Climate Change
November 21, 2024
Appreciating GC’s sports communicators
Two driving forces behind all sixteen of Goshen College’s sports teams are Tony Miller, statistician, and Justin DeWeese, assistant athletic director of communications and operations DeWeese explained that his role has two parts, with the communications part entailing “writing up the game previews and reviews for the college athletics website, goleafs.net.” The operations part of his job entails ensuring that everything on game days runs smoothly for all of the teams when they play at home, including “setting up and tearing down and getting all of the workers together,” DeWeese said. Miller explained that he is “the person responsible for...
February 11, 2022
GC part of Anabaptist conversation on climate change
Goshen College President Rebecca Stoltzfus was one of over 40 leaders from Anabaptist organizations in the United States and Canada to convene at the Anabaptist Collaboration on climate change on Jan. 26 and 27. Stoltzfus and three other representatives from GC traveled to Akron, Pennsylvania to represent the college at the 24-hour event organized by the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions (CSCS). “The leading goal of the gathering was to explore an Anabaptist approach to climate issues,” Stoltzfus explained in a blog post after the event. Jonathon Schramm, professor of sustainability and environmental education at GC and member of the...
November 11, 2021
Carbon neutral by 2050: Is Goshen College on track?
This month at the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, countries around the planet are being called to redouble their efforts to bring greenhouse gas emissions to zero by the middle of the century. Reaching that mark is critical for keeping global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoiding increasingly severe environmental catastrophes. Goshen College committed to the goal of zero emissions by 2050 in 2007, when the president at the time, James Brenneman, signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment. Is the college on track for reaching that goal? The Sustainable Tracking,...
November 4, 2021
Climate Ambassadors push for sustainability at GC
The Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions (CSCS) recently announced this year’s Campus Climate Ambassadors. At Goshen College, they are Adhika Ezra and Liam Elias. CSCS is an organization formed in partnership between Goshen College, Eastern Mennonite University and Mennonite Central Committee that is working to lead Anabaptists to respond to climate change. Their motto is “climate action equals peacemaking.” One of CSCS’ main initiatives is supporting a network of climate advocates at Mennonite colleges and universities in the US and Canada. “Ambassadors promote climate conversations, organize climate-based campus events and help foster connections between environmental groups across Mennonite college campuses,”...
April 16, 2021
Climate Action Check-In: How is Goshen Doing?
Rising average temperatures. Longer warm season. Increased precipitation. These are just some of the climate changes that Indiana has been experiencing since 1895. The way things are projected to go, these and several other issues are expected to only grow in intensity and cause more problems in the future. So what can a small northern Indiana city do about it? It turns out quite a lot. In early 2019, a resolution was passed by Goshen Mayor Jeremy Stutsman and the Common Council. This resolution, called Resolution 2019-19, stated the intent to “create and implement a Climate Action Plan by 2021.”...
April 9, 2021
A cross-country bike ride for the climate
A group of 17 people were recently selected to participate in the climate ride hosted by the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions (CSCS). Goshen College students Denver Beck, Sierra Richer and Greta Klassen were among those selected. The group is set to bike nearly 4,000 miles, from Seattle to Washington D.C. starting May 31. “I was very excited when I got the acceptance email,” Richer said. Beck added that it is “sort of surreal to realize this is actually happening.” Applications began last November with a notice in the GC communicator. Once friends started talking about it, Beck, Richer, and...
September 24, 2020
GC students take lead in Sunrise Movement
With local and national elections starting a month from now, Goshen College student advocates for the Sunrise Movement are making sure their wishes are being met. The Sunrise Movement is a national coalition of youth who are passionate about ending climate change and electing officials who are supporting environmental policy. Their most notable endorsement of Bernie Sanders came during the presidential primaries earlier this year. With over 400 hubs located across the U.S., the Sunrise Movement has expanded its participation, including a chapter founded in Goshen in November 2019. Khampha Stempel, senior; Ariana Perez Diener, senior; Alexa Kennel, junior; and...
January 31, 2020
New climate tool highlights varied effects of global warming
Climate change is affecting Goshen College programs around the world in very different ways, a climate tool published in a New York Times article confirms. In Goshen, the number of days in a year at or above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) has hardly changed, hovering around 11 since 1960, but that number has increased profoundly in warmer study abroad locations, the tool shows. By the end of the century, projected warming is more striking still, even in best-case scenarios. In Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, where 17 Goshen College students are currently living with host families on SST, the...
November 6, 2019
Climate change is scary: what now?
Eleven years. That’s how long the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gave humanity to curb global emissions by 45 percent and avoid the most dire impacts of climate change. Since the timeline was outlined in the IPCC’s Special Report last October, things look grim. The Trump administration has continued to roll back emissions regulations, thousands of acres burned in California and projections for sea-level rise are much worse than scientists thought. The combination of urgency and inaction is daunting, particularly for young people who face an uncertain future. A growing body of research explores the intersections of climate change and...
October 9, 2019
With frost comes the end of allergies
As cool weather settles in, allergy sufferers anticipate relief. “I’m waiting for the frost,” said Kay Miller, an elementary school teacher from Goshen. Miller has struggled with severe allergies for years. Laryngitis, sinus pressure, chest cough, puffy eyes. “It’s pretty bad,” she said. Miller looks forward to fall weather for a return to normal. “Once the frost hits I have no trouble,” she said. But relief will be less reliable in the future. Climate change is altering the length and intensity of allergy season, experts say. A 2010 report from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA), “Extreme Allergies...
September 25, 2019
Students travel to South Bend for climate strike
Across 150 different countries, more than 4,600 protests took place and millions participated in strikes on Friday Sept. 20. This was all in order to demand urgent action from politicians and big businesses regarding climate change. A group of 12 students from Goshen College participated Friday morning in South Bend. Some skipped class to attend. The protest was organized by the South Bend chapter of the Sunrise Movement, a national group of young people organizing to stop climate change. Featured were speakers from many different walks of life, and participants across multiple generations were present. Ben Zimmerman, sophomore sustainability management...
September 21, 2019
Summit evaluates democracy, climate
“Good morning, and welcome to the climate crisis.” Jim Poyser, executive director of Earth Charter Indiana (ECI), kicked off the fourth annual Indiana Climate Leadership Summit last Thursday with these words as he addressed those in attendance in College Mennonite Church (CMC) on Goshen College’s campus. This marked the first time that the event was hosted outside of Indianapolis. Poyser went on to comment on the makeup of the audience, noting his excitement about the nearly 40 high school students present. Phil Waite, CMC pastor, Goshen Mayor Jeremy Stutsman, and Goshen College President Rebecca Stoltzfus, followed Poyser in welcoming the...
September 12, 2019
Goshen takes new steps as temperature climbs
Latest reports show the death toll in the Bahamas has risen to 50 after Hurricane Dorian left the islands seeking lifesaving assistance this past week. The storm comes at a time when natural disasters around the globe are growing in intensity, a trend that many scientists believe is caused by rising surface and ocean temperatures. An article released by The Washington Post last month explored data from peer-reviewed scientific studies kept by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to look at the effects of these rising temperatures around the United States. The studies examined showed that on average,...
March 15, 2018
Speaker challenges campus resource use
Students were called to action against coal-fired power plants on March 6. Ashley Williams, who is an Indiana organizer with Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, came to campus this week to give a workshop about coal-fired power plants in the area and what their effects are locally and globally. She became involved in the campaign after learning about fracking mining that was going to take place in her hometown, Ottawa, Illinois. After doing more researched about this environmental issue, she found ways to get involved. She started petitions, went to local county meetings, talked with the governor of Illinois, organized...
April 13, 2017
People’s Climate March comes to D.C.
The record-setting marches of 2017 in the United States will continue on April 29, this time with the People’s Climate March, hosted by the People’s Climate Movement. The main march will be taking place in Washington D.C., but supporting marches will be happening all over the country at the same time. This march takes place on day 100 of President Donald Trump’s term in office. The official event page states: “On the 100th Day of the Trump Administration, we will be in the streets of Washington D.C. to show the world and our leaders that we will resist attacks on...