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Event to focus on local gains, global challenges

Lakeshore Boulevard was closed earlier this week because of inclement weather. (Journal file photo)

MARQUETTE — Taken on a global scale, the climate outlook may look bleak based on some scientific observations like ocean acidification, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and food and water insecurity.

But even small victories can reverberate in a community like Marquette, where proponents of clean, affordable energy have something to celebrate at this year’s fourth annual Marquette Climate March on Saturday.

The Marquette Community Solar Garden is open for sign-up and due to be complete in August. Though small, the community program will be powered by the self-sustaining sun, rather than a carbon-based source.

And the Marquette Energy Center will go online at the end of June, powered by cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas.

Both mark environmental improvements on the aging coal-fired Shiras Steam Plant that has served the community for more than 30 years.

A windstorm in March felled trees in and around the city of Marquette. This unusual weather event, as well as the closure of Lakeshore Boulevard, may be attributable to climate change. (Journal file photo)

The goal of the Marquette Climate March, which will take place Saturday morning, is to celebrate local developments like these and show support for more ambitious global climate change policy, said event organizer Jessica Thompson, a Northern Michigan University professor of communications and co-founder of the Northern Climate Network.

“We really hope that the event is a celebration of our community and the efforts that are already underway to be resilient in the face of a changing climate,” Thompson said in an email. “Most importantly we want to empower people to be able to talk to their friends, neighbors and representatives in government about the urgency of the climate issue and the action and policy options available to us to build a better, cleaner, healthier world.”

Participants will meet at 9:45 a.m. at the Marquette Commons, 112 S. Third St. The 1.4 mile march will begin at 10 a.m. from the commons, with participants heading west along the Iron Ore Heritage Trail. At Seventh Street, the march will turn onto West Washington Street, ending back at the commons with informational booths, food and music.

The march is a satellite of the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C., which will take place Saturday along with hundreds of other marches planned around the world.

Local organizations will participate in the post-walk festival at the commons, Thompson said. Dwight Brady, a NMU professor who recently announced his Democratic run for Michigan’s 1st Congressional District, will speak at noon.

John Forslin of the Climate Reality Project will present a community-signed “thank you” card to the Marquette Board of Light and Power for developing the community solar garden project, as an opportunity for Marquette to be more climate change resilient, Thompson said.

The walk and festival will take place rain or shine. A $10 suggested donation would help to cover the cost of renting the commons area for the day, according to the event’s Facebook page.

The debate

Thompson said the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change is overwhelming, and the issue is not political, but generational.

“It is about our legacy on the planet and our responsibility to our children and all the species we share the Earth with. There is no doubt that human choices have impacted the Earth, and with everything we know today … it is time for us to make better choices,” Thompson said.

But some debate the legitimacy of scientific claims about global climate change, its causes and impacts.

President Donald Trump has called it a hoax, saying it benefits China.

He has taken aim at climate change research and mitigation efforts in his recent budget blueprint, which proposes to cut the Environmental Protection Agency by more than 30 percent.

In May 2016, Trump attacked “draconian climate rules” in a speech on energy policy in North Dakota. He advocated rescinding “all the job-destroying Obama executive actions, including the Climate Action Plan” and said he would “cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.”

But surprisingly, even oil giant Exxon Mobil has joined hundreds of other businesses to urge Trump not to abandon the Paris Climate Agreement, in which the U.S. pledged to, by 2025, reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent below 2005 levels.

Jenn Hill, coordinator for the Marquette County Climate Adaptation Task Force, said she was flabbergasted when she first read that.

“There’s a level of certainty there and understanding,” Hill said. “I quote Walmart, Google, Amazon and Exxon in my presentation, because they are planning their businesses around the need for these changes.”

U.P. climate impacts

Hill said the Upper Peninsula is already seeing extreme weather and other effects linked to climate change and will likely see more intense weather patterns, changing ground and surface hydrology, and an increase in wildfires.

“It can lead to changes that we’re aware of but can’t quite measure yet, and that’s that uncertainty around climate change. But we do know that it is very likely to be wetter wets, drier dries (and) warmer night-time temperatures,” Hill said, adding that night-time temperatures have a greater effect on snow melt.

But it’s important to note, Hill added, that besides the impact of extreme weather like unusual freezing, big wind events or flooding, climate change doesn’t pose an immediate threat to the U.P. right now.

The bigger concern comes in looking at the next 20 years — which is the timeframe for purchasing infrastructure, Hill said.

“When we’re making these decisions on infrastructure investment, we have to be thinking 20, 30 years ahead,” Hill said. “So our (past) infrastructure decisions were made for weather events that we didn’t think were possible here, that are now happening.”

The Climate Adaptation Task Force was organized to help local leaders and the public develop strategies to make the U.P. more resilient and effective when dealing with the consequences of climate change.

CATF’s initiatives this year include working with local units of government and other groups on community resilience planning, a U.P.-wide energy plan, climate and energy education, Northern Climate Network programs, and the BLP’s community solar garden project.

Hill said the need for these efforts is growing more apparent.

“You look at maple sap production in the U.P., combined with the fact there were six tornadoes instead of one last year, combined with where the lake levels are at — we have multiple lines of evidence,” Hill said. “It becomes confusing and overwhelming, … and it’s easy to want to shut down, but it’s a complex problem; and so stepping back again, having these larger conversations allows time to process some of this.”

Energy future

The need to transition away from heat-trapping fossil fuels is imperative, Hill said.

The price of renewable technologies is dropping rapidly, making them more economically viable — especially in the U.P., where ratepayers pay more per kilowatt hour than just about anywhere else in the lower 48, Hill said.

CATF’s subcommittee on electrical energy is working with consumers, elected officials, business leaders, labor unions, regional utilities and national energy policy advisers to develop a unified plan for the U.P. with the most cost-efficient, reliable and environmentally-sensitive approach possible.

Hill said she’s leading energy work groups with county administrators to ensure communication is reaching across the peninsula.

CATF Chairman Bob Kulisheck said renewable energy is the future, but the transition will require care.

“Right now, you have more people employed in solar than coal. If you’re talking in the aggregate about the best interest of the country, it seems the future is moving more with regard to these renewable applications,” Kulisheck said.

A report this year from the U.S. Department of Energy confirms that the solar energy sector employed more than double the number of people that coal did in 2016.

“What we have to do as a society is somehow figure out how to serve the needs of the people in those areas that are being disadvantaged by technological development,” Kulisheck said. “It’s not enough to just say ‘tough.'”

Hill agreed the challenge is figuring out what the new economy will look like.

But however it looks, reducing waste and pollution, conserving resources, and improving technology and long-term efficiency will help, not hurt, the economy, Hill argued, saying, “That’s the pragmatism and American ingenuity that is to be celebrated.”

Additional Articles

BLP making ‘green’ strides

Mary Wardell can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 248. Her email address is mwardell@miningjournal.net.

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