Weather worries Abnormally warm temperatures a ‘fingerprint of climate change,’ experts say

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CLIMATE CHANGE, page 5

As for JMU’s contribution, JMU specifically isn’t to blame for climate change around the area, as it’s more of a global phenomenon. JMU has taken some action to lower its environmental footprint, including recycling and waste management, the University Recreation Center’s (UREC) environmental stewardship and sustainability for facilities management, according to JMU’s website. In 2022, The Princeton Review ranked JMU 27th out of 50 Green Colleges, meaning the university exemplified excellent sustainability practices, a solid foundation in sustainability education and a healthy quality of life for students on campus. JMU did not make the 2023 list.

Junior Obrine Tamon, treasurer of the Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG) — an on-campus nationwide foundation that works to obtain equality of opportunity for women in the geosciences — said he thinks climate change is affecting Harrisonburg and the Shenandoah Valley, specifically suggesting that in the future, climate change will have a much bigger impact.

“Climate change is very much impacting Harrisonburg,” Tamon said, “but since the population is mainly students, the community is much more aware of trying to reduce JMU’s carbon footprint — hence the buses, solar panels and windmill.”

Tamon said he believes that AWG can reach a large body of students to recognize climate change locally, regardless of their area of study, and talk about prevalent climate issues through its conferences and seminars for climate change and other aspects of the geosciences.

“I believe that AWG can get more people, possibly even beyond JMU’s campus, since AWG is a nationwide organization,” Tamon said. “We can work on bringing more publicity to the topic to make more people aware of how serious the issue at hand is.”

Sophomore Rebecca McCann is the treasurer of JMU’s Environmental Management Club (EMC), an organization on campus that actively advocates work on the big issues regarding climate change — specifically with its annual climate strike that aims to raise awareness and get the community to acknowledge that climate change is a prevalent problem.

According to an article published by The World Bank, the growing problem surrounding agriculture production is being exacerbated around the world by agriculture’s extreme vulnerability to climate change. McCann said this can be seen firsthand in Harrisonburg and surrounding communities.

“With [these] communities being incredibly agricultural based, I’m sure they’re worried and trying to mitigate uncertainty of the season, especially with how crazy the temperatures have been,” McCann said. “I see crop production fluctuating over the next few years depending on the temperatures.”

McCann said she believes the community can work toward lessening the effects of climate change by voting for representatives who can help create legislation to address climate change, as well as individually making small personal changes and steps that help the environment as a whole, such as recycling, reducing waste, carpooling or using public transportation, using reusable items instead of single-use plastics and reusing and repurposing items that would otherwise end up in the trash.

“Even our [EMC] merchandise this year we did tote bags that were sustainably made and we got our design locally in Harrisonburg,” said McCann. “We try our best for Mother Earth.”

CONTACT Gretchen Nagle at naglegm@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.