Reed Aronow is on a 350-mile bike trek to de-politicize one of the most politically divisive of issues — global warming.

“There are people who want to politicize it, but if you make it solution-based, people want to talk about it,” said Aronow at a stop at the St. Peter Food Co-op Sunday evening.

“It doesn’t matter your opinions on climate change, it’s talking about how do you make energy cleaner and American-based, how are farmers making agriculture more sustainable. People want to talk about that.”

Maia Dedrick, who joined Aronow on the recent leg from Montevideo, down the Minnesota River Valley to St. Peter, said part of the goal of the bike trip is to gather stories and information that she, Aronow and eight others between the ages of 20 and 26 will bring to an international climate summit later this year.

“We’ll bring the message of why climate change is important to the Midwest,” she said.

The bike expedition is an offshoot of the Will Steger Foundation, which chose 10 young people to attend the UN Conference On Climate Change in Copenhagen this December, where a new global climate accord will be negotiated.

The bike trip started in Minneapolis on Oct. 10 and makes a wide loop through the center of the state, including St. Cloud, Montevideo, St. Peter, Rochester, Lake City and ending with a rally Saturday at the State Capitol.

Small and large groups of bikers have been joining Aronow, of St. Paul, for a few hours or several days on the trip. Along the way they are talking to school and church groups and visiting farms and small towns where clean energy projects are underway.

“One reason for the bike trip is to not just focus on the Twin Cities area. I think we focus too much on that sometimes and not the rural areas,” said Aronow. “There are all these things going on in rural Minnesota in regard to clean energy and sustainability.”

On the Web: www.350.org