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Some years ago, while I was working in the mental health field as a crisis counselor and psychiatric social worker, I started volunteering as a mental skills trainer for athletes in high school and college. 

One of the biggest challenges that I found athletes were struggling with was how they talked to themselves in practices and games. And in particular, the questions they chose to ask themselves.

I always told the athletes that mental conditioning and asking meaningful questions should be a part of all their training and practice sessions. These questions could help any athlete become a more critical thinker and thereby learn how to be more intentional and inspired. And doing this would give the athlete the ability to make more informed and effective decisions. 

One of the quotes I shared with them was from a book The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller. 

Keller wrote, “Answers come from questions, and the quality of any answer is directly determined by the quality of the question. Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer. Ask the right question, get the right answer. Ask the most powerful question possible, and the answer will be life altering.” 

On Aug. 17, Mayor Roger Reinert wrote a commentary for the Minnesota StarTribune  in which he stated, “Duluth is growing and thriving exactly because we are taking the deliberate and necessary action steps necessary to secure the future of our beloved Zenith City.”

At the same time as I was reading that commentary, I heard that the mayor and city government, after hiring a very part-time interim sustainability officer, had decided to close the position and stop looking for a full-time officer to replace Mindy Granley, our city’s first sustainability officer, who resigned in February of this year.

So, I would think that at this moment in this ever-changing climate change world, there are two powerful questions the citizens of our city should be asking themselves. 

How can Duluth secure its future without making a commitment to becoming a more sustainable city? 
How can Duluth thrive much less survive without addressing climate change? 

It was back in January 2020 that Duluth hired its first sustainability officer. According to former Mayor Emily Larson, the purpose of this new position was to help lead the city’s resiliency efforts. 

Almost two years earlier, in the spring of 2018, the city received a climate vulnerability assessment, which highlighted how vulnerable our city was to climate change. 

And in April 2021, the city council passed a climate emergency resolution, which committed Duluth to develop a Climate Action Work Plan that was presented to the city council in February 2022. 

A group of citizens have come together to petition the mayor and city council to hire a full-time sustainability officer. 

The petition states, “We, the undersigned, are concerned citizens of Duluth who urge our leaders to act now to preserve and refill the Sustainability Officer position, which has already proven its immense value. For an annual cost that is a fraction of its return, this role has brought in well over $50 million in external funding since 2020.”

By the time you read this column, you will be able to go to https://c.org/5YDBTFWNbz to sign the petition.

If you have any questions about the petition, contact Bret Pence at bretpence@mnipl.org. 

Besides signing the petition, you could call the offices of the mayor (218-730-5230) and city council (218-730-5740) to tell them to hire a full-time sustainable officer. Or just go to the city council website (https://duluthmn.gov) and start sending them emails. 

And if you have any friends in Duluth with the Sierra Club, Citizens Climate Lobby, MN 350, Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light or other environmental and climate groups, contact them and help spread the word.

I read somewhere that to be sustainable means living and operating in a way that meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, and this takes place by balancing environmental, social and economic factors. 

So, think about your children and grandchildren, and then think about Mayor Reinert’s decision to not move forward with various sustainable initiatives for Duluth. It would appear that his decision to not commit to hiring a new sustainability officer is compromising the future of our city and our families. 

Stay with that thought for a minute and then ask yourself what you should do.