{"id":20295,"date":"2015-02-25T07:29:54","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T13:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=20295"},"modified":"2015-02-26T11:37:42","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T17:37:42","slug":"mpr-hosts-public-forum-at-bsu-on-minnesotas-drastically-changing-weather-patterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2015\/02\/25\/mpr-hosts-public-forum-at-bsu-on-minnesotas-drastically-changing-weather-patterns\/","title":{"rendered":"MPR hosts public forum at BSU on Minnesota’s drastically changing weather patterns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of the Bemidji Pioneer<\/strong><\/p>\n

BEMIDJI — A crowd of students and concerned citizens on Tuesday filled Hagg-Sauer Hall at BSU to hear the results of a six-month Minnesota Public Radio News investigation <\/span>on how climate change affects Minnesota.<\/p>\n

MPR reporter Dan Kraker and news director Mike Edgerly presented Minnesota-specific anecdotes and data on the drastically changing weather patterns of the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The bottom line is, climate change is here, it’s real, it’s in our faces,” Edgerly said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kraker, along with fellow MPR reporter Elizabeth Dunbar, spoke with a range of Minnesotan climatologists, naturalists and other experts to produce their report.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I am not a scientist,” Kraker said, “But I did speak to dozens of scientists.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Kraker said climate change is manifesting itself in Minnesota mainly in two ways, which are more pronounced than most other states: winters are getting warmer, and precipitation is on the rise, including mega-rainfall storms like the one that pummeled Duluth in 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n

Five of Minnesota’s largest rainfalls ever recorded have occurred since 2000, according to the MPR report.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We’re seeing more our rain coming in downpours,” Kraker said. “So when it rains, it’s more likely to pour.”<\/span><\/p>\n

These also correspond with micro-droughts, or intense shorter droughts in between the heavy periods of rainfall.<\/span><\/p>\n

Plant and animal species populations are being pushed north, he said. The range of ticks and emerald ash borers stands to expand as temperatures that would kill them off don’t happen as often.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, there are positive aspects to climate change, including extended growing seasons for Minnesota farmers, Kraker said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s not all gloom and doom,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Q and A covers human factor in climate change<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the presentation itself didn’t delve too deeply into the politics of climate change and its link to human activity, some of the comments and questions from audience members did.<\/span><\/p>\n

One audience member asked how to combat discouragement and apathy among people, since climate change seems like an inevitability. The hope for the future is in the ways humans can modify their lives in response to climate change even though they may not be able to modify climate change, Edgerly said.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We’re going to adapt, we’re finding ways to adapt now,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The point of the story was to empower people to make their own decisions on climate change by presenting them with scientific data, Edgerly said<\/span><\/p>\n

“We didn’t address people’s beliefs about climate change, we dealt with the data,” Edgerly said. “Now we’ve come to you all … and said, ‘Here’s the data.’ Perhaps that will move people along to rethink personal decisions.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Another woman asked how much reporters used anecdotal evidence as opposed to data evidence, in light of climate change skeptics who distrust science.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kraker said for the climate series, they would use an anecdote to lead into data evidence, making sure to backup gut-based evidence with hard facts.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s those anecdotes that give people an emotional connection to a something and make people remember it and respond to it, more so than the data in a lot of cases,” Kraker said. “But when we use the two of them together, it’s even more popular.”<\/span><\/p>\n

To view and listen to the series, visit www.mprnews.org\/topic\/climate<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A crowd of students and concerned citizens on Tuesday filled Hagg-Sauer Hall at BSU to hear the results of a six-month Minnesota Public Radio News investigation <\/span>on how climate change affects Minnesota.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-link"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20316,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20295\/revisions\/20316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}