The Mill Race Farmer’s Market will be at the center of many of the activities on Friday, beginning at 5 p.m.

The farmer’s market will mark the starting and finishing point of a 5k run and 3k walk. The course will proceed south on the Mill Race trail and make a loop in Shanklin Park.

Registration for the race begins at 5 p.m. (the cost is $20), and the race begins at 6 p.m. Participants can save $5 if they register early online.

The farmer’s market will also host an exposition of over ten local environmental organizations.

Among these groups are Earth Group, the Elkhart River Alliance, the Soil/Water Conservation/Storm Water Partnership and Chain Reaction.

Music will also be part of the festivities on Friday, with the farmer’s market hosting Double Barrel Darrel from 5-7:30 p.m. and the Wooden Pegs from 7:30-9 p.m.

At 7 p.m., there will be a short discussion on community gardening. Discussion will focus on linking together the donors of seeds, time, expertise and land.

This issue seems especially important in a time with such a low unemployment rate. Paul Steury, Merry Lea education coordinator, said, “I’m very excited and hopeful about [the meeting]. Why not grow a large area with produce and give it away to those that need some good local food?”

New World Arts is also participating in Green Day in its own unique way. “Improv Battle Royale,” will “recycle” games from the popular shows “Whose Line is it Anyway” and “Comedy Sports.” There will be a family friendly show at 7 p.m. and an adult-oriented show at 9 p.m.

Choose between a variety of activities and bike, walk or run downtown to support First Friday’s Green Day. For more information, visit http://www.gofridays.com.

Benito Miller bangs on a drum circle made by Alex Troyer during the hour of darkness known as Earth Hour. The drumming and noisemaking grew to thunderous proportions when the lights went out at 8:30, Saturday. Photo by Chase Snyder.

It was only an hour, but Goshen College joined 50 million people around the world on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. to raise awareness about global climate change and energy consumption by turning off unnecessary lights during Earth Hour, sponsored by World Wildlife Fund.

W.W.F. recognized Goshen College as a “flagship campus” along with 79 other college campuses across the United States. Glenn Gilbert , utilities manager of Physical Plant, signed the college up for the event. But to become a “flagship campus” President Brenneman signed a commitment to have events held on campus to celebrate Earth Hour.

During the hour, students gathered in the Kratz-Miller residence hall Connector for a drum circle and to watch a video projection of the campus electrical meter to see how many kilowatts the campus was using. Steve Shantz, systems operation technician for Physical Plant, was available to answer student questions about campus energy use.

According to W.W.F., 35 countries and over 400 cities also participated in the event. The first Earth Hour happened in 2007 in Sydney, Australia.

Gilbert said that during the hour the campus was using about 430 kilowatts, about the amount of electricity typically used at 3 a.m. “I thought we might get a little lower than that, but it’s not too bad,” Gilbert said.

The production of “The Gondoliers” likely accounted for much of that usage. But they too participated in Earth Hour.

As intermission ended around 9:20 p.m. (ten minutes before the end of Earth Hour), the operetta observed an “Earth Minute.” During the minute, all the lights in Umble were turned off as Grace Magnan, a senior environmental science and theater double major, spoke about the event being held on campus and around the world.

So how much money did Goshen save? “About $15,” Gilbert said. “Lights when needed are a bargain, but when used unnecessarily are a waste.”

And finding a balance between using lights when necessary and recognizing lights that are on around campus that are wasteful is a challenge Gilbert has been working on for years and continues to work on today.

According to Gilbert, he and others working at the Physical Plant are looking for ways to cut down on energy use throughout campus. “We’ve been systematically going through each building to see if we can save energy,” Gilbert said.

This year alone, Gilbert said that the amount of energy saved by turning off lights in the Student Apartments, Science Hall and Music Center have saved the college about $8,000, which is equivalent to half a coal car.

“We’ve grown accustom to this thing that’s only been around about 120 years,” Gilbert said. “I don’t want to compromise safety, but I do want to challenge the assumption that [certain lights] are necessary because we’re used to them.”

Gilbert said he has seen the interest of students in energy conservation and sustainability rise significantly in the last few years. “I’ve never experienced the level of interest that I see now,” Gilbert said. “Students are wondering how they can get involved and help. It’s really gratifying.”

Photo by Christine Ludin.

Coming away from Bill McKibben’s lecture on Wednesday, I was struck by the gravity of the current global climate change problem.   Clearly, we have to do something to address this crisis, or we’ll cause irrevocable environmental harm to our world.

When we talk about responses to climate change, I think it’s easy to forget that – coming from relatively economically privileged communities – we can more easily make environmental changes in our lives than many around us. If we factored environmental costs of our lifestyles into our daily lives (as a cap on carbon emissions would force us to do), our cost of living would rise dramatically and many would lose their jobs. For many people already struggling during the current economic recession, the extra cost may be too much to bear.

While I like to point out how unsustainable big-box stores like Wal-Mart are, my uncle who lives near Bentonville, Arkansas likes to needle me, noting that many low income families survive because of the cheap prices at Wal-Mart. Likewise, while we advocate buying food at the local farmers market, many get by because they’re able to buy less expensive food at Kroger.

Moving away from unsustainable economies would put many people out of work. Right now we’re seeing the effects of double-digit unemployment in Elkhart County as RV companies shut down. What would happen if we permanently shut down this unsustainable industry?

When I worked with the S.W.A.P. program in West Virginia during the summer of 2007, I encountered many people who relied on the coal industry. They knew about the environmental costs.

One man named Casey talked about how coal was killing him (black lung disease) and killing the environment (polluted water ways/mountain top removal). I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t argue about the realities of climate change.

Still, Casey wanted coal companies to remain in McDowell County because it was his only source of income. What happens to people like Casey when we put a cap on carbon emissions?

I don’t say any of this to suggest that we don’t need to change. Clearly we do. But I want to make sure that we talk about change with empathy.

Ultimately, we’re in the economic position to make sacrifices because we’ve benefited from unsustainable growth. So while it is incredibly important that we mobilize to limit carbon emissions, we should spend equal time talking about the wealth distribution necessary to make change palatable for those who are less economically secure than we are.

Matt Harms is a senior history major from Ephrata, Pa.

Photo by Jordan Kauffman.

Last week, Bob Yoder talked about global climate change in convocation. He did an excellent job, but the situation is scarier than he said.

Ice core records going back 800,000 years show that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels stayed below 300 parts per million until the 1960’s. Today, they are at nearly 400 P.P.M. According to the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Earth’s temperature has risen by one degree Fahrenheit in the last century.

If greenhouse gas emissions were capped at year 2000 levels (numbers we have already exceeded), Earth’s temperature would increase an additional one degree Fahrenheit by 2100. More realistic projections predict a 4-7 F increase.

As Bob pointed out, the increase in natural disasters correlate with a 1 F increase. What will 7 F do?

Meanwhile, as emissions go up, forest area is projected to go down by almost 10%-20%.

Fortunately, there do appear to be scenarios where we can achieve climate stabilization with only a 4 -11 F global temperature increase. Unfortunately, this stabilization will take until 2300, if emissions are limited soon. This kind of temperature increase will have major global effects.

Climate change is an enormous issue. It is often easier to simply write the problem off as too big to deal with, and our personal impact as too small to matter.

As Bob pointed out, the United States releases more carbon dioxide than China, despite the fact that our population is only a quarter the size of China’s. Clearly, we – as Americans and as Goshen College students –can have a substantial impact.

This is an important issue on both individual and corporate levels. What we can do to reduce our energy use and environmental impact?

The question is not simply how we can generate power (or products) more cleanly, but how can we use less overall. We need to think about how to consume less and waste less personally, corporately, regionally, nationally and globally.

My understanding is that this is taking place on a campus with significant work to reduce campus energy consumption and a commitment to making future campus buildings L.E.E.D. certified.

It is important to remember, however, that this work at a campus level does not remove our responsibilities as individuals. If anything, it should remind us that we too must be intentional about our personal decisions and how they affect the world that we rely on.

Jesse Shaver is a senior computer science major from Seattle.

10. Do not bathe

9. Avoid drive-throughs (stock up on Combos for the times at 1 a.m. that you crave salty semi-food).

8. If you have a hobby of spraying bald eagles with aerosol cans and gasoline, consider quitting.

7. Buy some goofy looking biking shorts to show the world you mean business.

6. Maintain a diet where you eat all of the things that are bad for the planet.

6a. Breakfast: Dolphin-eating bass, with Froot Loops, which do not contain actual Froot.

6b. Lunch: Styrofoam burgers in a light petroleum sauce.

6c. Supper: Exxon executives.

5. Say no to forest fires. And ask those who say yes to forest fires to seriously reconsider their stance.

4. Adjust the hue setting on your TV to make everything look green.

3. Replace all normal lights with lights that use half the electricity: strobe lights. This will also help you thrown green parties, or “Naders,” as the kids today are calling them.

2. If you clone dinosaurs, be sure to make sure they are all the same sex and thus cannot breed, escape and terrorize the planet. That’s what I did and it worked out great. Wait a second … Nooooooooo …

Camry Hess (left) and Jeremy Good get their hands dirty at Merry Lea, Goshen College's environmentally friendly center. Photo contributed by Dale Hess.

Dale Hess
dhess@goshen.edu
Ryan Sensenig
rlsensenig@goshen.edu

Two recent Record articles explored Goshen College’s decision not to accept Heifer International’s donation of a nine-acre farm a few miles south of the college.

Tyler Falk, a senior, in his news article “Sustainable farm unsustainable for college budget,” describes the process the college went through before deciding to pass on the gift (Feb. 5 issue). Clayton Matthews, a sophomore, laments the loss of the opportunity to tend sheep and cows and grow healthy produce (Feb. 19 issue).

We are delighted with the student interest in issues of food and sustainability and affirm the desire among students to engage in “living out” these aspirations. The purpose of this article is to invite the “Claytons” out there to participate in similar opportunities currently available at Goshen College’s biological field station at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center.

Recent new staff hires have permitted the development of novel collegiate programs: e.g, the undergraduate Agroecology Summer Intensive and the graduate program in environmental education. Merry Lea, a natural sanctuary within an agricultural landscape, is a prime location for experiential learning in sustainable agriculture.

Each summer students from Goshen College and other colleges and universities move to Rieth Village for a nine-week period where they:

- study the guiding principles of agroecology

- celebrate the act of growing their own food

- interact with agroecology practitioners and professionals

- explore Merry Lea’s wetlands, woodlands and prairies

- earn 12 academic credits

Come join us in helping to create a small-scale, diversified farm with the vision of engaging both the local community and the college community. If you are unable to participate in the nine-week summer program, we are actively seeking May Term student interns who can live at Merry Lea to help in starting plants, preparing garden plots and planting gardens that will serve in Merry Lea’s summer and fall programs.

We invite you to diversify your experience by making Merry Lea part of your learning environment. There is so much to discover. And perhaps, eventually, even a few sheep and cows to tend!

For more information visit the Merry Lea Web site at http://www.goshen.edu/merrylea/

Dale Hess is a professor of agroecology
Ryan Sensenig is the environmental science program director and assistant professor of biology

McKibben will visit Goshen College on Mar. 11 to present his Yoder Public Affairs Lecture “The Most Important Number in the World: Building a Worldwide Movement to Fight Climate Change,” at 7 p.m. in Sauder Concert Hall.

Author of the bestselling book “Deep Economy” (Times Books, 2007), McKibben challenges the unlimited growth mentality of our economy.

According to McKibben, we should focus on local economies and ecological economics, or basically paying for the impact our purchases have on the environment. For example, a gallon of gas would cost $7-$8 per gallon if it took into consideration the damage that production and use have on the environment.

In 2007, McKibben founded the “Step it Up” organization to demand Congress to pass laws on carbon emissions, which would cut global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050. Altogether, the group has led about 2,000 demonstrations in all 50 states.

McKibben’s most recent effort is with the “350″ organization, which works to informs people that more than 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can cause irreversible damage to the earth.

On Monday, McKibben and the “350″ group, along with more than 90 other groups and organizations, went to Washington, D.C. to lead a mass civil disobedience protest of the coal-fired Capitol Power Plant as part of the Power Shift 2009 conference. More than 3,000 people from across the country (including Goshen) stood in front of the gates of the plant to shut down operations for the day. (To read more about the conference, read Jennifer Speight’s article.)

In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on Sunday, McKibben wrote: “The power plant is only a symbol, of course – a lunch counter or a bus station in the fight for environmental justice. We’ll sit down at its gates for a single afternoon, but the message is much larger. It’s time to start figuring out how to shut down every coal-fired plant on the planet. Success won’t come right away because we’re up against some of the world’s richest corporations, but we have to start turning this tanker around someday.”

McKibben is no beginner when it comes to speaking up about the environment and global climate change. His first book “The End of Nature” (Random House, 1989) is regarded as the first book written for a general audience about climate change.

McKibben is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College, which is regarded as a higher education leader in sustainability.

“Power shift! Power shift!” Cries of hope and fear filled the air on Monday as 3,000 college students, professors and environmentally conscious individuals rallied on the lawn of the Capitol, including nine Goshen College students and Paul Steury, education coordinator at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center.

This gathering topped off a weekend of environmental and social justice education that took place at the annual Power Shift conference. Sessions at the 2009 conference included “Civil Rights, Hip Hop, and the New Eco-Equity Movement,” “Global Warming for Dummies” and “Achieving Environmental Justice through Economic Justice.”

Keynote speakers included Rocky Anderson, executive director for the High Road for Human Rights and former Salt Lake City mayor; Van Jones, founder and president of Green For All and fellow of the Center for American Progress; and Majora Carter, founder of Sustainable South Bronx, hailed as New York City’s most influential environmentalist and named one of the “25 Most Influential African-Americans” by Essence magazine as well as one of Newsweek magazine’s “25 to watch.”

Some environmentalists estimate that in the next 50 years more than half of all life will be extinct. We have a responsibility as human beings to save our home. We get one planet, and we have to start undoing and slowing the damage we’ve done to it.

Power Shift 2009 taught us that the time is now. Everyone has heard about the importance of a sustainable future, but without acting now, we may not have a future to sustain.

One part of Power Shift 2009 was the rally on Capitol Hill. Students also visited the senators of their home state. ALL 50 STATES were represented. The goal was to put climate change legislation at the foremost part of their minds and to let them know that the youth care.

The conference was 12,000 people strong, but those 12,000 people are certainly not the only ones who care about the environment. I encourage you, implore you, to do something about climate change.

We don’t have time to meander and pass it off as minor. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

We here at Goshen College continue to ask questions of what it means to be global citizens who live in such an inefficient country.  What power (no pun intended) do we have here at Goshen College to reimagine our carbon footprints?

This weekend a few Goshen College students and Paul Steury (from Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center) are attending Power Shift 2009, a conference that seeks to repower and reclaim our future.

One noteworthy attendee is Bill McKibben, the co-founder of 350.org.  He had an op-ed in the Washington Post today that foreshadows how members of Power Shift 2009 (including the GC ambassadors) will protest outside Capitol Hill tomorrow.  The New York Times lead story this morning also quoted McKibben.

Goshen College is fortunate to host McKibben for a lecture on March 11.

In this week’s March 5 issue of the Record, look for stories reflecting on the Power Shift 2009 conference and previewing the McKibben lecture.

However, Goshen College recently turned down a nine-acre farm with a house and barn that would have been donated from Heifer International, an organization that works toward building sustainable communities.

“We were approached by Heifer International … to see if we would consider the possibilities of accepting a gift of land and a building just south of town … Heifer’s interests, I think, were to provide a gift to the local community, to an organization whose values matched up with theirs,” said Will Jones, vice president of for institutional advancement.

According to Ryan Sensenig, assistant professor of science, who worked with the committee of faculty to review the proposal, “A Heifer-type farm can model a variety of sustainable practices, including local and organic vegetable production, perma-culture and multi-species grazing on native tallgrass prairie systems,” Sensenig said.

“The excitement about a farm with a house raised the possibility of having students research and design key strategies to retrofit an existing house to make it less energy intensive and/or implement energy producing technologies that are more sustainable.”

The idea was presented during the summer at faculty retreat by Frank Johnson, Goshen College special assistant to the President. Then two committees – one of students and the other of faculty from different disciplines – came together to decide if the land would be beneficial to the college.

After months of research and discussion, the committees concluded that the farm would benefit the college. Both committees suggested that the college pursue the gift. “The committee was also enthusiastically supportive of a residential option for students that connects them to the land and the intentional care for the land,” Sensenig said.

The President’s Council made the final decision to pass on the gift. The President’s Council includes President Jim Brenneman; Bill Born, vice president for student affairs; Jim Histand, vice president for finance; Lynn Jackson, vice president for enrollment management; Will Jones, vice president for institutional advancement; and Anita Stalter, vice president for academic affairs.

“We went through a thought process here, really an intellectual exercise to see what the possibilities would be for us to use the facility,” Jones said. “It was a great interdisciplinary exercise for the college.”

Jones said that financial concerns played a large role in the decision not to make the proposal a reality. Jones noted “what’s happening globally in terms of the global recession and then also what the college budget situation is in terms of what the main [goals] are here.”

“We’re investing in our mission, investing in our teaching and learning opportunities for students,” said Jones. “That’s our primary concern, and it felt like this was something that wasn’t fully mature yet in terms of the idea.”

Jones said that even though the land was a gift, there would be substantial costs involved. “Sometimes there are gifts that keep on taking … and there would have been costs associated with the proposals. The costs of the modest project plus the maintenance and upkeep was more than the college was willing to bear given other strategic priorities.”

According to Histand, the financial cost would be too much in the current economy. “Potential gifts like that have some risk to the institution,” he said. “For example, the potential to draw off resources from other core institutional activities. And now is not the time to take those kinds of risks without some certainty as to economic viability.”

In addition, Jones said, “We could have gotten the land, but it would have been with strings attached. For certain kinds of projects and for the college there would have been costs associated with those projects. The cost to conduct them was more than the college was willing to invest given what the strategic priorities are of the institution.”

According to Jones, Heifer International was unwilling to give up the land unconditionally. “There were some strings as far as what some of the projects might be, and when we tried to come up with some of those projects on our end, nothing seemed to crystallize,” Jones said.

Despite the project not going through, Sensenig is hopeful about the future of sustainability at Goshen College. “While I am disappointed it did not work for GC to accept the Heifer farm. I am very optimistic about the ongoing conversation that has been generated about the importance of generating a program related to farming and sustainability,” Sensenig said.

“The energy, innovation and commitment among the committee members from multiple departments suggests the time is coming for an interdisciplinary approach to farming and sustainability,” Sensenig said. “I’d like to continue to find ways to mobilize this interest and work together to craft a farming program for GC, perhaps even on our own strawberry field [behind the Recreation-Fitness Center].”

Photo by Jordan Kauffman

My final days of last semester were spent hopping between computer labs. Like others, I had a paper upon which a large percentage of my grade rested. Aside from battling weird formatting that inevitably occurs and being devastated by the M-drive going down, there was concern over print balances.

I have often heard students asking friends and fellow paper-writers to print papers for them because their balances were spent. I oppose paying out of pocket for print money; we should be able to manage printing less.

We receive 25 dollars of print money each semester per student — not including faculty and administrators print jobs, students produce a quarter of a million pages each semester. I don’t know how that compares or really what to compare that to, but it is a lot of paper.

Fortunately, two-sided printing has caught on, thanks to helpful signs in the library. The next step is opting for two pages per side, or not printing certain things at all. Sometimes we are able to read texts from a computer. If this doesn’t hurt my eyes, it puts me to sleep, so I understand not wanting to read from a computer screen.

I am, however, committed to doing this more often. Professors can accept papers printed double-sided and if they are okay with this, encouraging it would make quite a difference. Emailing assignments cuts out hard copies altogether.

This perspective resulted from a discussion on where leftover print balance money goes. If I haven’t exhausted my print balance or haven’t donated it to needy friends, I’d love to allocate it for a specific cause. The opinion board in the Union has had some buzz about composting. It seems fitting to use leftover print money towards an environmentally friendly purpose.

With as much interest in composting as there appeared to be, it could be a very successful project, assuming that there were sufficient funds. We could also donate the odd dollars and cents of extra munch money to composting and recycling projects. Having somewhere to donate my leftover money would curb my urge to find 50 more pages of text to print just to get my money’s worth, and I wouldn’t care as much about spending my last pennies of munch money.

To affirm Ben Noll’s opinion board comment, Eastern Mennonite University has composting, and if we are not better than them we are at least as good as they are.

Lindsay Yoder is a senior nursing major from Perkasie, Pa.