeling more anxiety, stress and even panic about the current climate events and predictions about our climate futures. 

Added to the panic about this climate emergency is now a deep sense of worry, anxiety and fear about the recent presidential election. The country has elected someone who on January 20 will probably pull us out of the Paris Agreement, attempt to dismantle the EPA and reverse many of the climate policies and programs put in place the past four years, take down information about climate change on federal government websites and promote oil development on public lands.

Maybe, it’s really important that we all start to panic. That we truly wake up and take an honest look at the continuous rise in CO2 levels, higher annual temperatures, more severe droughts and depleted bodies of water, larger and more intense wildfires, and rising sea levels along the coasts. And that we begin to take ownership of our feelings and emotions about what most of our climate scientists consider a climate crisis or emergency that will undoubtedly impact everyone’s lives for years to come. 

The time is definitely up for trying to bury our stress, anxiety and depression. Any attempts to deny these emotions will only end up damaging if not destroying us – emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. And the increased levels of panic experienced by so many of us could disable our focus and motivation to address the growing climate crisis. 

Ira J. Allen, in his book Panic Now?: Tools For Humanity, proposes that we need to panic wisely if we hope to begin grappling with the future. Allen argues that we are stuck – mentally, emotionally and imaginatively – and this sense of being frozen will only contribute to feeling helpless about doing anything. It is embracing our panic feelings that we can be energized to take action.

 Allen argues that we need to deeply feel the losses of the sixth extinction and we must transform these losses into caring about ourselves, others and the planet. 

“We can learn to panic wisely, in time to avoid the worst and maybe lay the foundations for building new worlds in the ruins ahead,” stated Allen. 

In her book Climate Chaos: Making Art and Politics on a Dying Planet, Neala Schleuning discusses the concept of reworlding as a path to building new worlds by learning new ways of strongly living in a “life-affirming manner” and doing this through material actions. Also, she proposes that we must come to terms with the grief that we’re actually feeling, accept responsibility for the damages that we’ve done to the planet, and then take up the tasks ahead of us. 

Here in Duluth, we should be hitting the panic button when it comes to climate change and the political culture in our country. The new president will not be there for us. The federal gov-ernment will not be there for us. Our local congressman will not be there for us. 

We can begin by holding public ceremonies and creating public spaces where we can not only grieve what we’ve lost but also to undertake different mat-erial actions that will hopefully provide all of us with a more resilient, sustainable and environmentally just city. 

For Duluth to panic wisely, we need to reach out and support the young people who are experiencing climate anxiety and are worried about their futures. We need to have a serious conversation about how climate change will severely impact the lives of our vulnerable populations. And we need to organize more intentional communities and community-building initiatives throughout the city for those of us who don’t want to face the climate emergency and political chaos alone.