With Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission (PUC) members Karl Hansen (left) and Tim Kennedy looking on, Olya Wright and Naomi Tracy, on the right, gave a presentation at the Feb. 7 PUC meeting. As representatives of the Nordic Nature Group, the two young ladies described what the group was doing to combat the effects of climate change.
When 12-year-old Olya Wright was done presenting information about what the Nordic Nature Group has been doing to combat climate change over the last three years, SMMPA CEO Dave Geschwind said, “I can tell that this isn’t your first time to make this presentation.”
Geschwind and fellow SMMPA (Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency) Owatonna PUC board President Mark Fritsch were in town on Wednesday, Feb. 7 to discuss SMMPA’s role in combatting climate change with the Grand Marais Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and members of the audience who came out for the meeting.
And Geschwind was right in his assessment of Olya. She started the Nordic Nature Group on February 28, 2014. Today there are seven school-age naturalists who belong to the group, and as Olya and her fellow Nordic Nature presenter Naomi Tracy pointed out at the PUC meeting, they have been very active.
But central to the meeting were questions PUC board member George Wilkes put to the two SMMPA officials. Specifically, Wilkes addressed the concern that while SMMPA had been conducting measures to lower its carbon footprint-17 percent of the company’s electrical output is now produced by solar, wind or hydro, the company refuses to use the term “climate change” in any of its literature or advertisements.
As Wilkes pointed out, how can the company truly address climate change if it won’t even say the name?
Both Fritsch and Geschwind explained that while few doubt climate change is real, it is a political term and some of its members find it divisive. It is also not a term typically used by the industry, said Geschwind.
While Grand Marais is a member of SMMPA, which is a not-for-profit joint action agency formed in 1977 to meet surging demand for power, the city is the second smallest member of 18 municipalities that purchase electricity from the agency. Because of the town’s small size, Wilkes wondered aloud whether Grand Marais was like the tail trying to wag the dog in this dispute.
Although Wilkes carried the conversation, PUC Board Chair Karl Hansen noted that he and fellow PUC board member Tim Kennedy stood firmly with Wilkes, and the Grand Marais City Council also had adopted the climate inheritance resolution presented to it by the Nordic Nature Group in 2017 as well as passed a resolution presented by the Citizen’s Climate Lobby (CCL) for the Carbon Fee and Dividend solution to lower the CO2 level.
Wilkes pressed for some form of introduction to climate change and its effects to be put in SMMPA’s platform, but he didn’t get any assurances from either Fritsch or Geschwind that at this time SMMPA would put that in print. Just a promise that the dialogue would respectfully continue.
As for Olya Wright and Naomi Tracy, Geschwind asked them if the Nordic Nature Group would like to get a tour of a coal-fired power plant, and Wright said it sounded like a good idea. Geschwind said he would try to set up a trip when it was advantageous for the Nordic Nature Group to attend.
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