Bill McKibben, 350.org, and Goshen College

Bill McKibben is coming to town to preach, evangelize, communicate, motivate, inspire the Goshen College community to act upon our impact on our Earth. Bill is booked for two years traveling constantly to talk about the most important number in the world and that is.... 350.

350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is the utopian number derived by James Hansen at NASA Goddard Space Institute. Currently our numbers are at approximately 387 ppm and what that means is our thermal blanket is getting thicker which just means like putting a down comforter on the bed in late spring, we are adding more "down" to the CO2 levels which could make people sing "It's Getting Hot in Here!" Bill's talk will activate us to think about our impacts and how we as global citizens can lower our numbers as well as our college's and our cities and our churches and our ....

March 11 7:00 pm
Sauder Music Hall, Goshen College, Goshen, IN
Free of Charge

But a question that arises by Bill's visit is "does the impact of education supercede our person CO2 creation while transporting ourselves to our audience?"

Media is my friend

Here's an Environmental Wellness youtube play list that anyone can create easily, there is so much edu-taining information out there, and they are short snippets that hopefully create that spark that Anatole Franks talks about!

"Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire."

Anatole France

Sustainable Business

According to Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface Carpets, and I agree with him, businesses can have the biggest impacts on this earth, both negatively and positively. So if you are wondering how Sustainable Business fits into Nature and Issues, think about reduction of emissions, lessening extraction, raising quality, and becoming less reliant on Chinese manufacturers and become more localized. If you can come to the Southwest Michigan Sustainable Business Forum to strategize how be better stewards in our economic, environmental, and societal realms!

Being Good does not always receive praise

Why does anyone associated with doing good for the earth or being a community organizer for the less fortunate have to be thought of as a socialist? And why does the term socialist have to be thought of as a negative in the first place when capitalism's greed has been more of downfall to society, the environment, and the majority?

Nature and Issues

I'm a guy who grew up on a pig farm, became a camp brat, received an undergraduate degree in sociology, became a vagabond and saw the world, and finally lived in LA which drove me to investigating the limits of our impact, escaping the commuting lifestyle, driving daily into the "valley" and the disturbing smog hindering me from seeing the mountains, and provoking me to become a environmental educator. Besides that, I'm a father of two wild and crazy boys and I want them to be able to hike amongst redwoods, catch salmon in Lake Michigan and swim at Coney Island and I want them, and everyone else in this world, to become a citizen "that is knowledgeable concerning the biophysical environment and its associated problems, aware of how to help solve these problems, and motivated to work toward their solution." (http://eelink.net/pages/Perspectives-+Foundations+of+EE)