Here Comes the Sun by Bill McKibben
I was just back from my Peace Corps service in Zaire when famed climate scientist Dr. James Hansen marched up to Capitol Hill in 1988 and told Congress—for the first time—that global warming was real. Fossil fuel combustion worldwide was overloading the atmosphere with carbon, he said, and overheating the planet. A year later, author Bill McKibben published his lyrical masterpiece The End of Nature, which grappled with the economic, social, and spiritual implications of a future where natural planetary rhythms give way to rampant wildfires, incessant sea-level rise, and heat waves that trap people, plants, and animals in their...
The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue
Reading The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue feels like strolling through your hometown with an affable neighbor, one filled with a deep respect for the natural world and a pragmatic concern for its demise. On one level, Mike Tidwell recounts just a single year, 2023, in a Washington, D.C., suburb whose residents cope with the local effects of global climate change: the tombstone stumps of new-fallen trees, the sudden gaps in rich canopy across which the wind now blows “like human breath over the tops of empty bottles,” the flooding school basement, and the sidewalk berm installed as a countermeasure...
Climate Change Solutions
Patrick Gonzalez takes on responsibilities tackling climate and biodiversity with the White House. Photography by Al Golub By Steven Boyd Saum “Contributing science for solutions to global problems is one of the most important contributions that we can make as scientists,” Patrick Gonzalez (Senegal 1988–90) declared earlier this year at the Ecological Society of America’s annual conference. Now he has the opportunity to walk the talk in a new way: He has been appointed assistant director for climate and biodiversity by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). A forest ecologist and climate change scientist, he has brought...
Announcing the Winner of the 2021 Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service: Sherry Manning, Founder of Global Seed Savers
Global Seed Savers has trained more than 5,000 Filipino farmers in seed saving, established three seed libraries, and is building a movement across the country to restore the traditional practice of saving seed and building seed sovereignty. By NPCA Staff National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2021 Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service: Sherry Manning. The Shriver Award is presented annually by NPCA to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who continue to make a sustained and distinguished contribution to humanitarian causes at home or abroad, or who are innovative social entrepreneurs who bring about significant long-term change. The award is...
Unleashing Climate Innovation
Audrey Zibelman takes on responsibilities as vice president at X, the Moonshot Factory, leading work to decarbonize the electrical grid. By NPCA Staff This year Audrey Zibelman (Chad 1977–79) took up a new post as vice president at X, the Moonshot Factory, where she works to develop tools and capabilities to decarbonize the electrical system. In April, as the Biden administration convened the Leaders Summit on Climate, Zibelman was invited to present steps that can be taken to counter the detrimental impacts of the climate crisis. During the summit, Zibelman announced that the U.S. and the U.K. would be joining the...
Intrepid Birkie 40 Volunteers Ski to Raise Funds to Address Climate Change
One Volunteer skis his 40th marathon. And a team raises $35,000 to draw attention to and provide support for organizations tackling critical issues in society. Release Earth Month is here, and in the northern hemisphere winter has mostly departed. And if Birkie 40 volunteers have their way, winters will remain cold and snowy for years to come — at least where they’re supposed to. The leader of the Birkie 40 crew is Paul Thompson, a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Malaysian Borneo 1971–73. In 2021, Thompson skied his 40th Birkebeiner Ski Marathon. And this year it was a “Virtual Birkie” on the...
Skiing for Climate Solutions
Paul Thompson continues his 40-year streak of cross-country ski marathons to help promote awareness and raise funds for combating climate change. Release Some Peace Corps Volunteers’ ideas of changing the world end after service, but Minnesotan Paul Thompson left Malaysian Borneo in 1973 with a lifelong mission to save the planet. In late February, Thompson, 72, will join the Birkebeiner cross-country ski race for the 40th time, in hopes of raising $40,000 to combat climate change and help unify the country. He has already raised $11,000 towards his total goal. The funds will be split between four nonprofit groups: three...
Announcing the Winner of the 2020 Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service: Matthew Paneitz
For nearly two decades he has partnered with Guatemalans to address injustices against indigenous peoples. By NPCA Staff Photo of Matthew Paneitz courtesy Long Way Home National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2020 Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service: Matthew Paneitz. The Shriver Award is presented annually by NPCA to Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who continue to make a sustained and distinguished contribution to humanitarian causes at home or abroad, or who are innovative social entrepreneurs who bring about significant long-term change. The award is named in honor of the first Peace Corps Director, Sargent Shriver, who founded and developed Peace Corps....
NPCA Town Hall Meeting on Social Action & Climate Change
We are living in unprecedented times, facing crises of immense scale. Join us June 15 for an important conversation. As a Peace Corps community, we saw all Volunteers evacuated from around the world in March. We’re living amidst a global pandemic — with more than 100,000 Americans dead, tens of millions unemployed. And we’ve seen — once again — the death of unarmed Black men and women at the hands of police, a brutal reminder of a legacy of racial injustice, that has led to protests in towns and cities across the nation and around the world. Amid all of this,...
Islands in Peril
Climate change and Pacific nations heroically trying to save themselves By Mike Tidwell Dying trees, sandbagged shore. Photo for Humans of Kiribati by Raimo Kataotao At the United Nations building in New York, the national flag of every country on earth hangs from a pole outside. Whenever a new country is born — South Sudan being the latest in 2011 — a new pole is set up and a new flag raised. But what happens when a country dies? What happens, for example, if unchecked global warming wipes entire Pacific island nations off the map in the coming years? Will we have...