Author and filmmaker Mike Tidwell to speak on climate change Sept 29-30
Yoder Public Affairs Lecture: Mike Tidwell, founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Date and time: Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 10 a.m.
Location: Goshen College Church-Chapel
Cost: Free and open to the public
Mike Tidwell, author and filmmaker who predicted in vivid detail the Hurricane Katrina disaster in his 2003 book “Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast,” will present the 2015 Yoder Public Affairs lecture at Goshen College, titled “Will Indiana Overheat or Become a Clean Energy Paradise?” on Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Goshen College Church-Chapel.
On Wednesday, Sept. 30, Tidwell will deliver a speech titled “Global Warming: How Young People Can Change an Old Debate” during a convocation at 10 a.m. in the Goshen College Church-Chapel. Both events are free and open to the public.
As the 2015 Yoder Public Affairs Lecturer at Goshen College, Tidwell will speak about his current work in climate change with public lectures and various meetings and classes with students. He will also meet with all first-year students to share about his 1990 book “Ponds of Kalambayi: A Peace Corps Memoir,” one of the texts for the Identity, Culture and Community class that all first-year students take at Goshen College.
Tidwell is founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
An author and filmmaker, his 2003 book “Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast” predicted in vivid detail the Katrina hurricane disaster. His most recent book, focusing on Katrina and global warming, is titled “The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Race to Save America’s Coastal Cities.” His 2004 documentary film, “We Are All Smith Islanders,” vividly depicts the dangers of global warming in Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C.
Tidwell has been featured in many national media outlets including NBC’s Meet the Press, NPR, the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, Politico and the Washington Post. In 2003, Tidwell received the Audubon Naturalist Society’s prestigious Conservation Award. Two years later he received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
The Frank and Betty Jo Yoder Public Affairs Lecture Series is an endowed lectureship that was created for Goshen College in 1978 by Frank (1917-1996) and Betty Jo Yoder of Goshen. The goal of the series is to enable faculty, students and community to hear well-known speakers address current issues.