CLIMATE CHANGE

Volunteer rainfall monitors wanted

Staff reports — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 13:01:00 GMT

DULUTH — Do you have a 4-inch diameter rain gauge and access to the internet? If so, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' State Climatology Office wants your weather observations.

The office is seeking volunteer rainfall and precipitation monitors for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, or CoCoRaHS, which includes more than 20,000 volunteers nationwide who measure and report rain and snow totals from their backyards.

Volunteers are particularly needed outside the Twin Cities metro area.

“Rainfall and snowfall amounts can vary widely over a short distance, so a variety of reports is helpful in the same community or area,” State Climatologist Luigi Romolo said in a news release. “We have some areas in greater Minnesota that have very few reporting stations. The more we have across the state, the better information we all have.”

Volunteers will receive online training on observing weather trends and submitting their precipitation and weather event reports, the news release said. Volunteers can receive discounts on 4-inch diameter rain gauges if they can't provide their own.

The data, reported online by participants, is used by scientists to monitor drought, assess floods and guide agricultural decisions, Romolo said.

“Over time, as more volunteer reports make our precipitation maps more accurate, these observations provide critical guidance on Minnesota’s changing climate,” Romolo said. “This is also a great educational activity for families with kids and a rewarding hobby for anyone interested in weather or climate.”

For more information or to sign up, visit cocorahs.org or contact Luigi Romolo at luigi.romolo@state.mn.us.

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USDA sued for purging climate-related information from its websites

Noah Fish — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 12:30:00 GMT

A lawsuit filed by the environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University claims the U.S. Department of Agriculture's wiping of critical climate resources from its website is a violation of rules around government actions and information access.

The plaintiffs on the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York include the Environmental Working Group, Natural Resources Defense Council and Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, who seek a court order requiring the USDA to restore access to the webpages.

During Donald Trump's first term as president, Peter Lehner, managing attorney for Earthjustice, said the organization brought around 200 lawsuits against the administration and won about 85% of those.

Usda climate webpages purge complaint by Michael Johnson on Scribd

"A new administration can come in, and of course, they're entitled to make some policy changes, but they have to follow the law in so doing," Lehner said. "Very often in the first Trump administration, they were rushing to try to do things, or they did things really heedlessly."

Lehner said that public input and science behind laws are still as clear as they were during that first Trump term.

"You have to have public input, you have to follow the science, and when they didn't, we were able to litigate and win," he said. "I think we'll be looking at the same in this administration."

He's confident in the judges that preside over the cases as well, even though current orders by federal judges are not being followed by the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funding.

"Let's just say I think the rule of law requires them to follow those court orders, and my understanding so far is they've been trying to invent legal reasons why their apparent failure to follow a court order has some legal basis," Lehner said. "Those will get exhausted and they won't want to be in overt denial or opposition or failing to follow a direct court order."

Lehner said the lawsuit filed regarding the removal of climate-related webpages should be more cut-and-dry than the federal funding freeze.

"This particular lawsuit asks for a court order that USDA restore these websites and not purge any more websites of climate change related information, and that should be an order that would be, frankly, pretty straightforward for a court, for an agency, to follow, and we will be able to monitor that in some extent," Lehner said. "Because we identified many, many webpages that have been taken down, and we'll be able to go and see if those pages are back up."

Details of the purge

According to the lawsuit, on Jan. 30, 2025, USDA Director of Digital Communications Peter Rhee sent an email ordering USDA staff to “identify and archive or unpublish any landing pages focused on climate change” by “no later than close of business” on the following day.

"It was very shortly after that that the website purges began, and we found out about it very quickly," Lehner said. "We then really thought about it. This is what lawyers do, is try to figure out, okay, is this action legal? And we believe it is unlawful under the Freedom of Information Act, Paperwork Reduction Act and Administrative Procedure Act."

According to the lawsuit, among the resources removed from USDA websites were all information related to climate-smart agriculture, federal loans, conservation programs and climate adaptation strategies. The USDA also deleted entire sections on climate from the U.S. Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service sites, including information that helps farmers access billions of dollars for conservation projects, according to the lawsuit. USDA also disabled interactive tools like the U.S. Forest Service’s “Climate Risk Viewer” and removed technical guidance on reducing emissions and boosting resilience to extreme weather.

Farmers in the middle

Lehner said the important part of the lawsuit he wants the public to understand is that farmers are caught in the middle of a "political game."

"The (Trump) administration wants to somehow erase any words of climate change, as if they're scoring political points, but farmers are facing the reality of climate change extremes and changing weather and changing the words doesn't change that," Lehner said. "The farmers are really being caught in the middle, as are researchers and advocates."

He added that many farmers impacted by the removal of climate-related information are not willing to speak publicly or join the lawsuit because of the fear of retribution from the administration.

Wes Gillingham, a farmer and NOFA-NY board president, is not one of them. He runs a 150-family CSA with his wife, and breeds Icelandic sheep and Scottish Highland cattle. Gillingham said the impact of climate change on his farm includes severe flooding that devastated his vegetable business.

He said there's two big reasons NOFA-NY got involved in the lawsuit.

"One is that we saw there was really good information taken down from websites — things like where to go to get disaster help when you have a flooding event, because farmers do not get FEMA funds, because they have access to other things through USDA," he said. "It's vital for farmers to have information about climate change, and on where to get disaster help."

Gillingham said a few days before the purge happened, he was on a USDA climate page, appreciating how clear the science was provided.

"Just some really classic scientific theory on why we have extreme weather, and to really help farmers, or anybody for that matter, understand what we're facing," he said. "It helps to have information, to adjust to it."

The second reason is to address what's being done by the Trump administration is illegal.

"We need to have everybody challenge what he's doing that is illegal," Gillingham said. "If you are an affected farmer, if you're an affected healthcare worker, or whatever it is, we need to challenge what is a blatant example of censorship."

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City of Bemidji seeks input on Climate Resiliency Plan

Pioneer Staff Report — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 18:11:00 GMT

BEMIDJI — The city of Bemidji is seeking residential input on a Climate Resiliency Plan to address challenges the city has faced due to flooding, extreme cold and heatwaves.

The digital survey will be open until March 31, and residents interested in filling it out can do so by visiting tinyurl.com/yrrkzdn8.

Residents who fill out the survey will be entered to win one of two $25 Bemidji Area Chamber of Commerce Chamber Bucks gift cards — a valid email address is needed to win.

"This survey will help prioritize projects for stormwater management, transportation, green spaces and greenhouse gas emission reduction and (will) provide a platform for the community to influence climate action in Bemidji," a release said. "It will also help protect Bemidji in the future from extreme weather events while developing a finalized climate resiliency plan which will include 20 prioritized projects to "enhance our community's climate resiliency."

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Minnesota lakes have lost 2 weeks of ice cover in 50 years

Jimmy Lovrien — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 12:00:00 GMT

GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. — In his 40 years as a fishing guide, Jeff Sundin of Grand Rapids has seen the lake ice season shorten firsthand.

“Without a doubt, the last several years, the arrival of cold weather in the fall definitely seems later than it used to be,” Sundin said, adding that there are still recent examples of years with good ice coverage.

Data backs that up.

Ice coverage on Minnesota lakes has declined by an average of 10 to 14 days over 50 years, with ice-in dates about nine days later and ice-out dates moving four to five days earlier, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency reported in 2021.

The why — climate change — is known. Minnesota winters are warming quickly. Duluth has seen winter temperatures rise 6.4 degrees between 1970 and 2020.

“Overnight minimum temperatures in the winter have gone up. We’ve seen that throughout the state,” said Pete Boulay, a climatologist at the DNR. “And if you don’t have the cold air around, you’re not going to form ice.”

But the effects of shorter lake ice duration? That hasn’t been studied as much.

A research review published last month in the journal Science, co-authored by Ted Ozersky, an associate biology professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth and interim director of the Large Lakes Observatory, seeks to begin filling that knowledge gap.

There’s no one reason for the lack of winter lake research.

Ozersky said researchers may not have ice safety training, and equipment and techniques are often not designed for the cold.

Researchers often spend winters inside teaching, with the fieldwork season beginning in the spring, he said.

“And finally, I think historically, there has been this sort of self-reinforcing cycle of ignorance, where people are not doing winter work,” Ozersky said. “There are not studies about winter and lakes in the literature, so people assume that winter is sort of unimportant and boring, and they don’t do these studies.”

At its most basic, even the date when ice forms on a lake — and stays all winter — is harder to come by than ice-out dates.

Boulay once recorded historic ice-in dates for Minneapolis’ Lake of the Isles from the back of a cupboard in a mansion’s servant’s entrance.

“They’re tearing down the house and they say, ‘Get over here quick and write these down.’ … I should have just taken the cupboard with me,” he said.

Ozersky said the review seeks an audience of not just scientists but also interested members of the public.

“We’re still sort of in early stages of trying to catch up with summer research,” he said. “But we felt that at this point, there is enough to start saying some general things about what loss of winter means for lakes.”

Among the review’s conclusions:

Loss of lake ice will mean fewer winter kills on smaller lakes, meaning fish could establish themselves in once-fishless lakes, disrupting existing communities of invertebrates and amphibians. More open water means more lake-effect snow and rain downwind of larger lakes, such as the Great Lakes. Ice cover increases a lake’s carbon retention and ice-covered lakes stay cooler all year, slowing methane production. Less ice means warmer lakes throughout the year, and warmer water fuels the potential for harmful algae blooms. Ice can protect a shoreline from waves and erosion, and the loss of ice may mean more property damage, turbidity at water treatment intakes and eutrophication — excessive nutrients that can cause fish kills and algae blooms — near the lakeshore.

However, the loss of lake ice and its environmental effects can also have cultural and societal consequences.

Going forward, Ozersky said he expects research into lake ice to include additional social scientists “to try to understand how people are perceiving this and how people are experiencing these changes.”

In the meantime, Sundin said he’ll try to retain memories of robust winters spent ice fishing.

“The best we can do is track and remember the stories to tell our grandkids,” he said.

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Minnesota agriculture on front lines of fighting climate change

Noah Fish — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 20:00:00 GMT

WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. — To cap off the state's warmest and driest September on record, Minnesota agriculture officials gathered at an apple orchard outside of the Twin Cities to highlight state and federal climate investments.

The media event showcased the long list of state programming for agricultural operations meant to curb climate change and the $3.5 billion in federal climate grants that Minnesota has received since 2022.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture hosted the outing at Pine Tree Apple Orchard, which is enrolled in the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program and is a 40-year member of the state's Minnesota Grown program.

John Jacobson owns and operates the orchard, along with one in southeast Minnesota, with his siblings. Jacobson said the orchard started down the road of sustainability in the '90s when he and his brother toured parts of the country to research integrated pest management.

"We started with (integrated pest management), and that basically is a lot of trapping of insects, and if they reach an economic threshold, then we do a control measure," he said. "That immediately cut down on the amount of usage that we have of chemicals."

Micro-irrigation was one of the next sustainable practices to be used at the orchard, which cuts back on water use. The netting that covers high-value apples at the orchard reduces the amount of inputs on the trees while also keeping insects out, Jacobson said.

No middle ground

Pine Tree Apple Orchard has tracked its bloom and harvest dates back to the 1950s. Jacobson said those dates haven't changed much over the years, with bloom coming between May 5-10 and harvest wrapping up by Halloween.

"That really hasn't changed dramatically, but it's the inside of that window that has — like we just had this very, very wet spring, and now we're in the driest September in recorded history," he said. "I've always said that Mother Nature will equalize itself very rapidly, so you start out over here, and then it goes way over here. It just seems like we don't have that middle anymore, like when I was growing up."

Minnesota Ag Commissioner Thom Petersen said the department recognizes that climate change is impacting agriculture in Minnesota and around the world, with "increased temperatures as well as more extreme and frequent weather events like floods and drought leading to increased challenges for our producers."

State programming

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture offers a number of funding opportunities to support farmers interested in adopting climate-smart practices including the Minnesota Ag Water Quality Certification Program, which has more than 1,500 producers enrolled. Through the Preparing for Extreme Weather Grant, the department has awarded over $450,000 in grant funding to 71 farmers to fund projects like hail protection, fans and misters for livestock, and well upgrades.

The Soil Health Financial Assistance Grant awarded over $2.8 million to 97 individuals and organizations in the first two rounds of funding, with the most requested equipment being no-till drills, air seeders and strip-tillage machinery.

The Biofuels Infrastructure Grant, which got financial support from the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, awarded $9 million for 60 Minnesota fuel stations since its launch in 2022.

The Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Grant, published in MDA's Greenbook, is currently accepting applications for $350,000 in grant funding through December 2024.

"I just got back from our National Association of State Departments of Agriculture conference, and other commissioners are a lot of times very jealous of the programs that we have in the state, and the things that we're taking steps on," Petersen said.

Federal climate investments: TBD

Minnesota is now poised to bring in at least $200 million in federal funding through the EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program.

The money will fund what the Department of Agriculture and the Pollution Control Agency call the Minnesota Climate-Smart Food Systems project, which allots $20 million to expand current state initiatives including the MAWQCP and Soil Health Financial Assistance program.

About $6.7 million will also be invested in the "replacement and upgrading of vehicles and equipment that are used to grow and transport food, such as tractors and freight trucks, to switch to using cleaner-burning fuels," according to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

Two years ago, to combat climate change’s impact on agriculture, the Biden-Harris administration dispersed $22 billion for climate-smart agriculture, as part of the administration’s investments in clean energy and climate solutions through the Inflation Reduction Act.

Many Republican leaders disagree with the sweeping policies and investments in climate change, and the distance between the two sides has played a role in delaying the passage of a new farm bill. The bill, passed in 2018, expired Sept. 30, 2023, and later was extended another year. It expired again on Sept. 30, 2024.

Minnesota's Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan acknowledged on Sept. 27 that a Donald Trump presidency would likely lead to a rollback in climate-smart investments in agriculture.

"I'm going to do everything I can to ensure that there isn't a second Trump presidency, but barring that, I know that climate investments, such as in sustainable aviation fuel, is good for Minnesota's economy," she said. "It's good for the region and the entire country. I think we have a case to be made, regardless of who is in the White House."

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Tim Walz, JD Vance clash at policy-heavy vice presidential debate

By Steve Holland and Stephanie Kelly / Reuters — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 02:27:59 GMT

NEW YORK — Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance clashed over the Middle East crisis, immigration, taxes, climate change and energy on Tuesday, Oct. 1 at a vice presidential debate whose first half was heavy on policy disagreements but light on personal attacks.

The two rivals, who have savaged each other on the campaign trail, largely avoided going after each other, instead saving their fire for the candidates at the top of their tickets, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump.

Vance questioned why Harris had not done more to address inflation, immigration and the economy while serving in President Joe Biden's administration, mounting a consistent attack line that Trump often failed to deliver while debating Harris last month.

"If Kamala Harris has such great plans for how to address middle-class problems, then she ought to do them now — not when asking for promotion, but in the job the American people gave her 3-1/2 years ago," Vance said.

Walz described Trump as an unstable leader who had prioritized billionaires and turned Vance's criticism on its head on the issue of immigration, attacking Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress to abandon a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.

"Most of us want to solve this," Walz said of immigration. "Donald Trump had four years to do this, and he promised you, Americans, how easy it will be."

The debate at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York began with the escalating crisis in the Middle East, after Israel continued its assault on southern Lebanon on Tuesday and Iran mounted retaliatory missiles strikes against Israel.

Walz said Trump is too "fickle" and sympathetic to strongmen to be trusted to handle the growing conflict, while Vance asserted that Trump had made the world more secure during his term.

Asked whether he would support a preemptive strike against Iran by Israel, Vance suggested he would defer to Israel's judgment, while Walz did not directly answer the question.

Walz, 60, the liberal governor of Minnesota and a former high school teacher, and Vance, 40, a bestselling author and conservative firebrand U.S. senator from Ohio, have portrayed themselves as two sons of America's Midwestern heartland with deeply opposing views on the issues gripping the country.

Seeking a moment

The rivals each sought to land a lasting blow at the last remaining debate before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Harris was widely viewed as the winner of her sole debate with Trump on Sept. 10 in Philadelphia, which was watched by an estimated 67 million people.

That square-off did little to change the trajectory of an extremely close election battle. While Harris has edged ahead in national polls, most surveys show voters remain fairly evenly divided in the seven states that will decide the November election.

Political analysts say vice presidential debates can be fiery but generally do not alter the outcome of an election. That said, even a slight shift in public opinion could prove decisive with the race on a razor's edge five weeks before Election Day.

With no more debates planned, the stand-off allows Walz and Vance to make closing arguments on behalf of their campaigns just as early voting ramps up across the country.

Walz was asked about a report on Tuesday that he was not in China during the violent 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, as he had previously claimed.

"I'm a knucklehead at times," he said. "I got there that summer and misspoke on this. So I was in Hong Kong and China during the democracy protests, and from that I learned a lot about what it means to be in governance."

Vance, meanwhile, defended his running mate despite having criticized Trump ahead of the 2016 election.

"I was wrong about Donald Trump," he said. "I was wrong, first of all, because I believe some of the media stories that turned out to be dishonest fabrications of his record. But most importantly, Donald Trump delivered for the American people."

Despite Vance's having written "Hillbilly Elegy," a popular 2016 memoir, U.S. voters have a negative view of him, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, with 51% of registered voters saying they view him unfavorably, compared with 39% who view him favorably. Meanwhile Walz was viewed favorably by 44% of registered voters, with 43% reporting an unfavorable view in the Sept. 20-23 poll.

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Shaping Minnesota: Climate change's impact on Itasca State Park and the state's future

Shannon Geisen — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:24:58 GMT

Could climate change turn Minnesota into Kansas?

Lee E. Frelich, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Forest Ecology, addressed this question during his presentation on Saturday, Sept. 13 at Itasca State Park in Park Rapids, Minnesota.

Frelich explained that the park lies near the convergence of three biomes: boreal forest, temperate forest and prairie.

Scientific research is exploring how those biomes could shift in low- versus high-warming scenarios.

A 9- to 10-degree increase in summer mean temperatures “would make this place like north-central Kansas,” he said, whereas a 4- to 5-degree increase will change the landscape to something similar to Granite Falls, Minn. Frelich said Itasca State Park would then become “prairie, with light vegetation” between oaks.

“There’s a few preliminary indications that maybe we’ll be able to avoid the high scenario, but if we look at the high scenario, we would expect all of our tree ranges to shift north by about 300 miles,” he explained.

“Minnesota is the edgiest state in the union,” he continued, adding almost every tree species native to Minnesota has its range limit in the state.

When summer mean temperatures are between 64 and 65 degrees, both boreal and temperate saplings grow equally well in northern Minnesota, Frelich said.

A study has shown, he said, that as summer temps rise, temperate species thrive. Examples are bur oak, red oak, basswood, sugar maple, red maple and yellow birch.

This means Itasca Park would lose boreal species, like black spruce, white spruce, balsam fire, jack pine, red pine, quaking aspen and paper birch. Boreal species prefer cooler summer averages, below 59.5 degrees.

Temperate forests are already “invading the understory of boreal forest” in Minnesota and Wisconsin, according to Frelich.

“It’s pretty strong here,” he said of the park’s region, but not as strong as what’s happening in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

Another study found that “precipitation minus evapotranspiration” is the most important factor in transitioning from forest to grass.

“In other words, if it rains more than the water evaporates, you get forest. If there’s more evaporation than precipitation, then you get grassland,” Frelich explained.

The prairie forest-border depends on whether the soil is sandy or silty or near a large body of water, he added.

By 2070, Minnesota could see more prairie push into the western part of the state as mixed-boreal forest recedes in the low CO2 emission scenario. In the high emissions scenario, Minnesota could convert to 90% prairie, Frelich said.

It’s not too late to decrease CO2 emissions, he noted. He suggested the following:

Eat more plants. Use more energy-efficient cars and buildings Stop deforestation Plant trees and restore the natural ecosystem. Loss of conifers to insects, fire, wind

Summers have become wetter, Frelich said. While the annual average precipitation is up, ”it’s much more unevenly distributed. You get a big flood, then you don’t rain for a couple months.”

Insect infestations become more common because trees are unable to acclimate to the fluctuating moisture and defend themselves, he said.

Norway or red pines are particularly hit hard by fungal diseases, as an example.

Wind storms and fire are expected to be more common in a warmer climate, possibly accelerating change, he explained.

Very early, warm springs also “upset the mechanisms that trees have for deciding when to come out of dormancy,” Frelich said, citing the impact of a record-high spring in March 2012. This is called “phenological disturbance.”

When trees bloom too early, they may all die at once, he noted.

Between 2041 and 2070, the number of weeks per year with fire risk is anticipated to increase 600% in northeastern Minnesota.

In Canada, 45 million acres burned during the 2023 fire season, according to Natural Resources Canada. That was 5% of all forest in Canada compared to the average of 5.1 million acres, or 0.6%, from 1983 to 2022.

If contemporary fires are too intense or too frequent, Frelich said “legacy-lock” boreal conifers will die where they had been dominant for 7,000 to 10,000 years. They will be replaced by oak, birch and aspen. This is happening in Minnesota, Alaska, Saskatchewan, Russia and Scandinavia, he noted.

Indigenous people in Minnesota are conducting prescribed burns under red pine forests to preserve that legacy-lock. In Cloquet, Frelich said, the Fond du Lac Nation did a burn to remove ladder fuel. It’s “the best hope” for saving red pines, he said, like those in Preacher's Grove at Itasca State Park.

As northern Minnesota’s forests change, wildlife will change with it, he added.

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John Wheeler: Americans are moving to hurricane-prone places

John Wheeler — Tue, 10 Sep 2024 10:00:00 GMT

FARGO — Eight of the top ten costliest hurricanes (in inflation-corrected dollars) in United States history have occurred since the year 2004. However, when hurricane path data for all storms since 1900 are projected through present-day exposures, only Hurricane Katrina in 2005 ranks in the top ten. Our nation's love-affair with warm, sunny, coastal climates is becoming an increasing financial hazard.

According to U.S. Census data, the coastal population of the United States grew by 40 million people between 1970 and 2020, and that number continues to increase. Coastal counties now account for roughly half of the entire U.S. population. Hurricane disasters cost all Americans in insurance rates and disaster aid. As the oceans rise and warm from climate change, the number of very strong hurricanes has been increasing, and it is those very large and powerful hurricanes that cause the vast percentage of the damage. This is an expensive problem that is going to get worse.

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More volunteers needed for annual Minnesota loon survey

John Myers — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 13:00:00 GMT

DULUTH — A citizen science effort that began 30 years ago and has accumulated reams of data on Minnesota's loon population still needs more volunteers to check for loons on northern lakes this summer.

The Minnesota Loon Monitoring Program sends volunteers to hundreds of lakes in six regions statewide to count how many loons they see.

This year’s survey will be conducted between June 28 and July 8, with volunteers spending a few hours on one morning at their assigned lake.

Some lakes are small enough to be surveyed from shore with a good pair of binoculars. On others, volunteers will need a boat, canoe or kayak to cover more water. Some are easy to access, some are back in the bush.

Volunteers search lakes larger than about 10 acres because loons, which can’t walk on or take off from land because their legs are too far back on their body, need a long water runway to take off. Loons are also less likely to be found in shallow lakes that often contain more vegetation, which makes it harder for them to find fish.

Volunteers are needed in three of the six research regions:

Aitkin and Crow Wing counties — Lily, Spruce, Sweetman and Thirty-One lakes. Cook and Lake counties — Artlip, Bonanza, Bulge, Caribou, Cross River, Dick, Fox, Little Wilson, Peterson, Rice, Slip, Silver and Silver Island lakes. Itasca County — Batson, Big Island, Bill’s, Doan, Ethel, Highland, Little East, Pear, Pickeral, Plum, Snow and unnamed lake 31-0661.

Last year, hundreds of volunteers and DNR staff counted loons on 574 lakes. But that’s the second-fewest number of lakes surveyed since the program began in 1994. Participation has been down since the pandemic and hasn’t rebounded yet, so the DNR is trying to recruit a new bevy of volunteers to hit more lakes.

"As our volunteers are getting older, and retiring out of the program, we are having some trouble recruiting new volunteers," Gaea Crozier, the DNR's nongame wildlife specialist in Grand Rapids, told the News Tribune. "These surveys are fun, and also a great way to get kids outdoors and involved in science."

Minnesota loon population OK, but …

This will be the 31st year for the loon survey that has collected extensive data used by the DNR to monitor the overall health of the official state bird’s population.

The quick summary from 30 years of data is that the state’s loon population is mostly “stable,’’ according to the DNR’s annual loon report.

But there are some subtle issues. Adult loon abundance — how many loons per 100 acres of each lake — is increasing in the Aitkin/Crow Wing, Becker, Kandiyohi and Otter Tail regions but is declining in the Cook/Lake and Itasca regions. The lakes surveyed in Cook and Lake counties have seen a 1.3% annual decline in adult loons.

A more noticeable trend has emerged with how many juvenile loons are counted each summer, with declining numbers of juvenile loons counted in five of the six regions surveyed. On the Cook and Lake County lakes, the decline in juveniles has hit 1.9% annually, with a 1.8% annual decline in Itasca County.

“Any downward trend in reproductive success of loons, regardless of how slight, is concerning and will continue to be monitored closely in future,’’ the 2024 loon report notes.

Loons require clean water, stable water levels for nesting and healthy populations of fish to eat. Clean, clear lakes are especially important because loons hunt for fish underwater by sight. Researchers note that loons are a bellwether species for how Minnesota’s lakes are doing, with climate change expected to push loons farther north, potentially out of the state entirely in coming decades.

“The long-term declines we have detected appear to be very gradual, and there could be more than one explanation for these trends,’’ the DNR report says, adding that they are looking at ways to find out what issues are at play, “including the possibility that these apparent declines are influenced by development activities around lakes, increased recreation, extreme weather events, species-wide population declines’’ and other factors.

A Wisconsin research project that’s now expanding into north-central Minnesota found that loons are declining in parts of the Badger State due to reduced water quality caused by runoff from land. That increased runoff is spurred by increasingly bigger rainstorms fueled by climate change.

The research, published in the recent edition of the journal Ecology and conducted on lakes in northeastern Wisconsin, found dirtier water was the likely culprit after tracking a 22% decline in loon numbers over the past 27 years in the study area.

To volunteer

For detailed information on what lakes still need surveyors from June 28 to July 8, and how to volunteer, go to dnr.state.mn.us/eco/nongame/projects/mlmp_state.html and click on the "Volunteer Map" button under “Sign up for a lake.” Lakes shaded in green still need volunteers.

For more info

Contact the following regional DNR loon monitoring coordinators:

Aitkin and Crow Wing counties: Karen McLennan, 218-203-4352, karen.mclennan@state.mn.us. Becker and Otter Tail counties: Kristie Brezina, 218‐671‐7977, kristie.brezina@state.mn.us. Cook, Itasca and Lake counties: Bryonna Persing, 218-735-3962, bryonna.persing@state.mn.us. Kandiyohi County: Dorie Tess, 507-233-1250, dorie.tess@state.mn.us.]]>

A changing climate is impacting farmer mental health

Noah Fish — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 12:00:00 GMT

Farmers, ranchers and service providers face unique challenges in a changing climate, including emotional tolls of stress, anxiety, grief and trauma.

American Farmland Trust hosted an online conversation for Mental Health Awareness Month which highlighted some of the climate-stress challenges faced by members of the ag community.

A 2021 survey of young people ages 16 to 25 in 10 countries found that 59% of those who responded said they were “very or extremely” worried about climate change, while 84% said they were at least “moderately” worried. More than 50% said they experienced strong, negative emotions about it, while three-fourths of respondents said they were frightened about the future.

American Farmland Trust's Addie Candib, who moderated the conversation, said that climate-related stress can take a toll on farmers, ranchers and food producers, who are "intimately entangled with natural ecosystems and weather patterns."

"They experience firsthand the impacts of a changing climate on those systems and may have deep connections to the land and places that are impacted by climate shifts and climate-related disaster," Candib said. "As the agricultural sector specifically talks a lot about climate resilience and climate-resilient practices, it's key that we broaden our understanding to encompass the social and emotional elements of both community and individual resilience."

Lian Zeitz works with the Climate Mental Health Network, which is a nonprofit that focuses on addressing the mental health consequences of the climate crisis. Zeitz said that climate change can be an "amplifier" for preexisting mental health conditions.

"If you were dealing with any sort of mental health struggles for a range of reasoning, the overlaying of climate change leads to an amplification of the challenges, or a heightened intensity of what you're experiencing," Zeitz said. "We already live in a world where there's limited mental health resources and collective support and education, and so that amplification is a big issue, and I think farmers are experiencing that in their families."

The "intensity" of the climate crisis makes matters even worse, Zeitz said.

"For instance, with last year being the hottest year on record in a long time, there's a direct correlation between extreme heat and mental unwellness," he said. "Farm workers and people that are in farming communities are often spending the most time in these extreme weather conditions, and then getting the most exposure to the changing landscape. And so the nature of how things are changing so rapidly causes also that amplification of challenges."

Climate cafe groups, which are popping up around the country, allow people to talk as a group about their emotions around climate change.

"It's an open source model for convening people in a community to process climate emotions together," Zeitz said of climate cafes. "I would say those are on the lighter end of the spectrum of direct mental health support, and they're great for community processing."

Zeitz said he'd like to see more group therapeutic models in the U.S. where people can navigate what they're experiencing in a way that feels supportive.

Farm Aid Hotline

Caitlin Arnold Stephano is the program manager of the Farm Aid Hotline (1-800-FARM-AID), which has been around for as long as the 40-year-old organization.

"We are the only national farmer hotline in the country," Arnold Stephano said. "We're not specifically a mental health hotline or just a crisis line, but we do take crisis calls, farm stress calls, and we do get quite a few of those. We also get calls from farmers all over with all sorts of questions, looking for resources."

Arnold Stephano farmed for over a decade, starting right after she graduated college, but reached a point of not being able to afford to buy land or make farming financially work for herself.

"So here I am, now running the farmer Hotline at Farm Aid, and what really keeps me motivated in this work, and why I continue to do it, is I know what it's like to be a young farmer that was not able to make that dream happen for myself," she said. "I know how painful that experience can be. And if I can keep one farmer farming, and on the land, that makes all of this totally worth it to me."

If you or someone you know is experiencing an acute mental health health crisis, please dial 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.

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