The Days That Sustain Us

It’s about nine in the morning. I’m sitting on a bench at the Rose Garden. Enjoying the sun, slight breeze and expecting the temperature to reach the mid-seventies. Truly a beautiful day. Days like this, when I can be outside, definitely sustain me.

About a month ago, on Aug. 17, Mayor Roger Reinert wrote a commentary for the Minnesota Star Tribune entitled “We’re actively shaping our city’s future.” In that commentary, Reinert stated, “Duluth is growing and thriving exactly because we are taking the deliberate and measurable action steps necessary to secure the future of our beloved Zenith City.”

Within several weeks of that piece coming out, I heard and confirmed that the mayor had decided not to hire a full-time sustainability officer to replace the former officer, Mindy Granley, who resigned in February. In fact, Reinart announced that the city was no longer looking for anyone to fill that position and the sustainability initiative was not a top priority.

In reflecting upon the mayor’s decision, I thought of something I read in Jordan Peterson’s book Beyond Order: 12 More Rules For Life. Jordan wrote, “It appears that the meaning that most effectively sustains life is to be found in the adoption of responsibility.” So I had to ask myself, was Reinert being a responsible mayor and public servant when he decided to not hire a sustainability officer.

Ever since Reinart became mayor, I could see the signs that his administration would not be a leader in addressing and responding to the climate emergency that was acknowledged and declared by the city council in April 2021.

So, how do we not address the growing impacts of climate change upon all of our collective and personal lives, and expect to be a thriving and transformative city? How do we secure the future of our beloved Duluth if we don’t make a serious commitment to the sustainability and resilience of this city by the lake?

Rebecca Solnit, in her book No Straight Road Takes You There, talks about acknowledging our uncertainty about the future and yet still creating a space where we can move forward. Solnit wrote, “hope is that recognition and a commitment to the pursuit of the better possibilities within the spaciousness of the unknown, the not yet created.”

So, given the growing challenges we’ll be facing with climate change, we have to ask ourselves about our commitment to pursuing a more sustainable and resilient city. We must create a space where we can commit ourselves to the pursuit of better possibilities in this climate-change world.

One way we can come together and help Duluth become a more sustainable city is to support a new citizens initiative to ask the mayor to hire a new full-time sustainability director. The initiative is circulating a petition which states, “We, the undersigned, are concerned citizens of Duluth who urge our leaders to act now to preserve and refill the Sustainability Office position, which has already proven its immense value. For an annual cost that is just a fraction of its return, this role has brought in well over $50 million in external funding since 2020.”

You can find the petition at change.org. And besides signing the petition, you can start calling the mayor (218-730-5230) and city council (218-730-5740) to tell them to support the hiring of a new full-time sustainability officer.

If you have any questions or want more information, you can contact Bret Pence, director of the climate-justice program Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light, at bretpence @ mnipl.org.

Each day, we need to explore and embrace different ways to sustain ourselves; in our personal lives, in our neighborhoods and throughout the city. A sustainability officer in our city government can play a very critical role in helping Duluth become a more sustainable and resilient city during these challenging and sometimes difficult times.