Zanna Anderson
Business Manager
On Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. in Allen Commons, the Office of Sustainability hosted an event called “Climate Change Around the World,” where 11 Wooster students presented on how climate change affected the locations where they studied abroad.
Basil Keck ’28 and Charlotte Helm ’27 went on a Wooster TREK this past summer to Fiji and Tuvalu, two Pacific islands where climate change impacts are seen across the entire region. They explained that conventional engineering attempts – such as wire rock netting, concrete blocks and seawalls – have repeatedly failed to halt severe coastal erosion, which is encroaching on the land. Locals are experimenting with sandbag extensions using lagoon sand, though questions remain regarding potential trade-offs (e.g., altering ocean currents and exacerbating erosion elsewhere). They also highlighted Tuvalu’s endemic culture, song and dance which are threatened by climate induced displacement.
Next, Gabriele Sam ’27 covered the June 29, 2026 Accra floods in Ghana. About one million individuals of Accra’s 2.65 million population were affected by this intense flooding. 670 were injured, 39 declared dead and 58,000 have been displaced. The damage itself also totaled up to about 4.7 billion Ghanaian cedis. Sam stated that while there is a historical precedent for flooding in the Accra region, this flood was one of the worst in history. In response to the disaster, the Ghanaian government allocated some funds for relief efforts and spoke of creating a flood plan. Sam argued that the June floods are unjust as Ghana produces 0.1% of global atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but suffers greatly from strengthened weather events. She describes this phenomenon as Ghana “living downstream” from the major polluters of the world.
Sinclaire Gibson ’27 was the third presenter of the night, focusing on the adapted urban infrastructure in Copenhagen, Denmark. Specifically, Gibson looked at the public amenities meant to help deal with cloudburst events. Gibson describes cloudburst events as instances of very heavy rain that can result in the overflow of drainage systems. One example of this infrastructure is building public spaces in a basin, where water can collect and eventually travel to the drains during cloudburst events.
Rachel Frank ’27 continued the presentations with a talk about their work in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Frank and her team were looking at the effects of tourism on the environment through microplastics, sunscreen residue and antibiotic resistant bacteria in the local aquifers. These elements are particularly harmful to local communities as they are the ones consuming the water and the peninsula’s land is unable to naturally filter the contaminants out of the water.
The fifth speaker was Nathan Ware ’28 who studied abroad in Osaka, Japan. Ware talked about how Japanese culture is very closely tied to the seasons, the most prominent example of this being the seasonal flavors of snacks. Perhaps one of the largest celebrations of this seasonality is the cherry blossom festival each spring. Unfortunately, due to record high average temperatures in Japan, the cherry blossoms cannot concentrate their color as well, leading to whiter blossoms. Around the world, the spring season is also decreasing in duration and according to Ware, Japan’s spring has decreased by 22 days. This leads to cherry blossoms blooming earlier in the year and staying around for a shorter period of time.
The next speakers were Anika Knowles ’27 and Cheyenne Wentz ’27 who reported on their experience studying abroad in Argentina and trip to Antarctica. Wentz took censuses of the fire bush and noticed that as temperatures and sunlight in Argentina increase, the flowers wilt and die. Knowles studied rock glaciers in the Southern Andes and noticed that many glaciers in the region are shrinking. Specifically, the traditional glacier that supplies the local community with fresh water is contracting by 0.31 meters per year. Krill, a keystone species, is also threatened by this, since baby krill live on the bottom of glaciers. Without krill, the entire food chain of the surrounding ocean and land will collapse.
Yajas Kandel ’27 was the seventh speaker, focusing on glacial lake outburst floods in the Himalayas, particularly in Nepal. Similar to Ghana, Nepal contributes very little to global emissions but is experiencing massive consequences. Unfortunately, climate change has triggered an increase in the severity of glacial lake outburst floods, which Kandel compared to “land tsunamis” due to their intensity and destructive nature. These floods occur when glaciers on top of mountains melt and the water is collected in a lake until eventually the lake overflows and sends water down the side of the mountain into the river valleys. One of the biggest floods/rock slides ever was on August 26 on the China/Tibet and Nepal border. The disaster has left 1,450+ confirmed dead, 6,200+ missing, $5 billion in estimated damage and 11 destroyed hydroelectric plants.
The eighth speaker was Adriana Brown ’27 who studied abroad in Glasgow, Scotland. She reported on a city-wide recycling program with five different sorting options and an in-home composting program. There are also UK-wide Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) that each building must have which denotes energy efficiency. Scotland also has a political party dedicated to climate change which holds a not insignificant portion of seats in parliament.
The final speaker of the night was Amelia Crowley ’27 who spoke about both her experience in Thailand for study abroad and Brazil for COP 30. In Thailand, Crowley’s program had a block focused on the ocean, in which she saw how local communities were enacting climate change relief efforts without government regulation requiring the action.
In Brazil for COP 30, Crowley spent time in negotiation halls to observe the diplomatic process of UN climate agreements. There was also reportedly an inflatable dinosaur skeleton that presented an award to one country per day for being the best at being the worst in climate talks.
The floor was then opened for a lively Q&A session which was punctuated by a call to action from Brian Webb, director of campus sustainability. Despite the depression of the subject matter, Webb encouraged students to begin taking action on their own to combat climate change such as joining EcoReps, taking a climate studies class and voting. He stated, “The only way we can get 8 billion people to work together is to get the people in this room to take action.”
The reception of the event appeared to be positive as explained by student attendee, Bruna Jatobá ’27, “I thought that [the event] was really cool and some of the messages were really impactful and very, I would say, almost emotional as well, with Nepal especially … I think it’s just very important for us to know about these things.”