Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light

The More They Build, The More They Make: How Utilities Plan for Profit
2025-10-23 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Chicago) | Zoom
Utility companies make money when they build energy infrastructure. The cost of that infrastructure is passed on to customers through rate hikes – like the 13% rate increase Xcel is proposing right now. How can we tell if what utilities propose are the things that best serve our pocketbooks and communities?
Join us for a webinar to learn more about the way utilities are incentivized to build infrastructure and how that affects our rates. We will also be joined by Brian Edstrom, Senior Regulatory Advocate for the Citizens Utility Board, to discuss the current Xcel Rate Case that is open for public comment through the end of the year.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

When a Data Center Comes to Town: What Are Minnesota Communities Getting (or Losing) from Data Centers?
2025-11-06 12:00 - 13:00
Giant tech companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon are building massive data centers across the country in anticipation of generative AI uses.

But do these data centers benefit the communities they’re built in? What sort of impact do they have on the people who live around them, the water and land, the environment and our climate?
Join us for a webinar about how data centers have impacted communities in other parts of the country, and learn what you can do when these companies come to town.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

Why Are Our Electric Utilities Structured Like This?
2025-11-20 12:00 - 13:00
Have you ever wondered how the electric utility industry works? Or why its financing, business practices, technologies, resources, and regulatory structures look the way they do in various places around the country? The history of utilities in the United States is filled with controversy and compromise. Understanding that history can reveal what’s possible for political action today at the local, state, or federal level.
Join MNIPL and Ben Kodres-O’Brien, who will share his insights about the industry’s history—and how that history could or could not inform efforts of policymakers, activists, and other changemakers in Minnesota and beyond.
Ben is a PhD Candidate at Columbia University. His dissertation examines the history and political economy of the electric utility industry, and how past policies have affected and been limited by the diverse mix of technologies and generating resources in use within the United States.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

November Policy Team Meeting
2025-11-20 16:00 - 17:15
Engaging in policy brings climate action to scale – and everyone has a voice to share. This month we’ll talk about what we’re learning from COP 30 and how we can work meaningfully in this moment of our planet’s climate crisis. We’ll also cover actions that are important to bring to our policymakers now.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

Quarterly Community Offering - Winter 2025
2025-12-10 12:00 - 13:00
Through the year and beyond, we’ll be hosting Quarterly Movement Offerings near every solstice and equinox, which will be opportunities to share what we’re working on and hear from you what you’re paying most attention to. Each session will have information about the state of climate justice work here and abroad, an opportunity to reconnect us to the importance of building a more equitable and interdependent world, and tangible action steps our communities can take to move us forward.
Join us for a special Winter Community Offering with tribal rights attorney and land history consultant Jessica Intermill. We will explore the Doctrine of Discovery and how it continues to shape our relationship to land, Native sovereignty, and climate justice. Together, we will chart a course of learning, reflection, action, and opportunities for repair.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP FOR THE WINTER QUARTERLY COMMUNITY OFFERING

December Policy Team Meeting
2025-12-11 16:00 - 17:15
MNIPL has several legislative goals we’re aiming to support this session. Learn about them and see what might resonate for your community group or congregation. We’ll be planning ways to support this work at the State Capitol this year.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

Community Climate Resilience Hubs – December Gathering
2025-12-16 18:30 - 20:00
Our Minnesota communities are already feeling the impacts of climate change, from widespread drought to bigger and more dangerous storms. Our neighbors are going to need support in building the relationships, infrastructure, and support to prevent and adapt to the realities of climate disruption. Minnesota’s communities of faith, and community organizations are uniquely poised to meet this particular moment.
That’s why MNIPL is launching the Community Climate Resilience Network. These trainings and conversations will bring together organizations throughout the state that are interested in meeting this moment. We’ll cover topics like, “What are Resilience Hubs?”, building good and right relationships with your communities, and emergency preparedness with experts in the field.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP FOR THE DECEMBER SESSION!

MNIPL Winter Book Club: Here Comes the Sun
2026-01-08 18:30 - 19:45
This winter, MNIPL is launching a Winter Book Club to read inspiring works speaking to this moment in our collective climate crisis. If you’ve been wondering how to access hope for your continued work on climate action, these books are for you! Please join us!
Every month January – March, we’ll read a recent book to learn about innovative approaches to addressing climate change and to discuss how these ideas could work in our local context.
Here Comes the Sun tells the story of the sudden spike in power from the sun and wind-and the desperate fight of the fossil fuel industry and their politicians to hold this new power at bay. From the everyday citizens who installed solar panels equal to a third of Pakistan’s electric grid in a year to the world’s sixth-largest economy-California-nearly halving its use of natural gas in the last two years, Bill McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy.
We will talk about our reactions to the book and the ways we can speed up this already stunning revolution.

No time to read? Here are a few of my favorite conversations about central ideas in the book:

Bill’s interview with Lisa Smith on Big Bend Radio (26 minutes)
Lengthier discussion on his book tour with Adirondack Explorer (1 hour 16 minutes)
Big Ideas Radio (11 minutes)

Purchase here or from your favorite book purveyor.
RSVP HERE!!

Reparations Learning Lab January 2026
2026-01-28 12:00 - 13:00
Join us for our 2026 Reparations Learning Lab series! Learning Labs are one hour sessions where we learn, reflect, workshop real life questions, and commit towards action. You are welcome to attend regularly or to simply come when and as you are able.
For our first session, we will host a conversation between tribal rights attorney and land history consultant Jessica Intermill and former state senator Patricia Torres Ray about moving from the extractive framework built by the Doctrine of Discovery to a generative framework of recognizing the inherent right of wild rice to exist and thrive in Minnesota.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

MNIPL Winter Book Club: Mini-Forest Revolution
2026-02-05 18:30 - 19:45
This winter, MNIPL is launching a Winter Book Club to read inspiring works speaking to this moment in our collective climate crisis. If you’ve been wondering how to access hope for your continued work on climate action, these books are for you! Please join us!
Every month January – March, we’ll read a recent book to learn about innovative approaches to addressing climate change and to discuss how these ideas could work in our local context.
Mini-Forest Revolution is about a movement to restore biodiversity in our cities and towns by transforming empty lots, backyards, and degraded land into mini-forests. Author Hannah Lewis is the forest maker turning asphalt into ecosystems to save the planet and she wants everyone to know they can do it too.
In this session, we will talk about our reactions to the book, and possibilities for employing mini-forests to benefit our communities and climate.

No time to read? These videos and audio discussions share the central ideas.

Mini-forests: Hannah Lewis discusses the Miyawaki Method (59 minutes)
The Mini-Forest Revolution radio discussion with Hannah Lewis sharing stories of communities who have built mini-forests. (39 minutes)

Purchase from Chelsea Green Publishing or your favorite book purveyor.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!!

Reparations Learning Lab February 2026
2026-02-25 12:00 - 13:00
Join us for our 2026 Reparations Learning Lab series! Learning Labs are one hour sessions where we learn, reflect, workshop real life questions, and commit towards action. You are welcome to attend regularly or to simply come when and as you are able.
More details to come on the topic of this session.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!

MNIPL Winter Book Club: About Power
2026-03-05 18:30 - 19:45
This winter, MNIPL is launching a Winter Book Club to read inspiring works speaking to this moment in our collective climate crisis. If you’ve been wondering how to access hope for your continued work on climate action, these books are for you! Please join us!
Every month January – March, we’ll read a recent book to learn about innovative approaches to addressing climate change and to discuss how these ideas could work in our local context.
A primary reason we have accelerating Climate Chaos and profound societal inequity is that society delivers electric utility services upside down and backwards. On the demand-side, electric utilities are healthier financially when they emit more pollution, and conservation reduces their earnings. On the supply side, big, very expensive power lines are being built to accommodate renewable energy development.
While acknowledging a host of existential threats, About Power by George Crocker makes the case that society’s major problems can be reduced, if not solved, with proper management of energy resources.
In this session, we will explore the ideas regarding how to of “end-use” analysis to estimate our energy needs (to put it another way, how much power would we need if we were using energy efficient things in our life).
We will discuss pages 113 – 184, including Crocker’s recommendations for moving forward.

Write On Radio (KFAI) discussion with George Crocker (50 minutes)

Purchase from Bookshop.org or your favorite book purveyor.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP!!

Reparations Learning Lab March 2026
2026-03-25 12:00 - 13:00

Reparations Learning Lab April 2026
2026-04-29 12:00 - 13:00
