ELCA delegation to Nicaragua: Poverty & Climate Change
Mark Goetz to speak during our youth group hour May 31st 6:00 pm. Below is a quick bit from Mark:
In January of this year I went to Nicaragua with a small ELCA delegation “to gain an in-depth understanding of how the issues of extreme poverty, hunger and climate change are interrelated”. Actually, that’s quite a lot to accomplish in the ten days that we were there. However, it is readily apparent that climatic changes are having major impacts in Nicaragua. Hurricanes are more frequent and more severe. Seasonal rainfall patterns have been altered, directly affecting growing seasons and flooding and indirectly affecting incidents of disease and clean water supplies. The poor are disproportionably affected because they have less capability to adapt to the changes.
So what did the Nicaraguans that we met want us to do? Mostly, they just asked that we tell their story back in the United States. The story is complex. National and international politics, local economies, globalization and land distribution and more are all confounded with the effects of climate change. So I’ll provide a framework to understand what is happening — there will be time for questions. And I’ll tell their story.
I’m Mark Goetz. Some may remember me. My professional training is in animal agriculture and rangeland ecology. For seven of my years in exile from Montana, I was the superintendent of the Beef Cattle and Sheep Nutrition Unit of South Dakota State University where I conducted both feedlot and grazing animal trials. In the mid 1980’s, a development project with the old ALC, took me (and my wife and our 2 small boys) to the Central African Republic for several years where I worked with the Fulani tribe of nomadic cattle herders.
More about the delegation here:
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