50 years after the tornado: Don and Pat Dunstan’s Xenia survival story
By Alan Brads
Today Don and Pat Dunstan can’t agree on the morning weather of April 3, 1974. What happened that evening 50 years ago obscures it from memory.
“It was a beautiful, beautiful morning, just gorgeous,” Don said, as chipper and optimistic as he always is. “That morning I walked down to the shoe store, and it looked like a picture-perfect day.”
“Well,” Pat interjected, “but it was so windy that day.”
Her annotation should not be taken as pessimism ...
50 years after the tornado: Sara and Marty Larson Relive the Day Xenia Changed Forever
By Alan Brads
Sara and Marty Larson, then strangers, now spouses, lived through April 3, 1974, in Xenia, and 50 years later they see how that day shaped the city.
At 4:30 p.m. 50 years ago, 11-year-old Sara Blackburn prepared to leave her home in the Arrowhead neighborhood of west Xenia. She didn’t know the massive implications of living in west Xenia, because she didn’t know a cataclysmic F5 tornado would come swooping down in the next 10 minutes. In fact, she didn’t even know ...
Don’t let solar cloud your judgment
By Chloe Smith
Introduction
“Solar power will be the single largest source of electricity generation by the midpoint of the century.’’ -Elon Musk, 2014
Rows and rows of shiny panels line the country field, soaking in rays and converting it to energy. Many politicians and environmentalists praise the idea of solar panels being the leading source of energy for the world. But are solar panels as effective as they say? How do they work? And what are the risks?
Worldwide statis...
What Is Greenwashing?
“Environmentally friendly.ʼʼ “Sustainable.ʼʼ “Eco-friendly.ʼʼ “Green.ʼʼ
By Chloe Smith
These buzzwords surround many products today that claim the consumer can do their part to save the planet. But are these products preventing global warming? Or are these claims greenwashing ploys?
What is greenwashing? Biologist Jay Westervelt coined the term in a 1986 essay about hotels urging guests to reuse towels to save water. The term referred to companies spending more ...
Turbine talk: The facts about wind energy
By Chloe Smith
Wind has been a tool of humankind for centuries. As far back as 200 BC, Persian, Chinese and Middle Eastern people used windmills for irrigation, wood cutting and grinding grain.
Throughout the ages of civilization, the windmill evolved, and the first wind turbines began to convert kinetic energy from wind to electricity in 1888.
Now, they join the ranks of sustainable energy sources marketed by politicians and activists and make up 7.2% of power in the United States...
Don’t overreact: Be informed about nuclear energy
By Chloe Smith
When people hear the word nuclear, they probably imagine a rising mushroom-shaped cloud, followed by fire, fury and death. Or they think of Chernobyl, one of the most well-known nuclear meltdowns in history.
But what many people donʼt know is that energy can be harvested from nuclear power and is an alternate source for fossil fuels.
Are the dangers as pressing as many assume? Or should nuclear be used more often for our energy needs?
Atoms make up everything in ...
IJM campus president’s heart for trafficking victims comes from seeing it in Asia
Photo and story by Michael Cleverley
During the summer of 2022, Abbie Bowman returned to South Asia where she grew up. She visited red-light districts, an area where high amounts of human trafficking take place, and spoke to the women and children forced into prostitution there.
“That is when I started praying about what that looked like for me to be involved in human trafficking, what I could do to stop it,” Bowman said.
Bowman saw the effects of human trafficking on the streets. ...
Campus International Justice Mission officers work to advocate for trafficking victims
By Michael Cleverley
Luke Roche, a senior International Studies major, wanted to fight human trafficking even before he came to Cedarville University. But he didn’t know how.
Roche knew a student org existed that fought against human trafficking, but he didn’t know the org was a student chapter of the International Justice Mission (IJM). And he didn’t learn that IJM was on campus until the end of his freshman year.
“One of my friends in my major was like, ‘There's an org on ...
International Justice Mission student chapter seeks to raise awareness about trafficking
Story and photos by Michael Cleverley
Solar panels play a big role in creating green energy and cutting down the carbon footprint, but an obscure human cost often goes unnoticed. The Uyghurs (wee-ger) are an ethnic minority group that are a target of human rights violations in China. China uses Uyghur labor to produce a variety of products, including solar panels.
The Chinese government uses reeducation camps to indoctrinate Uyghurs with government ideology. Reports released tell of ...
