The Path to Passing a Climate Emergency Resolution in Duluth
In this fourth installment of his journey into climate activism, Anthony Lanzillo of Duluth’s Bread and Roses Catholic Worker describes how a Chicago training session catalyzed his involvement with the local Climate Mobilization Campaign. Despite initial resistance from city council members who viewed Duluth as a “climate haven,” their persistent grassroots campaign succeeded in passing a climate emergency resolution and establishing new environmental initiatives, proving that dedicated local advocacy can create meaningful change.
Several weeks after the Climate>Duluth forum, I was invited by Lisa Fitzpatrick, coordinator of the Duluth Climate Mobilization Campaign, to join her at a two-day training session in Chicago that was sponsored by the Climate Emergency Project. It was a gathering of climate activists from around the midwest region of the U.S. who were sharing their personal stories and talking about why it was important for each of them to get involved in addressing climate change in their local areas. As I shared in a column for the Duluth News Tribune, I was impressed and energized by their enthusiasm and courage to their commitment to their advocacy and community work.
Being with these activists reminded me of the book The Courage To Create by Rollo May. May wrote about how essential it is for all of us in this “age of limbo” to possess courage. He proposed that we have a choice between withdrawing from the world and becoming paralyzed and apathetic or helping to form the future by holding on to our “sensitivity, awareness and responsibility in the face of radical change.” May argued that it will take courage to participate in and contribute to the new society.
As soon as Lisa and I returned to Duluth, she talked to me about Climate Mobilization’s national office campaign to work with cities and states around the country to lobby elected officials to pass climate emergency resolutions. So, we decided to put a planning group together and figure out how to convince our city council to consider and pass such a resolution.
In order to be prepared for the potential resistance from different city council members who believed that Duluth was a climate haven and therefore felt there was no sense of urgency to address climate change, we knew that it was necessary to collect news reports and studies from scientists about climate events already taking place in our city and region of the state.
We found articles from the Duluth News Tribune which reported that the Great Lakes region was already warming up and the Star Tribune reporting that the new pollution threat to the Great Lakes was microplastics. And there was a study from the journal Science that stated there had been a 29% decline in the entire bird population of North America.
Also, by accident, we found a climate report on the internet that had been presented to the Duluth city government. After emailing and calling various elected officials and government staff, it became very apparent that most people did not read the report or even know of its existence.
Funded by an Environmental Assistance grant by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 2017, the “Vulnerable Populations and Climate Adaptation Framework” report was submitted to Duluth’s city government in April, 2018. The first line stated, “Climate change is a global phenomenon that creates local impacts.”
The report stated that Duluth had already experienced an increase of 1.8 degrees in its annual temperature and an increase of 58% in the number of extreme weather events between 1950 and 2015. And, it reported that by 2100 Duluth could expect an increase of 4 to 11 degrees in the annual temperature and an increase to 23 days above 95 degrees and 50 fewer days below freezing.
It was further reported that there are particularly vulnerable populations to climate change in our city; including children under 5, older adults, people with disabilities, and those who are poor and homeless.
And then there was the mayor of Duluth who in her 2019 city address declared, “climate change is pounding our city.”
Throughout the winter of 2019 and spring of 2020, we had a difficult time getting any of the city council members to speak to us or even consider sponsoring a climate emergency resolution. Many of the members believed that the city government had more important matters to deal with and therefore climate change wasn’t a priority for Duluth. And sadly, there were several members of the city council who didn’t even believe that climate change was real.
After giving numerous 3-minute talks at the open city council meetings and writing letters to the editor, we decided to try a new strategy. In the fall of 2020, we began sending “climate briefings” to each of the council members and then set up email and telephone banks for the citizens to contact their council members and ask for a climate emergency resolution. Also, I wrote several columns for the Reader and Duluth News Tribune with a list of the council members along with their phone numbers and email addresses.
It was at the last meeting of the Duluth City Council for 2020, on Monday, December 21st, that we knew that we were making progress and getting the city council to listen and pay attention. One member declared “We are in a climate emergency. Our earth is crying out. Our people are crying out.” And another member announced, “We are killing our planet with plastic, and we’re killing our lake with plastic.”
After some political maneuvering and negotiations, the city council finally passed a climate emergency resolution in April 2021. And within several months of passing the resolution, the mayor hired a sustainability officer, and the city government established an energy plan commission. In our eyes, they were small steps but still important steps for city government and Duluth.
Cover image: The MV Paul R. Tregurtha cuts through late-season ice as it passes under the Duluth Lift Bridge on its way to pick up a load of coal. Photo by Pete Markham and used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
