New innovations in LED lighting has created a jump in light pollution. The blue light of these LEDs can lead to more health problems for humans. This video was created to give an overview of light pollution, what it is, how it affects us and what we can do to combat it. To see video, follow this link: https://vimeo.com/296543107.
Created by Carleton College students Isaac Reynaldo, Lance Xiong, & Alan Zheng.
Category Archives: Focus: Land
Northfield Urban Forest Management Plan (Proposed)
The plan was developed by Katie Himanga in 2014 but never officially adopted by the City.
Searching for Solar: Applying the Path of Least Resistance, a Case Study of Solar Gardens in Farming
This study investigates solar garden siting decision-making processes to examine why there are currently three solar gardens in Farmington, MN and no solar gardens in Lakeville, MN. As previous environmental justice literature has demonstrated, energy facilities are often distributed unequally across the landscape, placing greater burdens on low-income, minority communities–a siting pattern known as the Path of Least Resistance. With the recent growth of renewable energy across southern Minnesota, there remains limited knowledge on the solar garden siting process, and specifically whether there are any distributional or procedural injustices present in the siting process. Therefore, utilizing a common environmental justice framework, the Path of Least Resistance, we evaluated the political ability of citizens to resist solar garden sitings in order to answer our research questions: Do citizens in Farmington and Lakeville view solar gardens as locally undesirable land uses (LULUs)? And to what extent does differentiated political ability to resist solar garden sitings explain the development of three solar gardens in Farmington, MN and the lack of solar gardens in Lakeville, MN? To address this question, we conducted twenty-five semi-structured interviews with Farmington and Lakeville residents and decision-makers, as well as solar experts to determine the citizens’ sentiments regarding solar gardens and how decision-makers decide where to site solar gardens. Based on patterns identified in the interviews, most Farmington and Lakeville residents do not view solar gardens as undesirable land uses. Additionally, we discovered that decision-makers site solar gardens based on land value and availability and utility company coverage. Finally, we saw no evidence of differentiated political ability to resist solar garden sitings between Farmington and Lakeville, and therefore determined that the siting process for solar gardens does not appear to follow the Path of Least Resistance.
Northfield Pollinator Friendly Resolution
Adopted May 17, 2016, this resolution commits the city to best management practices for pollinator preservation.
Northfield Comprehensive Plan
MN Statute 462.353 subd. I authorizes the city to adopt a comprehensive plan setting out objectives for the physical, social, and economic development of the community. This plan is due to be updated in 2018.
Factors Influencing Farmers’ Support for the Minnesota Buffer Law
Factors Influencing Farmers’ Support for the Minnesota Buffer Law: A Cross-County Case Study of Rice and Dakota Counties
Vegetative buffers are a Best Management Practice that have been well studied as a regulatory tool for agricultural non-point source pollution control. In 2015, the Minnesota State Legislature passed the Minnesota Buffer Law mandating buffer establishment on all public waterways and ditches. This study investigates farmers’ support for the Minnesota Buffer Law in Rice and Dakota Counties. Our study examines farmers’ support for environmental practices through legally mandated regulation, an area of study that scholars have note addressed in the literature on Best Management Practice adoption. We collected data from interviews with farmers and various stakeholders to address the question: do local situational variable and farmers’ personal attitudes influence support for the Minnesota Buffer Law in Rice and Dakota Counties? We found that the interplay between farmers’ personal values and local situational variables is an important category in our results. We propose a cyclical framework in which the relationship between attitudes and policy is reciprocal and a change in policy may affect attitudes through learning about details of a policy by experiencing it, or through a change in social norms and framing.
History of Hatpin
GNSC partnered with St. Olaf professor John Schade’s ENVS capstone seminar and commissioned a history of sustainable development in Northfield. This paper, by Rachel Berg, offers a brief history of an important Northfield environmental group, HATPIN, which was active in the 1970s to 2002.
Ethics of Carleton College Deer Hunt
Students in Prof. Smith’s 2016 Environmental Ethics course evaluated the ethics of using a two-week deer hunt to manage the deer population in Cowling Arboretum. The analysis considers both ecosystem value and animal welfare concerns.
Northfield Area – Bird City
We will be convening the second Northfield Area – Bird City meeting on Thursday, February 11th from 5:15-6:30pm at Just Food Co-op. Together, residents, groups and officials improve habitat in the community, reduce threats to birds, and engage people to promote increased interest in and access to nature. Because of your work in the community it would be great to hear your ideas as we work together on moving this initiative forward. If anyone has any questions or concerns, please contact South Metro Community Coordinator Avery Hildebrand with Conservation Minnesota and Audubon Minnesota.
Ole Thrift Shop
Founded in May 2013, the Ole Thrift Shop is a student-led business committed to increasing the sustainability of St. Olaf College by extending the life-cycle of goods that would normally be discarded.
We are dedicated to empowering students with the knowledge of how their purchasing choices can be both environmentally conscious and economical, and aim to establish responsible consumerism as a practice that is continued by students throughout their lifetime.
Ole Thrift Shop collects gently-used goods on St. Olaf campus for a week during May. During the next school year Ole Thrift Shop holds sales open to the Northfield Community in order to recycle these goods.