Rural participants in the State Convening prepared for their discussion with state agency staff by reviewing each of the three community action plans and summarizing the priorities in each on the topics of energy, infrastructure, and land management. The following actions and obstacles are state rural priorities for climate change adaptation and mitigation, created by rural leaders and citizens from our three Dialogue communities.
See what they had to say about energy, infrastructure, and land use
TO PLAN FOR OUR FUTURE ENERGY TRANSITION, WE SHOULD…
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Work closely with schools to educate students, and include them in conversations about weather, climate, resilience and renewable energy. Strategies for this include increasing environmental education offerings, developing robust outdoor recreation opportunities, exposing them to ongoing progress in the community (e.g. renewable energy and community gardens) and providing civic engagement opportunities for students in collaboration with community partners.
Actions
- Identify teachers who could be leaders on issues
- Develop and improve educational standards to include renewable and conservation focused education
- Engage PTA/school boards on the importance of this issue
- Create a set of workshops for educators to attend on the state level, should get credit with continuing education units (CEUs)
- Conduct mini-dialogues to encourage civic engagement on this topic
- Organize and facilitate tours of clean energy and conservation sites
Obstacles
- Conflicting community standards
- Pushback due to cost
- Complexity of teaching standards
- Lack of time that teachers have to dedicate to developing new curriculum
- Improve communications between citizens, organizations, and agencies to inform people about current energy policies and potential policies, opportunities, financing options, and progress toward goals.
Actions
- Develop a community website focusing on energy (like MorrisModel.org)
- Establish inter-agency group to follow Morris Model, which includes students in towns with universities
- Increase number of community meetings on extreme weather and energy
Obstacles
- Local government pushback on dealing with the issue of climate change
- Difficulty identifying who is the organizing entity
- Not all communities have resources provided by universities
- Invest in installation of renewable energy and conservation measures in schools, institutions, and government buildings. This demonstrates leadership and a commitment to renewable energy. Our communities want to be energy producers instead of energy consumers.
Actions
- Identify financing mechanisms at business, municipal, and residential levels
- Create incentives for public institutions to adopt solar panels and wind turbines
- Collect data to demonstrate financial and conservation advantages for transitioning to renewable energy sources.
Obstacles
- Insufficient funding
- Rural inexperience or lack of skills with installation
- Increase community education with citizens and decision-makers. With a more educated community, political decision-makers will be moved to show leadership on renewable energy.
Actions
- Host workshops with state-level professionals
- Increase relevant cultural events (like showing movies like ‘Chasing Ice’ with community conversations to follow)
- Harness and streamline existing trainings, and disseminate the information to other communities
Obstacles
- Insufficient funding
- Lack of political buy-in from leaders
- Lack of outside expert presenters available to visit rural communities if local experts don’t exist
- Develop community resilience plans and goals. This can be incorporated into existing hazard mitigation processes. There are opportunities for consolidation with other planning. Identifying common goals between institutions.
Actions
- Develop a statewide database with possible actions
- Develop document and goals for each community (Morris Model)
- Integrate plans and goals with hazard mitigation planning
- Create workshops for the community
Obstacles
- Insufficient funding
- Potentially time-consuming
TO ENSURE OUR INFRASTRUCTURE IS RESILIENT TO CLIMATE CHANGE, WE SHOULD…
- Invest in and test new technologies for road infrastructure (e.g. permeable pavement) that have multiple benefits and improve long-term resiliency for our communities to improve quality of life and reduce maintenance requirements.
Actions
- Identify new technology and planning for road use (road standards)
- Identify technology companies/state agencies/county officials/state & local politicians to demonstrate interest
- Obtain case studies from other communities experiencing similar climate conditions
Obstacles
- Insufficient existing technology
- Risk of testing something new
- Obtaining funding
- Those who think it’s not possible or practical to implement
- Being rural – having a test site far from metro area could be viewed as hindrance (transportation distance, etc.)
- Rural communities have lower population to spread cost of investment over population compared to metro areas, making investments in new technology more expensive in rural areas
- Engage wholly in the community – utilize local newspaper and radio to bring awareness to climate change impacts on the community, and share ideas and solutions with elected officials. We can’t make change without engagement, and we need participation to share solutions.
Actions
- Organize new groups or join groups to have aggregated voice
- Being persistent: figuring out how to reach elected officials
- Plan events to bring more people into discussion
Obstacles
- Accessibility to elected officials
- Ideological disagreements: don’t need to be an obstacle, but they can be
- Funding for airtime or publications
- Bridging generation gaps in media outlets – how to tailor messages effectively
- Focus on energy efficiency and building standards for homes (especially low-income households and other vulnerable populations). This will reduce long-term costs and catastrophic damage from extreme weather events.
Actions
- Engaging community groups and educating them about available resources & technical assistance for weatherization
- State legislation to allocate and prioritize funding
- Need to advocate for and organize to pursue legislation supporting energy efficiency
- Support existing groups working on housing, including low-income housing
Obstacles
- Social/cultural beliefs that vulnerable communities shouldn’t be subsidized — that there is less at stake for them and therefore don’t care for their homes as much
- Identifying how to best spent scarce resources in order to get the biggest return
- Unsure who to talk to about standards and funding/resources/programs
- Programs need to be accessible but not penalize people for moving out of poverty
- Improve coordination and long-term strategic planning for the delivery of public utilities (roads, sewer, water). This will help us save money by working better together.
Actions
- Promoting consistent policy at local + state levels
- Promote longer-term planning (20+ years)
- Encouraging agency by agency (department by department) coordination
- Need “coordinator” positions focused on comprehensive strategic planning
Obstacles
- Getting agencies to work together
- Communication inefficiencies
- Cost-sharing and budgeting across agencies isn’t easy
TO IMPROVE OUR MANAGEMENT AND STEWARDSHIP OF OUR RURAL LAND, WE SHOULD PROMOTE…
- More sustainable agricultural practices to improve our food security, improve water quality, strengthen our local economies, manage carbon effectively, and promote healthy soil.
Actions
- Policy geared toward best practices
- Promoting these issues during local elections
- Public education (letters to the editor, etc.)
- Support local organizations working on these issues
- Subsidize vegetable growers like crop farmers. Reward what you want to see!
Obstacles
- Farmers are independent people; legislating change leads to pushback and resistance
- Big agriculture/corporate pushback against sustainable goals that don’t meet their interests
- Getting critical mass and other people interested in supporting sustainable practices
- Aging/retiring farmers resistant to investing in new technologies and practices
- Watershed planning and management as a way of developing a comprehensive strategy to manage the diversity of our landscapes. Planning at the watershed level will promote collaboration and idea sharing, encourage diverse interests to think about issues and work to solve them together, and identify solutions that are tailored for the watershed to maximize effectiveness and impact.
Actions
- Promoting sustainable agriculture
- Improving tourism
- Develop different approaches for different types of watersheds (Boundary Waters vs. agriculture-heavy watersheds)
- Create awareness about watersheds
Obstacles
- Requires high-level policy change
- Requires collaboration between rural and urban interests (among others)
- Challenge to work with individual landowners. Need additional direct engagement of, and programs for, individual landowners
- GreenStep City approach to comprehensive sustainability because it encourages a comprehensive community framework for action, allowing communities to strategically select solutions based on specific community needs. GreenStep Cities could encourage new people to run for office and build political support for sustainability.
Actions
- Following the Winona State University example, hiring a sustainability coordinator or other staff to coordinate sustainability actions and initiatives
- Select among options to pursue in your community – “get off the ground/build support”
- Inventorying actions the community has already taken
Obstacles
- Leadership to take on this work
- Political waffling on sustainability
- Building community support
- Ecotourism and other tourism opportunities that are adaptive to extreme weather and a changing climate to ensure that tourism remains an important driver of economic activities in our communities. Rural tourism also supports the education of the public, encourages people to appreciate our natural heritage, and connects people with their food.
Actions
- Encourage smaller scale/AirBnB-style tourism opportunities. This can be a community effort to recruit tourists.
- Connect with communities with effective tourism sectors
- Develop and promoting the business/economic case to be made for ecotourism (outfitters, etc.)
Obstacles
- Managing problems and managing resources associated with heavy tourism (e.g. overfishing at Mille Lacs Lake)
- Education that encourages and supports people to act in their communities, so rural Minnesotans can educate others and drive change in their communities.
Actions
- Develop effective online tools to support education (e.g. website)
- Work with community-level media to increase exposure and education
- Talk to high schools and students
- Develop community service programs (e.g. high school-led program to remove invasive species)
- Develop community education classes
- Host hikes or bird watching outings
- Host a Jefferson Center-style dialogue/Citizens’ Jury
Obstacles
- Limited resources
- Limited space in newspapers and some censorship of the topic
- Polarization
- Eliminating the use of pesticides and fertilizers on our lawns, to improve water quality, protect wildlife and wildlife habitat, preserve natural landscapes, and even protect bugs as unique food items.
Actions
- Public education which includes:
- What happens to pesticides and fertilizers when it rains and the concept of pesticide drift
- General environmental impact
- Effects on humans and health
- Legislation/policy on the use of fertilizers and pesticides
- Promote natural alternatives and natural landscaping
Obstacles
- Lobbying and political pressure
- Businesses based on pesticide/fertilizer use
- Public education which includes: