Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Open Access Master's Report

Degree Name

Master of Science in Sustainable Communities (MS)

Administrative Home Department

Department of Social Sciences

Advisor 1

Chelsea Schelly

Committee Member 1

Daniel Shtob

Committee Member 2

Kayla Gabehart

Abstract

Climate change will especially impact marginalized communities and communities with less government support for funding climate adaptation actions. The first chapter of this report focuses on climate change responses, specifically Tribal Nations in the state of Michigan. In the current U.S. context, funding for large climate change mitigation and adaptation projects in Tribal Nations can be achieved through federal funding from the CPRG (Climate Pollution Reduction Grant), which requires an established PCAP (Priority Climate Action Plans) to guide decision making in alignment with identified priorities. I discuss the importance of Tribal sovereignty, the potential implications of its inclusion and exclusion within climate planning documentation, and the direct and indirect mentions of sovereignty, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), and Nature-based Solutions (NbS) within PCAPs developed by the Tribal Nations in the state of Michigan. The second chapter of my report focuses on a survey that was created and deployed to two Tribal Nations in the colonial state of Michigan located near Michigan Technological University that noted that they would like to implement EV (electric vehicle) infrastructure in the first cohort of the WGLEN (Western Great Lakes Electric Nation) project; this chapter of the report will go over the findings from using an engagement form to better understand perceptions of EVs and will focus solely on the Tribal Nations in the state of Michigan, as this is where the engagement forms were deployed. Results indicate that the rurality of Tribal Nations in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan may contribute to the lack of knowledge, negative perceptions and opinions of EVs.

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