News & Articles

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been trying to catch up with the latest stories in the media about climate change and the environment. What is confusing and concerning is that there appears to be this expanding divide between the reality of climate change’s growing impacts upon our world and this resistance, if not refusal, to not only acknowledge what is happening but to even create false narratives to disclaim what is taking place right in front of our faces.

In The Guardian, on Dec. 15 and 16, there were two articles that clearly demonstrated the significant impacts of climate change around the planet.

According to a new study published in Nature Climate Change, there are more than 100 glaciers in the European Alps which are expected to melt away permanently by 2033. And more than 800 glaciers in the western U.S. and Canada will also disappear each year by 2043.

By the end of the century, 80% of today’s glaciers will be gone.

Also, it was reported that according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Arctic recorded a year of record heat. Between October 2024 and September 2025, temperatures across the Arctic region were the hottest in 125 years. The Arctic is heating up as much as four times as quickly as the global average.

And then on Dec. 8 and the 17, we see two stories about the Trump administration’s attempts to discredit and disown the climate science community.

On Dec. 8, the Union of Concerned Scientists website announced that a federal court ruled that the Trump administration must release records related to a secretly created group, called the Climate Working Group, that the White House asked Christopher Wright, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, to select five climate action opponents who would write a report that would challenge the scientific consensus that climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions and harms public health.

Then on Dec. 17, USA Today reported that the Trump administration was planning to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Trump officials were calling this center a hub for “federal climate alarmism” and they wanted to eliminate “green new scam research activities.” The center had been established in 1960 for research on atmospheric chemistry and physical meteorology.

With the increasing number of significant and often destructive climate events taking place around the planet, along with the Trump administration’s concerted efforts to not address climate change, how does Duluth want to respond? Where do we go from here?

First, we need to continue asking the mayor and city council to not only fund a full-time sustainability officer position in the city budget but to also find and hire the most qualified person available.

Second, we need to build a strong and very proactive Citizens Climate Commission that engages and empowers the citizens of Duluth to actively participate in climate education and climate activism. We must especially reach out to young people in high school and college who can bring a certain level of energy and enthusiasm to our collective efforts to address climate change.

Third, we need to continue talking about the 2018 Duluth Climate Vulnerability Assessment and exploring opportunities to respond to the growing impacts of climate change upon our most vulnerable populations in our city.

Fourth, we need to seriously consider how we can create and build a more sustainable and resilient Duluth. For example, is moving the main public library out of downtown creating a more sustainable city? Is building more roads and parking garages creating a more resilient city?

Fifth, we need to encourage some of our major institutions – including City Hall, Public Library, Duluth Art Institute, Karpeles Museum, UMD, St. Scholastica, and County Court House to provide space and resources to promote climate education.

And sixth, we need to make sure that all plans and developments in downtown Duluth and the center city region include considerations and criteria for addressing climate change.
  

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