August 24, 2021 ROTARY IN REVIEW: Urban Heat Islands

At 12:18pm, president Todd called the meeting to order. He thanked the day’s scribe Bryan Donaldson, and greeters Kathy Bjerke and Jason DeKeuster.

 

Rita Dibble introduced the following guests and visiting Rotarians:

- Ruth Peterman – Hudson, WI Daybreak Rotary

- Ellen Kennedy – guest

 

Kathy Bjerke then updated on the rotary's involvement in the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. She said they are looking for volunteers to sell water on September 17th at 4:00 PM and all day Saturday. She recommended members sign up for a shift and that an email with a signup genius is coming. She also stated the goal of the partnership with twin city Jazz Festival was to meet and recruit potential members.

 

Nancy McKillips introduced new Rotary member Lara Coppock who is the senior development officer at People Inc Mental Health Services. Lara was born in Lansing MI and was raised in St Cloud. She is a St Cloud State graduate and has degrees in speech communications and geography. She worked for Carlson and Dairy Queen before moving to development at Planned Parenthood and then People Inc. Lara said she is looking forward to meeting and getting involved with the club. President Todd presented her with yearbooks and a Rotary pin.

 

Carolyn Will introduced today's speaker Eric Wojcik who is a planning analyst at the metropolitan council. Caroline said that Eric would talk about heat waves caused by heat islands, which is an issue in the Twin Cities metro area.

 

Eric put together a presentation and spoke about our recent extreme heat in the Twin Cities region. Eric said that we have had extreme heat this summer and there is more to come, which is why the met council is partnering with communities in the seven-county area to facilitate orderly development that will help the climate change in Minnesota. Eric spoke about how data can inform action with development.

 

Eric said urban heat islands occur as a result of the built environment associated with cities which can trap solar radiation in the form of heat. Heat islands affect communities by increasing energy demand costs air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Eric believes by focusing heat mitigation for our most vulnerable residents we become more resilient as a region. He believes canopy maintenance of trees and forestry is vital to the success of reducing the heat waves and heat island effect.

 

Eric took fact questions from the audience including how far back do forestry studies go and do we have more trees now than we did? Eric said scientists are looking at that today, and there is more trees now, but there has still been an increase in heat because of an increase in building. Another question was about the tradeoff in having denser housing in suburbs. Eric said there was a trade off with less dense housing in the suburbs because of increased CO2 emissions from driving farther away and other issues.

 

President Todd said Rotary has, and may want to, explore again planting more trees in Saint Paul. Eric was awarded a certificate of appreciation and a donation to cherish all children was made.

 

Heidi Fisher updated the group on membership director search. She said the committee is looking at seven candidates and applications closed Friday. She asked members to promote the opportunity, and said the description of the job was posted on the website. She said the committee will review applications through next week, and then first round interviews will be September 1st through the 8th. She said she hopes an offer is made to a new candidate by September 10th.

 

The next hybrid meeting will be August 31 at noon and the speaker will be from the Minnesota pollution control agency and speak about solid waste sites.

 

Rita Dibble collected Happy Dollars from members, including:

President Todd adjourned the meeting at 1:13 p.m.