Climate Cast

Minnesota’s prairie, in the southwestern part of the state, is a biodiverse ecosystem that’s home to buffalo, bees and tall grass. In the book, "Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie," Josephine Marcotty and Dave Hage dig into the significance prairies have to the climate. MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner talks with Hage in depth about the American prairie. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. What drew you to write about the American prairie?The book grew out of a series that Josephine wrote when we were both working with the Minnesota Star Tribune. She was the environment reporter. I was her editor. She had come across a pair of remarkable studies, which showed that today, we are plowing up the continent's remaining grasslands. That's grasslands west of here, into the Dakotas and Montana. We're plowing them up at the rate of a million acres a year. That's about as fast as we're destroying the Amazon rainforest. It's an environmental catastrophe, but nobody's paying attention. It's bad for wildlife, it's bad for clean water and it's especially bad for climate change.How do you think about the prairie in a climate context?These grasslands are one of the greatest carbon sinks on the planet. Grasses inhale carbon dioxide from the air. They exhale oxygen. They take the carbon from that carbon dioxide, and they store it deep underground in Prairie soils. You know, these grasses can have roots that go 8-12 feet deep. It’s estimated that the world's grassland soils hold about a third of all terrestrial carbon stocks. Jo Handelsman at the University of Wisconsin says grassland soils hold more carbon than human beings have emitted since the Industrial Revolution. When you plow open those grasslands, you release all that carbon into the atmosphere and you accelerate climate change.Tell us a little bit about how Minnesota is working on plans to protect the prairies.In Minnesota, we still have like 1-4 percent of the original native prairie. You find it in patches around southwestern and western Minnesota. But Minnesota is also home to the largest prairie restoration project in the United States. It's called Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge. It's up near Crookston, Minn., which was running out of clean water because of agricultural pollution. And they said, “Look, if we can convert this back to prairie, one of the things that prairie plants do is that they filter water and they give you clean groundwater.” They said to the city of Crookston, “We can guarantee you years and years supply of clean water, and so now you can go to Glacial Ridge.” It's just beautiful, huge expanse of tall grasses and wildflowers and butterflies and bees, and it's a magnificent spot.What's your main message about climate change and the prairie?Here's an amazing statistic we came across. There's a beautiful researcher, Tyler Lark at the University of Wisconsin, who does amazing work. He's become a buddy of ours, and here are just two data points from Tyler Lark’s work: One, he estimates that our current rate of plowing up grasslands is the same as adding 11 million cars to the road every year. It's releasing that much carbon as 11 million new cars to the road. But conversely, he also estimated that if we can just protect the remaining grasslands and wetlands in our part of the country, we could meet 20 percent of our commitments under the Paris Climate Change accords just by leaving prairies and wetlands alone, protecting what we've still got.

Earth’s oceans continued to reach record-high temperatures in 2025. And those hotter oceans are fueling stronger and wetter storms.St. Thomas University researcher John Abraham, who reported these findings with his colleagues in the journal “Advances in Atmospheric Sciences,” joined Climate Cast to talk about how the latest research on Earth’s warmer oceans affects the people of Minnesota.

It’s not your imagination — the cost of your home insurance is going up. Weather-related extreme events have sent homeowners’ insurance rates skyrocketing. Federal budget cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency will exacerbate these issues, particularly affecting state budgets and risk reduction efforts. In Minnesota, homeowners insurance rates increased the last decade due to hail damage, leading to non-renewals and some companies leaving the market. Jordan Haedtler, a climate financial policy strategist with Climate Cabinet, based in Duluth, talks with MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner about climate-change-fueled risks and steps the state Legislature is taking to address to address the issues.

Weather data suggests Minnesota has warmed more than three degrees in the past 150 years, and the state’s winters have warmed more than five degrees since 1970.So how are Minnesotans seeing and feeling these climate changes? “Here in Minnesota, we are experiencing climate change predominantly in the winter,” said Kristoffer Tigue, a reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune.“We base a lot of our culture around our winters, and so to have our winters being the season that's changing the most, I think it tells a narrative of the direction we’re going as a state.”Tigue explained that the state is experiencing warmer winters, an increase in precipitation and melting. Tigue wrote about the many ways Minnesotans are seeing climate change — from warmer falls, to a lack of foliage color and wildfire smoke. Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Minnesota has a goal to move toward 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040.That will have significant impacts on certain parts of the state where coal plays a major part in the economy — like Itasca County.So, how are people in this part of northern Minnesota adapting?Itasca County Commissioner John Johnson spoke about how the county is planning for the transition.Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Minnesota may be a long way from the ocean, but we have great seafood options.So, how can we choose and prepare seafood that’s delicious and climate sustainable?A new cookbook called “The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Seafood Recipes for a Sustainable Future” has some ideas.Minnesota native and four-time James Beard award-winning chef Andrew Zimmern co-wrote the book with seafood expert Barton Seaver.Zimmern shared tips and recipe ideas with Climate Cast host Paul Huttner.Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

Almost 15 million acres in the Midwest grow corn on the same land year after year. That’s about 20 percent of all Midwest cropland.Growing corn in this way produces more greenhouse gas emissions than crop rotation because it releases more nitrous oxide — a greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.That’s according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.But cost-effective, climate-smart practices can reduce these emissions in a big way.Anne Schechinger is lead author of the analysis, and she shared more about the findings as well as solutions to offset the climate impacts of continuous corn with Climate Cast host Paul Huttner.Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode, or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.