Climate Education Needed In Classrooms

With a winter storm warning for parts of western Minnesota Thursday, and lows expected to fall below zero by Friday morning, it seems as if we are now experiencing a normal Minnesota winter.
The steady drone of snowblowers can be heard, as can the scraping of shovels on concrete sidewalks. Vehicles that were parked outside overnight may have been plowed around leaving them trapped within a barrier of hard snow. It’s time to find out what your local snow emergency rules say about where to park when if a heavier snowfall is in the forecast.
It’s not the kind of weather that makes you think about Minnesota gradually getting warmer, but it is.
Based on Minnesota weather records that go back to the 1890s, our meteorological fall was the warmest on record. Meteorological fall is the three-month period from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30.
For western Minnesota this meteorological fall saw highs 5 degrees warmer than average, and lows more than 2 degrees above their average. Each month, September, October and November, saw above average temperatures.
Maine, Nebraska, Texas and Wisconsin also saw their warmest meteorological falls on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.) Twenty-two states have experienced their warmest January to November periods on record.
There is a chance that the year could finish as the hottest on record for the world. Currently, 2023 holds the record as the hottest.
But one year does not make for evidence of a changing climate despite more than century-old records falling. It is the long-term trend is continuing and getting worse that is worrisome.
Minnesota’s 10 warmest and wettest years have all been recorded since 1997. That is 10 out of the last 27 years in a record book of 130 years of state weather.
“The state’s average annual temperature has increased by 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1895, with the largest increases in the northern third of the state,” Rob Hubbard writes for the Minnesota House Information office.
“The state is projected to see up to 12 more days with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit each year and up to 40 such days each year by the end of the century,” Hubbard writes.
Our warming climate could mean some substantial changes in the way we farm, construct buildings, and install infrastructure for communities. It is having an impact on our wildlife and our recreational lives.
Minnesota changed its state seal last year to include its iconic loon in the middle. But, Hubbard writes, that image may no longer represent a bird that lives in the state by the end of the century.
By the middle of this century, “northern regions of the state are projected to experience up to 25 fewer days with lows below freezing” while southern counties see 25 more days of 90 degrees or higher, Britta Greene of the University of Minnesota Extension Service writes.
Weather records for the state show that it is seeing more intense storms more frequently. It is seeing flooding rainfalls more often. These storms cause damage to crops, sewer and water systems, roads, dams, and businesses resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
Though our springs are becoming wetter, and we are seeing more catastrophic downpours, the summers in Minnesota are getting drier. Droughts are projected to become more frequent.
If the temperature and precipitation records aren’t convincing, perhaps the fact that growing zones have moved more than 150 miles north in the past couple decades after moving little for more than 100 years, adds weight to the evidence. The plant hardiness zone with its northern boundary once in northern Iowa now extends to just south of Stevens and Swift counties. Grant County could be in the same zone within another two decades.
Plants that couldn’t survive our harsh Minnesota winters are now finding it possible to grow here. Insects, pests, that our winters once kept away are finding the area more welcoming.
“It looks all but certain that Minnesota will lose its iconic loons in summer by the end of the century,” Heidi Roop told the House Climate and Energy Finance and Policy Committee last year. She is the director of the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership and an assistant professor of climate science at the university, he writes.
In her testimony before the committee, Roop said it is likely Minnesota is going to continue to get wetter and hotter. “The risks and impacts are increasing across the state. With every passing day, the abstractions of climate change lessen, and we are left confronting the risks scientists have long anticipated,” she said.
Minnesota’s changing climate is going to mean some species of fish, like the walleye, won’t survive in warming southern Minnesota lakes. We could see the loss of the Boundary Waters pine forests as trees now limited to a warmer climate, such as maples and oaks, move northward. By 2070, the Boundary Waters could become an oak savanna.
Today’s high school and college students want more classes addressing the climate change we are already experiencing.
A 2023 poll show that 74% of Minnesotans want to see more in-depth climate education classes taught along with classes on how to address climate change. It is going to be a significant factor in their lives in today’s youth’s lives.
Farmers, city and county planners, and businesses all know that climate change is already having an impact on their operations. They are planning ways in which to best address it.
However, it will be a challenge convincing everyone that climate change is a real threat.
“According to the Center on Countering Digital Hate’s report, the last five years have seen climate change misinformation evolve from outright denial to attacks on climate scientists and attempts to undermine solutions to the worsening climate,” Mohamed Ibrahim writes for MinnPost writes.
That is why it will be critical to give our young people a sound education about our changing climate so they become the leaders we will need in the coming decades.