By Nora Pillard Reynolds (Globalsl & Haverford College), Iain J. Hunt (Villanova University), and William Muñoz (Madre Tierra Foundation) Nora Pillard Reynolds: At the most recent Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace gathering in June 2019, I finally met Juan David Reina-Rozo, the editor I’d worked with to publish this article. Juan David described to me his vision for creating the first Spanish issue of the International Journal of Engineering, Social Justice, and Peace (2019): “we did not translate an English issue to Spanish. The issue is in Spanish.” I was thrilled to share with him my excitement about the issue. Although I am bilingual and I’ve co-written pieces with Spanish-speaking colleagues, they’ve always ended up published in English. This was an opportunity to actually publish our work in Spanish.  What I did not initially realize is how that would work to shift the interaction with my colleagues in our writing process. Iain, William, and I have worked together in various capacities…

By Richard Slimbach Be sure to read earlier entries in this series: Part 1 and Part 2. Mitigate the damage International travelers most sensitive to the threat from aviation to the long-term prospects of the biosphere and the bottom two billion have begun, albeit in very small numbers, to “offset” their emissions. Starting in 2027, 65 nations have agreed for all their international flights to offset emissions beyond 2020 levels—either directly or by purchasing credits. Carbon offset schemes aim at reduce greenhouse gas emissions by compensating for or neutralizing the emissions made. Carbon offset providers are paid money (typically $10 or $11 per metric ton), which then pays for someone to plant trees, help build a wind farm, or subsidize clean cookstoves for people in the developing world. All these things help mitigate damage caused by flying. Fifteen years ago, after gaining awareness of the harmful impacts of study abroad travel on the climate, the global studies faculty at Azusa…

By Richard Slimbach First, read Part 1 here.  Quantify impacts There are 7.5 billion people on our planet. I, along with most of us reading this, belong to the top billion. Economic and cultural power carries with it the responsibility to use it well. A seemingly trivial but necessary first step is to calculate the greenhouse gases that we’re actually responsible for. All of our personal consumption—for housing, food, transportation, clothes, electronics, and so on—carries a carbon “load” and leaves a carbon “footprint.” To the extent that our consumption of goods and services rely on CO2-producing production processes, it is a main constituent in both total global emissions and climate change. Our carbon footprint can be easily computed using any one of the many free online calculators (e.g. Carbon Footprint Calculator). Somewhat surprisingly, few people are actually aware of the environmental impact of their lifestyle choices. I certainly had no idea how my travel decisions contributed to global warming until…