Rev. Emily Meyer will share the joys and challenges she encountered building a retirement/hunting ‘shack’ on Minnesota’s Prairie, entirely hand-made and off-grid.
Featured Presentation
Plans, People, and Progress offers a practical look at community climate action through lessons learned from paleBLUEdot’s work with communities throughout Minnesota and across the country. The presentation will explore what makes a climate plan credible and actionable, why meaningful community engagement is essential to building support and ownership, and how communities can turn ambitious climate goals into measurable progress. Along the way, I’ll share insights from my professional journey and paleBLUEdot’s approach to helping communities move from planning to implementation.
About the Speaker: Ted Redmond is a registered architect in Minnesota, climate action planner, and renewable energy consultant with more than 30 years of experience leading planning efforts for local governments, institutions, and businesses. In 2014, Ted co-founded paleBLUEdot, a certified small, woman-owned Minnesota business providing climate action planning and sustainability consulting to communities and organizations.
Through paleBLUEdot, Ted has collaborated with passionate community members, businesses, and local governments to advance climate action in more than 90 communities across the country. Today, one in every 30 people in the United States lives in a community touched by paleBLUEdot’s work. Climate action plans developed through these partnerships are projected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 68 million metric tons by 2035.
Ted also serves as a national solar PV technical advisor supporting the U.S. Department of Energy. He is a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps and completed the program in 2017.
Many people are feeling the psychological impacts of anxiety, despair, grief, and trauma as they navigate the layered impacts of climate change and social injustice. These are normal, important responses to the reality of the crisis, and there are supportive techniques and strategies to honor the emotions, prevent burnout, and promote creativity and connection. We will explore the intersection of mental health and climate change and learn ways to channel the intense feelings of eco-anxiety into meaning-making and action.
About the Speaker: Carson Brown, MD, is an integrative psychiatrist in private practice in the Twin Cities. She moved to Minnesota from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021 in part due to climate change. She has presented about clinical approaches to climate distress at the American Psychiatric Association, Midwest Climate Summit, Minnesota Psychiatric Society, and many local environmental organizations and mental health providers. Dr. Brown uses The Work That Reconnects, developed by Joanna Macy, as a framework for addressing eco-anxiety and focuses on the interactions between systems of oppression, climate change, and mental health.
