This blog has provided information lots of things, including the flip-flop changes that US Water Law has undergone in since the Obama administration adopted the  Waters of the US Rule.   You can check these out (going back in time) in these posts: 

• Changes to the Waters of the US Rule will reduce protections -  February 2020
• WOTUS and the Clean Water Rule open for public comment - February 2019
• LWV UMRR Advocacy Update - December 2018
• EPA's Clean Water Rule - what would repeal mean?  - August 2017

​Well, good news for the environment came on October 21, as describe here in a post from the Western Environmental Law Center - here's the highlights - (read the article at this link for the full story)- "Late last night, fishing and recreation advocates won a significant victory for clean water when a federal district court threw out (vacated) a critical Trump Clean Water Act rule. Today’s order from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California restores state and Tribal authority to ensure federally permitted activities in rivers and lakes comply fully with state and Tribal law. The Biden administration had planned to revise the rule to an unknown degree through a years-long public process. This court decision erases the Trump rule completely and immediately."

On to Soil Health News:  The Izaac Walton League has published a new comprehensive review of existing research on soil health and carbon sequestration.  This research comes from a University of Maryland scientist, Dr. Sara Via, and shows that increasing the use of common agricultural practices that improve soil health will slow climate change while producing multiple other environmental and economic benefits. In the report, “Increasing Soil Health and Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture: A Natural Climate Solution,” Dr. Sara Via discusses how rebuilding our degraded agricultural soils and acting on climate change are related problems that require urgent action.  
Dr. Via writes, “the practices recommended in this report provide a low-cost and immediately available way to reduce atmospheric carbon. Given the wide array of co-benefits associated with these practices, increasing their use is an investment in U.S. agriculture that will pay economic and environmental dividends for years to come.”
The report was published in collaboration with the Izaak Walton League of America and the National Wildlife Federation, and is available at this link: www.iwla.org/publications/news/press-release/2021/10/13/viareport 

If you have questions or would like to discuss the report, contact: Duane Hovorka, Agriculture Program Director, Izaak Walton League of America, DHovorka@iwla.org, (402) 804-0033 (cell).  

If you are feeling nervous, relax; you’re normal.  It shows that you care about our earth and its living things, including people. 
 
Climate anxiety is also known as eco-anxiety, defined as “chronic fear of environmental doom” by the American Psychological Association, which is concerned that climate anxiety is increasing the rates of depressive and anxiety disorders.  Nearly a year ago, an American Psychiatric Association poll found that 55% of Americans are somewhat or extremely anxious about the impact of climate change on their own mental health.
 
Some degree of climate anxiety is good.  In fact, some substitute the term “eco-awareness.”  Some anxiety can galvanize us into taking important actions.  But past a certain point, climate anxiety’s effects become increasingly negative, and this is where some substitute the term “environmental trauma.”  Living with doom and gloom is very ineffective.  We become depressed and hopeless, thinking we can’t do anything about what is happening to our planet.  We avoid thinking about climate change (even deny it) or feel immobilized, and we don’t join with our fellow earthlings to change what we can.
 
The climate crisis can create apathy and burnout.   A report notes that “the ability to process information and make decisions without being disabled by extreme emotional responses is threatened by climate change.”  Fear can cause paralysis.  People who are anxious tend to be avoidant, or they shut down and don’t engage.
 
Susan J. Ray wrote A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet (2020). She said that it’s “a systemic thing that we need all hands on deck to address. We need all the talents, we need all the skills from the artists, to the creative types, to the imagination people, to the children’s book writers, to the teachers to the parents,” in addition to scientists, engineers, and politicians. All of us can contribute in multiple ways to managing our climate.  To ease this feeling of anxiety, turn it around. “Instead of focusing on the fear, you should instead focus on what you want to do,” psychologist Janet Swim said.
 
Ray noted that the climate crisis if affecting every part of our lives. She said that we must change how infrastructure works, how transportation works, how we build our homes, how we live on this planet and walk on this Earth.  It even affects whether we have children.  Ray said that some young adults are choosing “not to have children because they don’t think their children will have a livable future.”
 
So what can we do to deal with our anxiety about the earth’s climate?  We can help ourselves feel more of a sense of control by choosing among these approaches:

• Mindfulness meditation, slow deep breathing, and muscle relaxation can help us cope with intense emotions.  Particularly, mindful time in nature can help us focus on its healing properties, so we have energy and inspiration to help that healing. Spend time on the prairies, lakes, and woods you want to protect. Nature, imperiled as it is, offers healing benefits that can help us feel more at peace.  It is also important to help children experience nature to become resilient people.  Protect and nurture the local green spaces you value.
• Learn about climate issues so we are concerned only about evidence-based aspects of climate.  This helps us blame ourselves less because we realize that it is systems of power and corporations who are responsible, rather than most individuals.  Then we can use our anger positively, to take constructive action.
• But don’t overdo gaining information.  The steady barrage of stories on shrinking rainforests, coral reef destruction, and species down to double (or single) digits can worsen shock and grief.  So we must avoid “doom-scrolling” and ration ourselves to what we can handle. We need to get our information from scientific studies, which give a less sensationalist view.
• Then we can focus as well on the positive things going on in the world, so we balance them with the negative. 
• Take time to care for ourselves—exercise, nutrition, sleep, relationships.  This increases our resilience to difficulties.
• We need to empower ourselves, focusing on what we CAN do.  People who take this approach are less likely to become anxious and depressed.
• We can find out which political candidates will commit to action to reduce climate change and vote for them—then hold them to it.
• When we feel guilty about our overconsumption and habits that contribute to climate change, we can make changes to our lifestyles.  I know people who walk, bike, and carpool whenever they can, and they fly as little as possible. They adjust their thermostat and dress accordingly.  They reduce or eliminate meat, in favor of plant-based protein and grow their own gardens.  They move their investments away from companies that extract and process fossil fuels, and they ask their banks and pensions to do the same.  They ask their power company to give their homes energy checks.  They install green sources of energy and encourage their power companies to do so.  They plant trees and nurture older ones.  Taking actions with our families helps the kids both understand the issue and feel that they are helping deal with it.

As with any anxiety or depression, if your climate anxiety is so intense that you find it hard to sleep or function, help is available.  Ask your local mental health center which therapists can help you learn how to deal with it and use the positive strategies above.
 
Want to convince others that climate change is real?  Telling them what to do is likely to raise their resistance or aversion to thinking about it—people don’t like that.  Instead, just mention, in the course of general conversation, something you are doing for the climate.   You can gently ask what their concerns are for their children and grandchildren’s world as climate changes.  But hammering and nagging tend to be counterproductive.   Be patient with others as you do what you can for the climate.
 
If you are anxious about climate, you are not alone.  One of the best ways to cope is to find groups that raise awareness or work to fight climate change. keep the core values of courage, flexibility, resilience, and compassion.  Working with others who also want to protect the environment can increase your sense of connection and ease the sensation of struggling alone. That emotional and social support can help boost resilience, increasing your optimism and hope. 
 
*Kay Slama, from the Willmar MN chapter of LWV, grew up on a family farm in ND.  She is a clinical psychologist who is retired from practice and from adjunct faculty positions with the UM Medical School Dept. of Psychiatry and St. Mary’s University’s doctoral counseling program.  She is active with the Sierra Club and the Willmar Area Climate Action Group, and she serves as her church Social Justice Co-Chair.  Kay’s most recent professional submission is “Women and the Existential Climate Crisis”, provisionally accepted by The Humanistic Psychologist.  She says, “I volunteer for climate and other environmental issues because so much is at stake:  Our water, land, soil, health, and the future of our children and the Earth.”  She enjoys racket sports, biking, canoeing, reading, music, and gardening, and she spends several months each year in outdoor travel, birding, and photography.

 The problems of water quality are shared by rural and urban Minnesotans.  The solutions have to be shared, too.  

The first Ag-Urban Partnership Forum was held on November 18, 2019 and is documented in a detailed .pdf found at this post on the Minnesota River Data Center website.  

The LWV US Tool Kit for Climate Action is an excellent resource for getting started.   Take some time to explore this website - the menu on the right has links to a wide array of information, advice and examples.