Some say hope is dangerous, or maybe worse, an illusion. Francis Bacon called hope “a good breakfast, but a bad supper.” Fine to start off with but not enough to see you through the day. All respect to Mr. Bacon, but I need to disagree.

If, as Shakespeare writes, our lives are played out on the world’s stage, then hope occupies a starring role. It is a key cast member throughout the twists and turns of our ages, and exists within each of us whether we recognize it or not. That’s a good thing because life is often a struggle, and hope is a powerful force for change.

No matter what we start out expecting, a lot can happen between the beginning and end of anything—be it a meal, a day, or a lifetime. Linda Ellis writes of this space as The Dash—all the time, choices, feelings, and memories that unfurl between a first moment and the last. Sometimes, like Ellis writes, that dash connects the beginning of a life to its end.

It’s important to remember, too, that each of us treads multiple dashes every day. They’re there between wedding vows and divorce papers, the first chemo treatment and the news you’re cancer free. A dash connects the first day of school to the last, a first word to a graduation speech, and the spring to the fall and back again—and again.

But dashes also find themselves between the drip of a coffeemaker and the last sip, the starting page of a book and The End. The first note of a song, the first step on a trail, the first bud on a lilac, and all that follows after. And, not to forget Mr. Bacon, each year there are 365 dashes between breakfast and supper.

Unfortunately, to this day, hope still often gets a bad rap. Hard to define, misunderstood, sometimes seen as the lazy way out: sitting back and hoping things get better instead of doing something about it.

But, what if the hoping was the doing?

While climate change can feel enormous, it can also be deeply personal. Add on politically charged, and climate change becomes especially hard to talk about. Yet, communities and classrooms cannot respond fully to the climate crisis without also addressing how people experience it. Fear, grief, anger, uncertainty, and hope all shape whether people engage, withdraw, connect with each other, or take action.

Climate conversations are not easy. Yet, talking about climate change can also be an opportunity to build trust, strengthen community, and help people imagine ways forward together.
The HOPE Framework can help.

Why should we talk about climate change? Because it’s here. It’s global. It’s more than just the climate that is changing. And, talking about what’s happening is a first step toward doing something about it. 

Climate change can feel like a challenging subject to talk about with young people—but adults don’t need to have all the answers. Stories offer a welcoming place to start. Through books, films, podcasts, artwork, and shared experiences, children can explore climate ideas, express complicated emotions, and imagine hopeful possibilities. Discover practical conversation starters and resources that can help families and educators listen, learn, and take action together—one story at a time.

paleBLUEdot developed ACTIONtracker from more than a decade of experience helping local governments plan, measure, and communicate climate and sustainability progress.

The July 2026 wildfires in northeastern Minnesota brought evacuations, wilderness closures, and record smoke across the Midwest. The event shows why wildfire, smoke, public health, and emergency preparedness must now be part of community climate-resilience planning.

Climate mobility is already shaping housing, infrastructure, and land-use decisions. Learn how to connect vulnerability assessments, climate action plans, and comprehensive plans.

A practical carbon management hierarchy for public climate plans: reduce emissions first, protect existing ecosystems, restore land, evaluate industrial capture carefully, and use removals or offsets only with transparent accounting.

Industrial carbon capture is not just a facility technology. It requires transport, storage, monitoring, emergency planning, permitting, community engagement, and long-term accountability.

Biological carbon capture through trees, prairies, wetlands, and soils is best understood as land stewardship. These strategies can store carbon while also supporting resilience, biodiversity, water quality, and public health, but they should complement—not replace—direct emissions reductions.

Carbon management includes avoided emissions, industrial capture, engineered carbon removal, and biological sequestration. Public-sector climate plans should distinguish these tools clearly and prioritize direct emissions reductions first.

Carbon neutral and net zero goals can help communities align local action with climate science. This post explains how local climate plans can make those goals clearer by defining what counts.

Safe streets projects can do more than prevent crashes. When planned with climate goals in mind, they can support mode shift, transit access, shade, stormwater management, and community resilience.

If your community greenhouse gas inventory is out of date, it may be harder to prioritize climate action, report progress, and align implementation with today’s conditions. Here is how local governments can turn an inventory refresh into a practical planning tool.

After your CCAP, Climate Action Plan, or Sustainability Plan is done, local and regional climate teams need implementation workplans, project scopes, partner roles, and reporting routines. This is how you do it.

How local governments can turn cooling-center lists into practical heat resilience systems.

A practical guide for local governments turning climate vulnerability work into grant-ready resilience projects.

A common sentiment is that EV drivers get a “free ride” when it comes to paying for our roads. In Minnesota, the reality might surprise you.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 41 states now require a special registration fee for battery-electric vehicles, also called BEVs, zero-emission vehicles, or alternative-fuel vehicles. The question now is if they are paying too much.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are transforming transportation by lowering emissions, cutting fuel costs, and helping communities transition away from fossil fuels. For cities pursuing sustainability, energy resilience, or climate goals, investing in public EV charging is essential—not redundant. While many drivers can charge at home, a robust public charging network ensures equitable access for those who cannot, supports plug-in hybrid users, strengthens the local economy, and accelerates broader EV adoption.

Clean water is one of our communities’ most valuable resources—and one that depends on how we design and care for our shared spaces. From neighborhood parks to city streets, thoughtful stormwater management plays a vital role in protecting lakes, rivers, and groundwater. At paleBLUEdot, we help communities develop community sustainability and climate action plans that include a focus on implementing Best Management Practices (BMPs) to naturally filter and reduce polluted runoff while supporting healthy ecosystems and resilient neighborhoods.

A site’s solar feasibility is largely determined by return on investment, which depends on state net metering policies and utility interconnection tariffs. When full net metering isn’t available, or system sizes exceed tariff limits, ROI becomes harder to predict and requires estimating how much energy will be used on-site versus exported to the grid. To better understand this, the paleBLUEdot team researched typical on-site solar consumption by building type. This post shares our findings.

Climate action is not a trade-off against growth—it’s a catalyst for it. Cities with ambitious CAPs are not only leading in sustainability but also creating jobs, attracting investment, and building a resilient economy for decades to come.

Data centers are springing up everywhere and their massive energy and water demands can have detrimental environmental impacts on our communities. Luckily there are a number of things communities can do to not only protect their environment but also attract sustainability-minded data center developers to invest in their community.

Extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S., prompting the Department of Homeland Security to issue new guidelines for extreme temperature response plans. Though not enforceable, these guidelines are incentivized through grant programs, as noted by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. President Biden doubled the funding for FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities initiative to $2.3 billion, aimed at reducing vulnerability to extreme temperatures.

Calculate how much your household might get from the Inflation Reduction Act!
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act introduces tax credits promoting cleaner energy adoption, addressing climate change and reducing energy costs. The Act supports buying used electric vehicles, energy-efficient home improvements, and clean energy units. It also safeguards households from energy price volatility, facilitates job creation in clean energy, and ensures benefits reach disadvantaged communities.

In our last post we revealed that a large majority of respondents to our Climate Adaption Surveys feel both well informed on the topic (80%) and are concerned (76%) about climate change.  But why do they feel this way? What signs have they noticed?

An essential step in the Climate Action Plans we develop for communities is our Climate Adaption Survey. This survey consists of a series of over 20 questions, giving us a demographic profile of the respondents, insights regarding how they feel about climate change in general, and details about specific concerns as well. While we study the survey results for each community when we’re working on their CAP, until now we have never compiled the data into an overall analysis of what we’re finding out.

When thinking about reducing transportation sector emissions, most people think of high-profile solutions like electric vehicles, mass transit, or carpooling as the solutions to reducing carbon emissions from transportation. But there are other creative approaches some cities are taking.