WHO WE ARE
Olya Wright
Olya loves chickens, if you couldn't tell by the picture. Her chickens inspire her to be environmentally active and to be a really awesome skier (note: Olya did not write this bio).
Martine Redshaw
Martine is a homeschooled senior from Hovland. She is an avid knitter, skier, and reader.
Naomi Tracy-Hegg
Naomi is a homeschooled junior. She lives just outside of Grand Marais. Her interests include environmental science, climate solutions, and sacred music. In her spare time, she can be found reading, canoeing, cross-country skiing, hugging her chickens, or, of course, pursuing climate action.
OUR HISTORY
Olya founded the Nordic Nature Group in 2014 (when she was 8) as a way to get together with her friends to go hiking, camping, or birding. In 2017, the NNG girls learned about climate change and were, of course, quite distressed. Thus began our decades-long engagement with local climate action.
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That year, we partnered with an organization called iMatter that partners with youth and guides them towards achieving impactful climate action in their cities. iMatter no longer exists, but the organization's head at the time, Larry Kraft, is now a state Representative. Working with iMatter, we wrote up a greenhouse gas emissions report card for the city of Grand Marais. The city received a D+. With the city's bad grade in hand, we worked with the mayor and city administrator to write up a Youth Climate Inheritance Resolution committing the city to writing a Climate Action Plan (CAP) that would set the city on track to reach net zero emissions by 2040. The Resolution passed unanimously with huge community support.
The NNG in 2017
Olya and Naomi then sat on the committee that drafted the Climate Action Plan. The CAP passed the city council in 2019, again with overwhelming community support.
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We then took a COVID break, coming back swinging in 2022 with Climate Emergency Resolutions (CERs) at the city and county levels. While CERs don't contain any action items, they serve a similar role as natural disaster declarations, putting pressure on higher levels of government to take substantial action. CERs are a global trend: the number of citizens living under governments that have passed a CER now totals 1 billion.
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In 2022, we also partnered with Two Harbors youth to begin the process of passing a CER in Lake County. That process is still ongoing; we hope that it will one day come to fruition.
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Now it's 2024, and we're back with an initiative quite similar to our 2017 undertaking: we're after a Climate Action Plan, but this time at the county level. Find more information about our initiative (and how you can help!) on our Climate Action Plan and Get Involved pages.