Railroad titan James J. Hill added a gallery to his sprawling 1891 house on Summit Avenue in St. Paul to showcase his expansive art collection. The room, with its high glass ceiling, still functions as a gallery to show off that collection. But starting Saturday, it will display new works.

The pieces, by ten Minnesota botanical artists, will be just as classic in style, but their subject matter will be a contemporary one: climate change.

“Normally we exhibit work here that focuses on our permanent collection, which consists of many images of [the Minnesota] landscape. So I thought it was an interesting contemporary bookend to our collection to focus on botanically trained artists who are taking a very scientific approach, in a very quiet in a sort of way, to our changing climate,” said Minnesota Historical Society curator Brian Szott.

The pieces in “Art from the Edge of the Boreal Forest: Reflecting Biodiversity” focus on the tree species in northern Minnesota that are most vulnerable to climate change and the wildlife species that depend on them. The trees include balsam poplar, the balsam fir and the jack pine.

Winters have warmed about five to six degrees in northern Minnesota since 1970, and that’s taken a toll on the boreal forest where those trees live.

“A boreal forest relies heavily on a long, cold winters and short, warm summers with ample rainfall,” Szott said. “When that balance starts to change, the trees and the ecosystem start to break down.”

Already, trees such as red maples that grow further south are moving into the region.

“That's what's so significant about this exhibition title, because it's ‘From the Edge of the Boreal Forest,’ which is that southern part of this great biome that spans most of northern North America. But it's also the boreal forest on the edge of some significant changes,” Szott said.

Artist Marj Davis and her colleagues featured in the exhibit spent 10 years on the project. In that time, she said, she’s noticed the hotter summers and more damaging storms associated with climate change.

“Sometimes when we look at big problems, it's hard to figure out what you can do as an individual,” Davis said. “But this gives me personally a lot of satisfaction.”

The exhibit runs through June 21 and is free with admission to the James J. Hill House.

Australia's deadly wildfires is the latest climate crisis to shake people across the globe. Some are shaken to action while others are in stunned paralysis. So how do people in both camps move forward?

It's a conversation St. Paul Public Libraries is hoping to foster with its Read Brave program. The annual reading program and event series asks residents to collectively focus on a big issue, and this year it’s climate change.

“Our goal with this program is not to give any prescriptive solutions. We don’t have the answers. But what we know is that all of us together can probably figure this out,” said libraries Director Catherine Penkert. “We think this is a way we can play a role in sparking those conversations.”

Penkert offered book recommendations for all age groups on this week’s Climate Cast. And the author of one of those books weighs in on the deadly wildfires in Australia.

A recent study in the journal Nature says the Greenland ice sheet is now melting seven times faster than in the ‘90s. Why should we care? Faster melt means faster sea level rise, and that puts an extra 400 million people at flood risk by 2100, according to the same study.

It was a hot topic among attendees at last month's American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Two of them, University of St. Thomas professor John Abraham and world-renowned climate scientist Kevin Trenberth sent Climate Cast an audio postcard with their thoughts.

To hear it, click play on the audio player above.