Climate Central’s analysis of urban heat islands highlights eight of our Midwestern cities, where over ten million people experience temperatures elevated by at least eight degrees, and up to twelve degrees in Chicago. Northwestern University’s Prof. Horton shares what Chicago is doing about it.
When I visit my family in Illinois, I’m greeted by my “favorite” discussion: “You heard about those activists, right? They keep trying to push that nonsense about climate change, but science shows we’re just on the verge of another Ice Age. It’s just a weather pattern, nothing more.”
In the Midwest, I’ve spent many afternoons trying to convince my grandparents and some community members that carbon emissions are a real, serious concern.
Thankfully, attending the first in-person Midwest Climate Summit hosted by the Midwest Climate Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis reaffirmed that there are, in fact, community and industry leaders in the Midwest who are passionate about climate action, contrary to the above-average Midwestern climate-denying tendencies.
Deputy Administrator McCabe has an extensive background in clean air, environmental health, and climate justice. She served with the EPA under President Obama for seven years, working as Acting Assistant Administrator and Principal Deputy to the Assistant Administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation. Prior to rejoining EPA, Janet McCabe was a Professor of Practice at the Indiana University McKinney School of Law and Director of the IU Environmental Resilience Institute, where she started as Assistant Director for Policy and Implementation in 2017. She will be addressing how Midwestern communities can equitably build resiliency and mitigate climate change, including opportunities presented through federal funding and programs.
Dr. Washington will address the Midwest Climate Summit in February 2023. She is a highly accomplished and successful environmental epidemiologist, environmental engineer, and environmental historian with over 40 years of research and field experience working on the impact of fossil fuel-generated pollution on human health and ecosystems using qualitative and quantitative analyses.
Washington University takes a leadership role in the Midwest Climate Collaborative to help address specific climate challenges in the 12-state region.
UW-Madison, together with more than 15 partners across the region, launched the Midwest Climate Collaborative on Jan. 28 . . . Director Heather Navarro shares how agriculture and other key Midwestern industries are a part of that conversation.
Last year, Natalie Tinsen represented UW–Madison at the Midwest Climate Summit, a collaboration amongst “higher education, non-profit, corporate, and government leaders” to find ways to hasten climate action in the region. At the virtual event, Tinsen, who was then the Sustainability Chair for Associated Students of Madison, met Maddie Miller, who held the same position on the student government board at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
f you only read the national news, you could be excused for thinking that climate change is solely a coastal problem. While hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, freak snowstorms on the East Coast and wildfires in the West grab the headlines, the flyover country in the Midwest faces its own set of challenges. Thirty local governments, academic institutions and nonprofits from the space between the Appalachians and the Great Plains have joined together to create the Midwest Climate Collaborative.
In fall 2020, Washington University in St. Louis led the charge in planning and convening the Midwest Climate Summit. The summit and its accompanying think tank session were cross-sector, high-level discussions involving a key group of organizations with a shared commitment to advancing climate ambition in the Midwest.
Dan Hughes grows corn, wheat, pinto beans, millet, and yellow peas on his family farm near Venango, a tiny town on the far western edge of Nebraska. “Since I can remember,” said Hughes, a serious, bespectacled man in his mid-60s, “the weather has always been paramount in our family and our livelihood.” That weather has been causing a great deal of trouble for Nebraska farmers of late . . .