A Resource For Communities in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan

Our Mission is to:

help prepare local leaders and Marquette County stakeholders to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies that will make the Upper Peninsula more resilient and effective when dealing with the consequences of climate change and extreme weather events.

Assumptions:

1. This effort is intended to encourage community leaders to think in a proactive fashion about how climate change may affect Marquette County and the Upper Peninsula region.
2. The intent is to identify long-term trends that may have potential positive and/or negative impacts on the local environment.
3. This effort does not require that all participants agree on the basic underlying cause(s) of climate change. Rather, it proceeds on the assumption that climate change is occurring and that it will have an impact on the local area.
4. This effort does not require agreement on an overall solution to the problem of global warming. Rather, the point is to encourage the local community to think proactively in order to become more resilient and effective when dealing with the consequences of climate change.
5. This effort is not interested in “reinventing the wheel”. Rather, it recognizes the need to identify “best practices” developed in other communities and regions that could be retrofitted for use in the Upper Peninsula.
6. This effort is not intended to replace the work of existing units of government, planning agencies or other private and nonprofit organizations. Rather, the intent is for it to serve as catalyst prompting established governmental units and other local businesses and organizations to think proactively and develop policies that will enable the community to respond to changing environmental conditions.
7. This effort offers its support for the Paris Climate Accord and the Michigan Healthy Climate Plan in recognition of their ambitious, collaborative, and proactive plans to mitigate the effects of our changing climate.