The best thing anyone can do in terms of a climate action is just start talking to
people about it. Tell people that you care about it and why you're interested and don't be afraid
to talk to people about it, because when you remain silent on on something, there's very little
chance of action to be taken. Talking to your parents, your neighbors, your family, your
friends, that climate is important to you and you want to see action here in your community.
I work for Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light. We are a climate Justice organization and the idea of
that is that the science tells us what we need to know about climate change. Climate change is
occurring, humans are causing it, the effects of that are already quite bad and they're going to
be dramatically worse the longer we continue to use fossil fuels. Science also tells us
there's solutions at hand, so science can tell us all that. Science can't tell us how to feel
about that, science can't tell us what our moral responsibility is with that, that is where justice
comes in. I think that's where faith traditions have a great role to play. Faith traditions have
been wrestling with those issues for thousands of years: issues of greed, issues of community,
issues of fear, issues of hope. I think Duluth gets it very well that climate change is happening, we
are experiencing it, and that we have a role in trying to be part of the solution. We can't
just go cold in our homes in Duluth here. We need other options, clean options and the IRA
is to give people incentives to take advantage of the technology that already exists. The IRA
stands for the inflation reduction act. It is largely a climate based bill. It is the
largest climate action the federal government has ever taken and the idea is to rebuild our
crumbling infrastructure, so as we do so let's use that opportunity to build a cleaner more
just infrastructure. Those rebates are based on your income, so low-income people could get
100% of a heating system installed in their house house starting in the late fall here in Minnesota,
and we're really excited to make people aware of that and try to facilitate that. There's tons of
rebates for everyone, whether it's solar panels, ground source heat pumps, weatherizing your
house, you know putting insulate the standard thing. We need do a lot more of in Duluth, insulating your
house or putting new windows or doors in, and what the IRA does is say you folks that want to do this
we want to help you, we want to incentivize you to do this. I think we can all take individual
actions whether that's you know planting a rain garden in your in your lawn or composting
or yes even recycling. I think the youth are the hope of the world and what I would say, what I try
to say to them is, don't give up hope, you can make a change, work with others, try for solutions,
find out what you're good at and whatever you want to be doing, you can incorporate climate,
climate work as a citizen, as a banker as a you know whatever you want to do in life you can
incorporate climate activism and working towards a better world with the people around you.