As the longest night nears, cold descends and long-awaited snow arrives, I am not surprised that boughs of evergreens and candles are brought out to help us find some balance.  I'm certain that we, as humans, are hard-wired to hope so we hold on to whatever symbols and metaphors we can.   Even a simple act of setting out a luminary on a cold dark night seems to offer a resounding "YES" to the world, a way of saying we trust warm summer nights will indeed be back again someday.

I felt this way during an initial gathering of neighbors last week who were interested in learning more about creating a policy and funding package to support elements of the national Green New Deal, here in Minneapolis.   Amidst the ongoing challenges of climate changes and the dire warnings of greenhouse gas overload on our earth's ecosystems, we are finding ways to feel hope, to gather personal energy for the work of passing this package, and to find comfort in knowing we're not alone in our desire to see change happen here.

Here in ward 8 - a highly politically active neighborhood - there are already many ways in which climate action is happening here in a very localized way. Whether it's solar installations, rain gardens, pushing new developers to build in energy conservation and encourage transit options beyond cars, or EV charging stations and urban agriculture projects popping up, or just our participation in home composting and recycling, it's already evident that we've bought into the notion that even small, individual actions, multiplied through the actions of others, will get us to the place where we can slow and stop the human impacts on our warming globe.

A Green New Deal is designed to take these small actions to a larger scale, and through our leadership as a city, to impact other communities and grow the movement for climate action.  And while a national (and as we saw recently) an international effort plods slowly along with not-so-ambitious action steps in place, we can feel excited about the efforts already starting up here and ready to spring into action with more support from our city.  And as we've seen over the past couple of years, our Minneapolis council is ambitious, progressive, and ready to act on climate change.  

The process has begun with small groups forming across our city, preparing to meet with each of the city council members to discuss elements that could be included in a Minneapolis Green New Deal.  We're gathering ideas, finding climate-resilient projects that could scale up, dreaming of ways to grow green jobs, and committing to the challenge of centering equity and inclusion in whatever we do.  This effort is being sponsored and supported by MN350, an organization that equips volunteers to do grassroots organizing and community building as part of a global movement to bring us closer to climate resilience where we depend on clean energy and a just and healthy future for all. 

As a small business committed to sustainable practices, I'm all in.  But I know that I can't just stop there, I need to convince our city to support every other small business owner who wants to run a sustainable business.  I need to help organize our community to invest in clean energy solutions and to help reduce the harmful impact of pollution within our urban neighborhoods.  We need a Green New Deal here in Minneapolis.  With a Green New Deal we can grow jobs that improve energy conservation, create new clean energy jobs, move away from fossil fuels, improve our community health, lower energy bills, create pollution-free neighborhoods, increase urban agriculture and reduce food insecurity, and build community wealth in ways that doesn't damage our earth or each other.  

Want to hear more about efforts for Ward 8? Find me (Dan) at the cafe and share your reasons for wanting climate action and your ideas for creating a safe, healthy communities and new green jobs!  This is the Green Path we've been dreaming of!

Want to get involved?  sign up at https://mn350.org/green-new-deal/